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August 11, 2006
TORONTO STAR: Canada could prevent weaponization of space
ICIS: http://www.peaceinspace.com
THE TORONTO STAR APRIL 30, 2002
http://www.thestar.com
Canada could prevent weaponization of space
No other country is in a better position to initiate international action
By James George, Dr. Carol Rosin and Alfred Webre
ON JUNE 13, 2002, the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty will expire following its unilateral termination by the Bush administration, leaving an international legal void that will allow the weaponization of space.
The termination of the ABM Treaty will permit research, development, testing, manufacturing, production and deployment of space-based weapons, and space-based components of the U.S. National Missile Defense System to go forward, instigating a dangerous, costly, and destabilizing arms race in space, impacting all of us.
Russian Minister of Defence Sergei Ivanov has already suggested that if the U.S. proceeds, Russia could deploy its own response to the U.S. space-based weapons system. The stated objectives of the United States Space Command in "Vision For 2020" are to seize the strategic high ground of space to "dominate and control."
There is a rapidly growing worldwide movement to stop this potentially catastrophic arms race in space. This must be stopped before it begins â" this year.
As seen from space, Canada lies between Russia and the United States, and, geography aside, no country is in a better position to initiate international action. Since 1982, Canada has led the growing United Nations lobby opposing weapons in space.
Deputy Prime Minister John Manley stated on July 26, 2001: "Canada would be very happy to launch an initiative to see an international convention preventing the weaponization of space." With the strong support of U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, the U.N. General Assembly last Nov. 29 voted 156-0 to prevent an
arms race in space. Almost everyone wants it.
On Sept. 28, 2001, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov had invited "the world community to start working out a comprehensive agreement on the non-deployment of weapons in outer space." At the U.N. Conference on Disarmament in June last year, China had taken a similar position.
But neither Russia nor China will initiate binding action while the United States is unbound. If Canada does not act now, who will? If we do, we will generate far more support and respect than we gathered over our land mines initiative. We could turn the tide that will lift all ships and preserve space as a weapons-free commons.
In the United States, polls confirm that this result is what the great majority of Americans want. When there is almost unanimous international pressure, as well as very strong domestic support, the United States will change course.
In the next few days, every head of government will be receiving, from the Institute for Cooperation in Space, a Space Preservation Treaty, which is the international companion to the legislation introduced as H.R. 3616, the Space Preservation Act of 2002, in the United States House of Representatives on Jan. 23.
The act requires the U.S. to implement an international treaty that will ban all space-based weapons and the use of weapons to destroy or damage objects in space that are in orbit to preserve the co-operative, peaceful uses of space for the benefit of all humankind.
The Space Preservation Treaty is an effective and verifiable world agreement that also will:
-Implement a ban on space-based weapons.
-Implement a ban on the use of weapons to destroy or
damage objects in space that are in orbit.
-Immediately order the permanent termination of
research and development, testing, manufacturing, production and
deployment of all space-based weapons.
The treaty allows for space exploration, research, development, testing, manufacturing, production and deployment of civil, commercial and defence activities in space that are not related to space-based weapons. Under the terms of the treaty, each nation having signed the treaty shall immediately work toward supporting other non-signatory nations in signing, ratifying and implementing the treaty.
Once three nations sign it and deposit it at the United Nations, Annan is required to report publicly to the U.N. General Assembly every 90 days on the progress of implementing a permanent ban on space-based weapons and on the progress of signing and ratifying the treaty.
Once 20 nations have signed and ratified the Space Preservation Treaty, it will go into force; the outer space peacekeeping agency will be funded and empowered to monitor and enforce the ban on space-based weapons.
Canada's signing of the treaty will encourage Russia to maintain Russia's and China's longstanding commitment to keep space weapons-free and to sign the treaty as well. Together, Canada, Russia, China, and many other nations already on record as supporting such a treaty, can lead the nations of the world in signing the Space Preservation Treaty.
We can and must stop the weaponization of space before it occurs. The signing of the Space Preservation Treaty will put needed pressure on the U.S. Congress and administration to sign this verifiable and enforceable agreement. This permanent ban on all space-based weapons, worldwide, will transform the war industry into a space industry that will stimulate the creation of clean and safe technologies, products and services, including new jobs and training programs, that can and will be applied directly to solving urgent human and environmental problems.
