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We’re live now, on Space Renaissance YouTube channel, with Wes Faires, giving a lecture on space law:


The Working Group on Space Resources under the United Nations Committee on Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (UN COPUOS), presents an opportunity for a legally binding instrument to develop under the auspices of the United Nations Committee on Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (UNOOSA), and do so in a manner favorable to space resource utilization for the private sector. The intended result of the Working Group, as stated its 5 years workplan, is to conclude discussions on the development of space resources followed with possible adoption by the United Nations General Assembly as a dedicated resolution or other action. This presentation draws a parallel to a similar scenario with regard to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), where a working group on Deep Sea-Bed resources, executed via specific legal channels within the United Nations, led to a legally binding instrument: The 1994 Agreement on Implementation, resulting in a modification of the international framework governing ocean floor minerals.
The avenue utilized for the execution of the 1994 Agreement on Implementation for UNCLOS provides a course for legally binding instrument to develop via the Working Group on Space Resources. Such an instrument could serve to interpret and elaborate on ambiguities within the Outer Space Treaty framework, while avoiding any parallels to the commercially harmful aspects of the top-down governance structure embedded within the International Seabed Authority.

A short bio.

Discovery, Development & Delivery Of Safe, Effective & Affordable Vaccines For Global Public Health — Dr. Jerome H. Kim, M.D., Director General, International Vaccine Institute (IVI)


Dr. Jerome H. Kim, M.D., is the Director General of the International Vaccine Institute (IVI — https://www.ivi.int/), a nonprofit International Organization established in 1997 as an initiative of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), dedicated to the discovery, development and delivery of safe, effective and affordable vaccines for global public health.

IVI is headquartered in Seoul and hosted by the Republic of Korea with 36 member countries and the WHO on its treaty.

The nuclear bombs and missiles market is set to witness growth in this decade as market capitalization will reach $126 billion, Allied Market Research said in a recent report.

Back in 1994, Ukraine had signed on to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and declared itself a non-nuclear state. Even after the annexation of Crimea, the country remained committed to its non-nuclear status and found itself at a disadvantage with Russia threatening to attack its borders. Given that the Ukrainian conflict has continued unabated for over a month now, it is likely that countries will move toward nuclear weapons adversaries. Although a nuclear war would be catastrophic for one and all, the weapon serves as a good deterrence measure during periods of uncertainty.

Associate Professor Areg Danagoulian credits mentorship with helping him establish a path through nuclear physics.

Mentorship has played a central role in the twists and turns of Associate Professor Areg Danagoulian’s life.

“Verification of nuclear disarmament is very important, because a treaty without verification is worse than no treaty at all,” Danagoulian says, citing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty that was proposed in the 1950s but not fully adopted until 1996, in part because scientists lacked the technology to reliably differentiate underground testing from seismic events. has played a central role in the twists and turns of Associate Professor Areg Danagoulian’s life.

The People’s Republic of China, the French Republic, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the United States of America consider the avoidance of war between Nuclear-Weapon States and the reduction of strategic risks as our foremost responsibilities.

We affirm that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought. As nuclear use would have far-reaching consequences, we also affirm that nuclear weapons—for as long as they continue to exist—should serve defensive purposes, deter aggression, and prevent war. We believe strongly that the further spread of such weapons must be prevented.

We reaffirm the importance of addressing nuclear threats and emphasize the importance of preserving and complying with our bilateral and multilateral non-proliferation, disarmament, and arms control agreements and commitments. We remain committed to our Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) obligations, including our Article VI obligation “to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.”

In Machinia, Damon learns that the robot uprising was the result of the weapons of war simply refusing to wage war. In the article that follows, the UN is already very concerned about autonomous weapons being deployed that do not require human governance. #war, #UN


GENEVA — Countries taking part in UN talks on autonomous weapons stopped short of launching negotiations on an international treaty to govern their use, instead agreeing merely to continue discussions.

The International Committee of the Red Cross and several NGOs had been pushing for negotiators to begin work on an international treaty that would establish legally-binding new rules on the machine-operated weapons.

Unlike existing semi-autonomous weapons such as drones, fully-autonomous weapons have no human-operated “kill switch” and instead leave decisions over life and death to sensors, software and machine processes.

For more than 50 years, near space has been viewed as a vast resource to exploit with few limits. In reality, near space is a very scarce resource. While international agreements such as the Outer Space Treaty and the Registration Convention take steps to protect this precious resource, no single global body is responsible for ensuring the long-term sustainability and safety of near space.

The current surge in the exploitation of outer space means that this lack of a global framework for space sustainability must be addressed immediately, or it will be too late; near space will be cluttered and unrecoverable. We are seeing increased use of near space for tourism and other business ventures and the deployment of megaconstellations comprising tens to hundreds of thousands of satellites. And this is just the start. Last month, we witnessed a Russian anti-satellite test that left portions of near space cluttered with orbital debris. Failure to implement a global framework with an enforcement mechanism for space sustainability could severely impact the ability to fully utilize the resource in the near future.

Today near space activities are subject to disparate space sustainability requirements, generally reliant on the requirements of the object’s launching state or conditions imposed by countries in which entities have market access. Some countries have developed well-crafted requirements for at least some space objects, but others have not. In addition, except for the items covered in existing treaties, like launching state liability, there is almost no harmonization on requirements, which further jeopardizes space sustainability.

A scientist who wrote a leading textbook on artificial intelligence has said experts are “spooked” by their own success in the field, comparing the advance of AI to the development of the atom bomb.

Prof Stuart Russell, the founder of the Center for Human-Compatible Artificial Intelligence at the University of California, Berkeley, said most experts believed that machines more intelligent than humans would be developed this century, and he called for international treaties to regulate the development of the technology.