SWF Statement – UN COPUOS, Agenda Item 6: Maintaining Outer Space for Peaceful Purposes (June 2022)

Secure World Foundation updates the Committee on its activities supporting the peaceful and sustainable use of outer space over the past year. The statement highlights capacity building, inclusive governance, and norm development as key pillars for maintaining outer space as a peaceful domain.

Key initiatives include:

• Summit for Space Sustainability:
  SWF hosted its third Summit virtually in 2021 and announced the 2022 Summit to be co-hosted with the UK Space Agency in London. These events focus on sustainability solutions, with broad global participation.
• Handbook for New Actors in Space:
  Distributed in English, Chinese, French, and Spanish, the handbook serves as a free legal and policy guide for new governmental and non-governmental space actors.
• Legal Advisory Project (UNOOSA):
  SWF continues co-funding the Space Law for New Space Actors project with Belgium, Chile, Japan, and Luxembourg. The project delivers tailored legal and policy capacity-building to Member States developing national space legislation.
• Multilevel Norm Development:
  The statement emphasizes that norms are emerging across multiple levels—international, national, industrial—and stresses the need for coordination across forums to avoid fragmented governance. Civil society organizations like SWF can serve as bridges between these layers.
• Support for the UN Secretary-General’s “Our Common Agenda”:
  SWF endorses the SG’s call for a multi-stakeholder space governance dialogue, as part of the upcoming Summit of the Future. The dialogue aims to secure high-level political commitment, establish principles for future governance, and coordinate on space traffic management and debris mitigation.

The Foundation concludes by reaffirming its readiness to support COPUOS and highlights the critical role of civil society in shaping inclusive, sustainable space governance.