What can an ordinary citizen do? Contact Prime Minister Jean Chretien, Deputy Prime Minister John Manley and Foreign Minister Bill Graham immediately. Tell them to lead the way, to be the first to say that they will sign the Space Preservation Treaty. This is the greatest challenge of our generation.
James George is a retired Canadian diplomat who served at the United Nations. He can be contacted at [email protected]
Dr. Carol Rosin is president of The Institute for Co-operation in Space (ICIS), a non-profit educational foundation.
Alfred Lambremont Webre is an ICIS international director.
Contact them at [email protected] (USA) and [email protected] (Canada).
The ICIS Web site is http://www.peaceinspace.com
May 31, 2006
U.S. should scrap missile defence plan, Blix says
JEFF SALLOT
Globe and Mail Update
OTTAWA — Hans Blix, the UN's former chief weapons inspector, and a blue-ribbon international commission say the United States should halt deployment of its missile defence system and concentrate instead arms control measures.
In a report to be presented to the UN Thursday, Mr. Blix and the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission warn that missile defence systems like the one being built by the United States threaten global peace and security.
Deployment of such systems risk “creating or aggravating arms races,” says the commission's final report.
Mr. Blix, the chairman of the commission, was the chief weapons inspector for Iraq before the U.S.-led invasion. His recommendation to allow inspectors more time to try to find weapons of mass destruction was ignored by President George W. Bush's administration, which now admits there were no such weapons.
This new report is likely to receive a cool welcome in Washington as well. Mr. Bush made deployment of a missile defence system a high priority early in his administration. Some ground-based interceptors - rockets intended to shoot down incoming ballistic missiles - have since been installed in Alaska, but their reliability has been questioned by an independent oversight agency of the U.S. Congress.
Mr. Blix's international commission, whose 14 members include William Perry, a former U.S. defence secretary, says that rather than trying to build a missile defence shield the U.S. should negotiate new treaties to eliminate the threat of ballistic missiles.
The 40-year-old Outer Space Treaty, which banned nuclear weapons in space after the U.S. conducted nuclear tests there, should be broadened to cover all proposed types of space weapons, the commission said.
Meanwhile, the U.S. and any other country thinking of deploying missile defence systems should refrain from “any tests against space objects or targets on earth from a space platform.”
In the past decade, the Pentagon has spent billions of dollars researching space-based weapons, including possible development of orbiting high-intensity laser cannons.
The previous Liberal government in Ottawa said Canada would not participate in U.S. missile defence programs involving space-based weapons. Prime Minister Stephen Harper and other Conservative ministers have said that while they are not racing to embrace missile defence they would consider any concrete proposal Washington might make down the line.
The Blix commission, whose work was financed chiefly by the Swedish government and partly by the Vancouver-based Simons Foundation, also said the U.S., Russia and other nuclear-weapons states need to take their obligations to eliminate all of these weapons of mass destruction.
The Non-Proliferation Treaty requires countries to eventually get rid of all nuclear weapons, but disarmament efforts have been stalled in recent years despite the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s.
All countries should begin “planning for security without nuclear weapons” and begin incremental steps to get rid of their arsenals.
Current U.S. nuclear doctrine - issued just three months ago - “parted ways with the UN Charter provisions on self-defence,” Mr. Blix says in a preface to the report.
The Bush administration's doctrine leaves open the possibility of using a nuclear weapon to pre-emptively destroy another country's own nuclear arsenal. U.S. officials have said they want to keep this option in case North Korea or Iran develop nuclear weapons.
As long as any one country has nuclear weapons others will want them as well, the report says.
The report also urges the Bush administration to reverse its opposition to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty for nuclear warheads, saying the U.S. has the leverage to lead by example. If the U.S. does not take the lead “there could be more nuclear tests and new nuclear arms races.”
