Secure World Foundation participating in the International Interdisciplinary Congress on Space Debris

Secure World Foundation is participating in the International Interdisciplinary Congress on Space Debris being held at McGill University in Montreal, Canada May 6-7. Dr. Ray Williamson, Executive Director of SWF, provided opening remarks while Brian Weeden, SWF's Technical Consultant, will record precedings on a panel providing a summary of current knowledge on the space debris problem from both a technical and legal perspective and will present a paper on civil space situational awareness the following day. The event is sponsored by the Erin J. C. Arsenault Trust and co-organized by the McGill University Institute of Air and Space Law, the Cologne University Institute of Air and Space Law (Cologne, Germany) and the International Association for the Advancement of Space Safety (Katwijk, the Netherlands). Image: McGill.

The objectives of the event are:
-- To assess the value of the UN COPUOS Guidelines
-- To assess current efforts to implement the UN COPUOS Guidelines
-- To examine further legal, organizational and technical foundations and endeavours for possible national, regional, and international implementation and to assess whether they could be complementary to the UN COPUOS Guidelines
-- To put forward specific and viable policy and regulatory steps (mechanisms) that may be considered by states and other stake holders to monitor and reduce the space debris risks

A program complete with backgrounder can be found here. More details on this event will be posted in this blog in the coming days.