A Review of International Law (Military Use and Arms Race in Space)

Today, one of the main concerns of the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPOS) and its subcommittees is the issue of militarization of outer space rights. The dominant space powers, such as the United States of America, Russia, and China, have added to this concern by using advanced military equipment in space. Therefore, the international community must seek desirable and practical solutions to this problem in order to prevent militarization and the creation of an arms race in space. On this basis, this article seeks to examine the military use of space and legal documents and explain the contractual and customary system governing space treaties, to examine the military prohibitions governing space activities in order to prevent such activities in outer space, and to conduct a descriptive analysis by examining some dual-use space-based weapons and to make the inappropriate aspects of the military use of space more apparent than before.