April 15, 2006
ACDN FRANCE: SPACE PRESERVATION TREATY SIGNING CONFERENCE
2nd Rally for International Disarmament - Nuclear, Biological and Chemical
Saintes (France) 6-8 May 2005
SPACE PRESERVATION TREATY SIGNING CONFERENCE
----------------------------------------------------------- The Space Preservation Treaty Signing Conference is the most reliable, timely, and effective method available that will bring world leaders together to permanently ban all space-based weapons in an enforceable verifiable manner that will lead to a "cap" on the war industry while it evolves into becoming a space industry.
This way the permanent war economy can be transformed into a sustainable, cooperative, peaceful Space Age society.
An international Treaty Signing Conference on the Space Preservation Treaty must be convened as soon as possible to facilitate Nation State leaders coming together for the signing and to bring into force an immediate and permanent ban on all space-based weapons. We must stop the arms race at the only moment in time, in all of history, when it can be stopped, before it begins in space (that is, before space-based weapons are deployed and/or before a momentum of funding and vested interests makes the weaponization of space impossible to stop).
An International Treaty Signing Conference for the Space Preservation Treaty can be convened at any time by any willing U.N. Member State(s) under the authority of Article 102 of the United Nations Charter.
The current U.S. administration plan is to "seize the high ground" to "dominate and control space," and many say that he who controls and dominates space also controls and dominates all on earth. The momentum of funding, vested interests and technology being put into place could make it impossible to stop the weaponization of space if a ban is not turned into law in time.
Space-based weapons could be deployed under the guise of calling them "merely research" or "merely tests," or they could be deployed without even the conducting of tests. Many experts say this is an emergency situation, as there is only one chance to ban space-based weapons. Many agree that time is of the essence to get the Space Preservation Treaty signed into law quickly.
Time is of the essence to get the Space Preservation Treaty signed into law. The signing of the Space Preservation Treaty will help to put needed pressure on the U.S. congress and administration.
The Treaty is the Key to preserving peace in space so we can achieve peace on earth: When the first five (5) countries sign on to the Space Preservation Treaty, an international outer space peacekeeping agency will be established and equipped to monitor outer space and enforce (conflict resolution style) this ban.
Since 1948, over 40,000 multi-lateral agreements or Treaties have been signed, ratified and deposited with the U.N. Secretary General by Member States under Article 102 of the U.N. Charter. Under Article 102 of the United Nations Charter, "every treaty and every international agreement entered into by any Member of the United Nations after the present Charter comes into force shall as soon as possible be registered with the Secretariat and published by it."
We seek two or more Nations ready to sign the Space Preservation Treaty and then take it to other like-minded Nations.
Please volunteer to help this endeavor. We need to build a world movement to send packages of educational information to all world leaders, to media, to the people about the Space Preservation Treaty and to help organize the Space Preservation Treaty Conference.
You can find information at www.peaceinspace.org and www.peaceinspace.com.
Email: [email protected]
Institute for Cooperation in Space
Dr. Carol Rosin
Alfred Lambremont Webre, JD, MEd
LA CONFÉRENCE de SIGNATURE de TRAITÉ de CONSERVATION de l'Espace est la méthode la plus fiable, la plus opportune, et efficace disponible qui réunira des chefs du monde interdire de manière permanente toutes les armes espace-basées d'une façon vérifiable exécutoire qui mènera à un "chapeau" sur l'industrie de guerre tandis qu'elle se transforme en devenir une industrie de l'espace.
De cette façon l'économie permanente de guerre peut être transformée en société soutenable, coopérative, paisible d'âge de l'espace.
Une conférence internationale de signature de Traité sur le Traité de conservation de l'espace doit être assemblée aussitôt que possible pour faciliter les chefs de pays venant ensemble pour la signature et pour introduire dans la force une interdiction immédiate et permanente de toutes les armes espace-basées.
Nous devons arrêter la course aux armements au seul moment à temps, en tout d'histoire, quand elle peut être arrêtée, avant qu'elle commence dans l'espace (c'est-à-dire, avant que des armes espace-basées soient déployées et/ou avant un élan du placement et des droits acquis rend le weaponization de l'espace impossible pour s'arrêter).
Une conférence internationale pour le Traité de conservation de l'espace peut être assemblée à tout moment par n'importe quel Member de l'ONU disposé sous l'autorité de l'article 102 de la charte des Nations Unies.
