Trust essential for international cooperation
Treaty – a formally concluded and ratified agreement between countries or nations. Last week, this paper carried a guest editorial arguing U.S. President Donald Trump was not wrong in proposing a Space Force. The central theme of the piece was the U.S. needs to protect itself from potential attack in this operational theatre.
According to the author, the best approach is to occupy space first.
Other than the logic of this reminding me of an Andy Capp cartoon where a police officer was questioning Andy and said: “So, you are saying you thought he was going to punch you so you punched him back first,” there is a real problem with this approach to space.
It is called The Outer Space Treaty and it came into effect on Oct. 10, 1967, after years of negotiation between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. It has been ratified by over 100 countries, including Canada, and has formed the basis for international law on the use of space.
The treaty explicitly says: “States shall not place nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction in orbit or on celestial bodies or station them in outer space in any other manner” and “Outer space is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use of occupation, or by any other means.”
In other words, the U.S. would need to break a 50-year-old treaty to build its Space Force and to militarize space. The treaty has a lot more to say on the subject, explicating point out celestial bodies shall be used “exclusively for peaceful purposes” and “states shall be responsible for national space activities whether carried out by governmental or non-governmental entities.”
So where does this leave the world when a country can walk away from a treaty it co-authored? How do we proceed forward when treaties do not mean anything?
I should point out the U.S. is not the only country which does not feel it needs to honour its commitments nor is Trump the only president who has turned his back on obligations made by previous governments.
But with a world where the economic infrastructure is becoming increasingly interwoven, having some form of surety seems to be something of a necessity. If, for example, you commit to shutting down all of your whaling activities for the sake of preserving these creatures and you sign a treaty with other countries where they say they will do the same, then you expect they will. You expect they will not keep hunting whales and endanger the species.
When you find out they are, it makes it much harder to explain to your own population and to displaced workers why you should still honour the treaty.
It is not just whales but all of the fish in the sea which fall within the bounds on international treaties.
It is not just the fish in the sea but the sharing of resources such as the Columbia River Treaty.
Our global economic structure depends upon countries behaving honourably and within the bounds of the commitments they have made. The same applies for agreements – such as NAFTA and the softwood lumber agreement.
How do we engage in international commerce and relations if the other side is unwilling to play by the rules they have freely negotiated into place?
For Canadians, where so much of our trade exports end up south of the border, we are dependent upon having treaties and agreements which will stand the test of time and within a court of law. Having a president who feels he can flout negotiated arrangements just leads to uncertainty.
What is the answer? At one level, it is to try and hold the U.S. to account. We have always been their best trading partner and there should be some recognition of that relationship. But we also need to be thinking about diversifying our export markets.
We can’t rely on a country which does not appear to recognize its own obligations.