Preparing for the Manfred Lachs Global Space Governance Conference

          by Sarah Ansari-Manea

The 2nd Manfred Lachs International Conference on Global Space Governance, will be held from May 29th - 31st in Montreal, PQ.

As outlined on the event website, the conference “will provide a neutral setting for the conduct of interdisciplinary deliberations lending themselves to a responsive UNISPACE IV conference addressing issues relating to global space governance.”

The event grew out of various programs which were part of the United Nations Programme on Space Applications including the three United Nations Conferences on the Exploration and Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (UNISPACE) and provides a detailed analysis of existing and potential global space governance issues including:

• Human evolution, space migration, and a need for global space governance.
• Current and emerging trends in general global governance.
• The adequacy of existing mechanisms of global space governance.
• The integration of commercial space activities through aviation operations.
• Global governance of human space flight.
• Global governance of natural resources indigenous to space.
• Global governance of the satellite telecommunications sector.
• Global space environmental regulation and governance.
• Global space governance and the challenges of space security.
• Balancing commercial considerations against global space governance.
• Global space governance from a regional perspective.

Manfred Lachs (1914 - 1993), a Polish diplomat and jurist who greatly influenced in the development of international law after World War II. Photo c/o International Institute of Social Studies in The Hague.

Some of the many qualified speakers to look for during the event include:

• Cynda Collins Arsenault, the President of the Secure World Foundation.
• Karl Doetsch, the former Chair of the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS), the former president of the International Space University (ISU) and the former acting president of the Canadian Space Agency (CSA).
• Mark Hopkins, the chair of the executive committee of the National Space Society (NSS).
• Daniel Jutras, the Dean of the Faculty of Law at McGill University.
• Sa’id Mosteshar, the Director of the London Institute of Space Policy and Law.
• Walter Natynczyk the current president of the CSA, who will be giving the keynote address.
• Jan Wouters, from the Leuven Centre for Global Governance Studies in Belgium.
• Scott YIM, from the Office of International and Intergovernmental Relations at the NASA Ames Research Center and Lindsea Wilbur from the Hawaii Research Center for Futures Studies. 

The 2014 Manfred Lachs Conference is organized by the McGill University Institute of Air and Space Law (IASL) and the Centre for Research in Air and Space Law (CRASL) in close collaboration with the US based Astrosociology Research Institute (ARI), the Canadian Space Commerce Association (CSCA), the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS), the East China University of Political Science and Law (ECUPL), the European Space Policy Institute (ESPI), the Harbin Institute of Technology, the Institute of Air and Space Law at the University of Cologne, the Institute of Space Law, the International Association for the Advancement of Space Safety (IAASS), the International Institute of Space Law (IISL), the Leuven Centre for Global Governance Studies, the Secure World Foundation (SWF) and the Space Policy Institute (SPI) at the Elliott School of International Affairs.

Sarah Ansari-Manea.

Registration before May 15, 2014 is highly recommended for this unique, international event.
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Sarah Ansari-Manea is an aspiring astrophysicist, currently completing a specialist in physics and astronomy at the University of Toronto.