Le plan courant d'administration des ETATS-UNIS est "saisissent la terre élevée" "dominent et commandent l'espace," et beaucoup dites qu'il qui commande et domine des commandes de l'espace également et domine tous sur terre.
L'élan du placement, des droits acquis et de la technologie étant installée pourrait le rendre impossible d'arrêter les armes dans l'espace si une interdiction n'est pas transformée en loi à temps. des armes Espace-basées pourraient être déployées sous l'apparence de les appeler "simplement recherche" ou "simplement des essais," ou eux pourraient être déployés sans même la conduite des essais.
Beaucoup d'experts disent que c'est une situation de secours, car il y a seulement une chance d'interdire les armes espace-basées. Beaucoup conviennent que le temps est de l'essence pour obtenir le Traité de conservation de l'espace signé dans la loi rapidement.
Le temps est de l'essence pour obtenir le Traité de conservation de l'espace signé dans la loi. La signature du Traité de conservation de l'espace aidera à faire pression nécessaire sur le congrès et l'administration des ETATS-UNIS.
Le Traité est la clef à préserver la paix dans l'espace ainsi nous pouvons réaliser la paix sur terre: Quand les cinq premiers (5) pays signent dessus au Traité de conservation de l'espace, une agence de la paix internationale d'espace extra-atmosphérique sera établie et équipée pour surveiller l'espace extra-atmosphérique et pour imposer (modèle de résolution de conflit) cette interdiction.
Depuis 1948, plus de 40.000 accords ou Traités multilatéraux ont été signés, ratifiés et déposés avec le sécrétaire général d'cU.n. par des Etats membres en vertu de l'article 102 d'cU.n. Charter. En vertu de l'article 102 de la charte des Nations Unies, "chaque traité et chaque accord international sont entrés dans par n'importe quel membre des Nations Unies après que la charte actuelle entre en vigueur soit inscrite aussitôt que possible au secrétariat et éditée par elle."
Nous cherchons deux nations ou plus prêtes à signer le Traité de conservation de l'espace et puis à le prendre à d'autres nations semblables.
Svp volontaire pour aider cet effort. Nous devons établir un mouvement du monde pour envoyer des paquets d'information éducative à tous les chefs du monde, aux médias, aux personnes au sujet du Traité de conservation de l'espace et à l'aide organisons la conférence de Traité de conservation de l'espace.
Vous pouvez trouver l'information à www.peaceinspace.org et à www.peaceinspace.com.
Email: [email protected]
Institut pour la coopération dans l’espace
Dr. Carol Rosin
Alfred Lambremont Webre, JD, MEd
TORONTO STAR: Missile defence: It's still a bad idea
TORONTO STAR: Missile defence: It's still a bad idea
This article was signed by 10 concerned Canadians, including former external affairs minister Lloyd Axworthy, vice-chancellor, University of Winnipeg; Dale Dewar, president, Physicians for Global Survival; Mel Hurtig, founder of the Council of Canadians; Peggy Mason, Canada's former U.N. ambassador for disarmament; John Polanyi, Nobel laureate and professor, University of Toronto; and Steven Staples, of the Polaris Institute.
The federal election has unexpectedly reopened the debate on Canada's participation in the U.S.'s Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) system. The Canadian government, after a lengthy public debate, decided not to participate in the U.S. missile shield in February 2005. It was a popular decision because the majority of Canadians opposed participation and numerous events of the last year have borne out that it was the correct decision.
Conservative party leader Stephen Harper feels otherwise. He has promised that, if elected, his government will revisit the previous government's decision not to join the U.S. missile defence system.
In the past Parliament, all the political parties supported the government's decision not to participate in BMD with the exception of the Conservatives, who reserved judgment on the issue. Is it the Conservatives' assessment now that negotiating entry into the BMD program could be in Canada's best interests?
News and analysis from the United States shows Canada to be vindicated, as it appears that confidence in the viability of the ground-based, mid-course system is faltering.
A U.S. Senate defence subcommittee, led by missile defence advocate Republican Ted Stevens, recently warned supporters that the Missile Defence Agency had decided that the first generation of interceptor missiles in Alaska and California will also be the last.
