Nanosatellites

29 III-2cInternational Organizations and International Cooperation

Jean-Francois Mayence

Belgian Federal Science Policy Office (BELSPO), Brussels, Belgium

29.1 Introduction

Although international intergovernmental organizations have played a historic role in international cooperation since the end of the Second World War, they have remained second row actors in the field of outer space. While Europe had opted for an institutional cooperation among member states active in the exploration and use of outer space, first with the European Space Conference, then with ESRO¹ and ELDO,² eventually moving forward with European Space Agency (ESA), other spacefaring nations have kept their energy focused on national effort or bilateral cooperation. Considering the inherent international dimension of outer space, one could have expected a more active involvement of international institutions.

With organizations such as Intelsat and Inmarsat, a new role for intergovernmental bodies was considered in the field of satellite applications. However, the privatization of their operational activities marked a stop in that direction. At global multilateral level, international organizations do not seem to be a solution supported by states to achieve space cooperation. The case of Europe is clearly an exception: with the European Space Conference, in 1962, followed by ESRO and ELDO and eventually the establishment of ESA in 1975 and European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites ...