Theresa Hitchens
Director
United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR)
Switzerland

Biography
Theresa Hitchenshas been Director of UNIDIR since January 2009. Previously, she was director of the Center for Defense Information and led its Space Security Project, in cooperation with Secure World Foundation. The author of Future Security in Space: Charting a Cooperative Course, she has written on space and nuclear arms control issues for a number of journals and publications. She serves on the editorial board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Theresa has had a long career in journalism, with a focus on military, defence industry and NATO affairs. She was Director of Research at the British American Security Information Council, a think tank based in Washington and London. Prior to that, she was with Defense News from 1988 to 2000, including five years as the newspaper's first Brussels bureau chief from 1989 to 1993, and as the Editor from 1998 to 2000. From 1983 to 1988, she worked at Inside Washington Publishers, covering issues from nuclear waste to electronic warfare and military space.

Abstract
Theresa Hitchens

"In today?s multi-polar space environment, access to space-based resources and the services they provide is becoming ever more important to established space players and emerging space States. In the context of international peace and security, space-based assets have long played a direct role in providing key data which has contributed to international stability in volatile security situations for example the role of US DSP and Russian Cosmos early warning satellites in monitoring missile launches. Today, geospatial data is playing an expanded role. From space-based support to humanitarian missions to the work of organisations such as the Satellite Sentinel Project monitoring violence in conflict regions, such services are becoming now a mainstay to modern international peace and security activities.

In addition, space based services are, of course, major military enablers and key parts of the socio-economic fabric of nearly all countries. Against this backdrop, there is a growing recognition at the international level that in order to protect continued access to such geospatial services, efforts need to be made to make to space environment secure, sustainable and predictable. The risks of security instability in space are extensive and the impacts on space services could be catastrophic.

Several initiatives have been proposed at the multilateral level that are intended to mitigate threats to space security and provide solutions that can command widespread support among the international community. These include the work of the UN Groups of Governmental Experts on Transparency and Confidence-Building Measures in Outer Space Activities, the Proposal for an International Code of Conduct for Outer Space Activities and the Draft Treaty on the Prevention of the Placement of Weapons in Outer Space or the Threat or Use of Force against Outer Space Objects (PPWT). This presentation will briefly discuss these initiatives and their impact on securing long-term sustainable access to space-based services."