The missiles are behind schedule, badly over budget and have yet to be fully tested or declared operational. In other words, as many prominent scientists and military experts have testified, the Pentagon is admitting BMD may never meet the challenge of achieving any acceptable reliability.
The Congressional Budget Office has also issued its own warning, predicting that the projected annual costs of the missile defence system could spiral upwards to $19 billion per year, more than twice its annual budget today.
In fact, after examining the key technologies and their likelihood of success, the budget office proposed halting missile defence deployment entirely. Had Ottawa joined and made a financial commitment, Canadians could have seen their expected contribution likewise skyrocket for a system that has little chance of functioning.
In any renewed discussion of Canada's participation in the ballistic missile defence program, the potential for the weaponization of space looms large. Like all other parties, the Conservative party shares an opposition to the weaponization of space, a chief international concern about the missile defence program.
But in the last year, President George W. Bush has shown no indication that he has renounced the Pentagon's and Air Force's declared and widely publicized plans to "dominate space" and to "deny others the use of space" through the use of space weapons.
On the contrary, doctrines for space warfare continue to be espoused in Washington.
Alarmingly, last fall the U.S. voted "no" for the first time on the annual United Nations resolution to prevent an arms race in outer space. Observers agree this is a clear indication that the decision to deploy space weapons may be imminent. Had Canada joined the ballistic missile defence program, we would have been unable to avoid responsibility for contributing to a new arms race in space.
The Canadian government approved detailed BMD talks with the Americans in May 2003 and rejected the idea in February 2005. Canadian questions about our potential participation apparently could not be answered satisfactorily. Would there eventually be U.S. weapons in space? Would Canada be stuck with a mounting tab as costs rapidly increased? Bush adamantly refused to give Prime Minister Paul Martin an undertaking that missile defence was not tied to the future weaponization of space.
What is more, the White House and proponents of BMD within the Canadian government were unable to convince Canadians that participating in the program is vital to their security.
Following the decision not to join, a Decima poll found that 57 per cent supported the decision, and 26 per cent opposed it. Virtually every constituency was opposed to BMD participation — from teenagers to senior citizens, men and women, urban and rural dwellers, and a majority in every single province. Simply put, strong links to the Bush administration make BMD an unpopular cause among many Canadians, who are clearly wary of Bush's aggressive military and foreign policy.
Canada was correct not to join missile defence in 2005, and nothing new has occurred that warrants reopening the debate.
Our country has long been a staunch advocate of diplomatic efforts to abolish nuclear weapons, and it has a strong interest in keeping Earth's orbit a demilitarized zone.
We believe that joining the "Star Wars" system being pushed by the Bush administration would undermine Canada's reputation as a peacekeeper and advocate for disarmament, and endanger the entire world.
January 11, 2006
CANADA: Liberals would seek international ban on weaponization of space: leaked platform
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Wednesday » January 11 » 2006
Grits would seek international ban on weaponization of space: leaked platform
Alexander Panetta
Canadian Press
Wednesday, January 11, 2006
MONTREAL (CP) - Canada would seek an international deal to permanently ban weapons in space under a re-elected Liberal government, according to a leaked copy of the party's platform.
The pledge is aimed at rallying the nation's more moderate voters behind the Liberals in a late-campaign drive to reverse the governing party's sagging electoral prospects. Paul Martin will take that stand against weapons in space when he unveils his party platform as early as Wednesday and will paint the pledge as the latest in a long line of Liberal-led peace initiatives.
The idea will almost certainly meet with hostility from the U.S. government, coming on the heels of Canada's refusal to sign on to the American missile-defence project.
As much as that missile snub irritated the White House, public opinion polls conducted earlier this year suggested it was a crowd-pleaser in Canada.
The weapons pledge is one of the few headline-grabbing announcements left for a Liberal party seeking to strike a chord with voters before the Jan. 23 election.
"Liberals are firmly opposed to the weaponization of space and recognize that the best time to prevent an arms race in space is before one begins," says the leaked version of the platform.
The 85-page document was posted on the website for the conservative Western Standard magazine and confirms unpublished rumours of an impending Liberal space-weapons announcement.
The proposal is modelled on the 1999 international mine ban treaty, for which then-foreign affairs minister Lloyd Axworthy was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.
