Our website is being upgraded and may show errors while we work. Please check back in a few hours.
Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space

On October 17, Archbishop Bernardito Auza, Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations, gave an intervention during the First Committee debate on Agenda Item 97, dedicated to the "Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space."
 
In his statement, Archbishop Auza called the international community to safeguard the peaceful nature of outer space, preventing it from becoming an area for militarization and weaponization, noting that this year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Outer Space Treaty, which aims to prevent conflicts on Earth from extending to outer space.  He highlighted the important role that the peaceful development of space technologies has had for humanity, noting that satellites are important not only for the daily life of people throughout the world, but are also used to monitor the environment and humanitarian operations, and gather evidence of possible genocide and other mass atrocities. Because the world is increasingly dependent on space technologies, it is left increasingly vulnerable to attacks against space technology; a war in space could potentially be more devastating to civilizations than armed conflict on the ground.

His statement can be found here.