While the Liberal minister did not win the award, he was applauded for an effort that now includes 146 countries and helped clear more than 130 million square metres of land mines around the world.
The United States, China, India and Russia did not sign on to that treaty and it's entirely possible that the world military powers will also take a dim view of the space-weapons pledge.
The Liberals plan to also draw parallels between their proposed space-weapons plan and past initiatives like Pierre Trudeau's nuclear-disarmament tour and Lester B. Pearson's role in resolving the 1956 Suez crisis, which earned him the Nobel prize.
There is at least one notable difference between Martin's impending promise and the land-mines initiative it is supposed to emulate.
Unlike land mines - a global scourge that has killed and maimed thousands of civilians around the world - there are no weapons in space and won't be for the foreseeable future.
The U.S. says its current missile project, which includes interceptor sites in Alaska and California, does not include imminent plans for weapons in space.
Furthermore, the leaked document concedes that an existing international agreement already bans weapons of mass destruction in space. It adds, however, that no such deal exists for smaller-scale weapons.
The rest of the leaked Liberal platform largely confirms recently announced promises. Those pledges include:
-$30 billion in personal income-tax cuts.
- Eliminating the $975 landing fee for immigrants.
- Up to $3,000 to help first-and last-year undergraduate students with tuition and a $150 million fund to offset tuition costs for those wishing to study abroad.
- $3.5 billion for workplace skills training.
- A so-called "ban" on handguns that would require collectors to disarm their weapons. The plan would also see millions go to police and community projects to help reduce urban crime.
- Continuing to reduce the nation's debt-to-GDP ratio to 20 per cent by 2020 - a level unseen since the early 1970s.
The political aims of the space-weapons ban are unmistakeable.
The Liberals have struggled to find Canada-U.S. wedge issues that would force their Conservatives rivals into an uneasy defence of the more unpopular policies of the U.S. Bush administration.
That strategy - which Martin has attempted on climate change, gun control, the Iraq war and on missile defence - has met with limited success during the campaign.
When Martin rebuked his foes for sharing Washington's hostility to the Kyoto climate-change accord, analysts correctly pointed out his own government's woeful record on greenhouse-gas emissions.
Conservative Leader Stephen Harper has also tempered his enthusiasm for President George W. Bush's Iraq invasion and for the missile project.
It was the same with gun control.
Liberals were hoping that their proposed 'ban' on handguns would draw their chief rival into a National Rifle Association-style defence of the right to bear arms.
Instead Harper responded with his own anti-gun package that includes harsher sentencing, and was careful to avoid criticizing the principle of gun control.
© The Canadian Press 2006
August 26, 2005
BAN WARFARE AND WEAPONS IN SPACE
Who We Are: Campaign for Cooperation in Space is a Coordinated International Network For Breakthrough, Enrolling U.N. Member Governments, Non-Governmental Organizations, Media, and the People to Implement A Permanent Ban on Weapons in Space.
Our Vision: Together, we can put an end to the highly profitable war industry by putting our differences aside, uniting and working together by promoting win-win solutions to decision makers. Before our perpetual war economy expands into space, we must ban space weapons. A coordinated strategy to get world leaders to sign a treaty banning space weapons will put a lid on the war economy and result into a cooperative, democratic Space Age society that goes beyond fear and honours all life, instead of destroying it. With today's technology, a peace based economy can be just as profitable as a war based economy.
WE the People of Earth hereby Petition the United Nations General Assembly to have a Space Preservation Treaty permanently banning all space-based weapons and warfare in space
ready for signature by all U.N. Member Nations by United Nations Day, 2005 [October 24, 2005].
IF the United Nations General Assembly fails approve a Space Preservation Treaty by October 24, 2005, then the General Assembly shall convene a Space Preservation Treaty Conference to ban all space-based weapons and warfare in space, as Canada did in the 1997 Ottawa Land Mines Treaty Conference, to be held in Victoria-Vancouver, B.C. in June 2006, as part of the World Peace Forum 2006.
SIGN OUR U.N. PETITION TO BAN WARFAR AND WEAPONS IN SPACE.
VIEW SIGNATURES (3,278 Signatories As of August 26, 2005)
Click here to sign:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/832338563
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