Res Communis

New President of UNCOPUOS Legal Subcommitee

by P.J. Blount with the blog faculty
UPDATE: A reader has pointed out that this is not the first time that an Iranian has been the chairperson of UNCOPUOS or one of the subcommittees. A chart showing all the past chairpersons of both the Committee and the two subcommittees is available. The same reader pointed out that the press release below should state that the ISA was created in 2004.

The Iranian Space Agency is reporting that its president Ahmad Talebzadeh has been elected as the president of the UNCOPUOS Legal Subcommittee:

The deputy minister of Information and Communication Technology and the president of the Iranian Space Agency is elected as the chairman of the Legal Subcommittee of the Committee on the Peaceful Usage of Outer Space (COPUOS)

Last Wednesday on 18th July 2008, the Committee on the Peaceful Usage of Outer Space (COPUOS) in its 51st meeting in the United Nations building in Austria, Vienna endorsed the election of H.E. Mr. Ahmad Talebzadeh …

Last Wednesday on 18th July 2008, the Committee on the Peaceful Usage of Outer Space (COPUOS) in its 51st meeting in the United Nations building in Austria, Vienna endorsed the election of H.E. Mr. Ahmad Talebzadeh the deputy minister of Information and Communication Technology and the president of the Iranian Space Agency as the chairman of the Legal Subcommittee for the period of 2010-2011.

The Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space was set up by the General Assembly in 1959 (resolution 1472 (XIV)) to review the scope of international cooperation in peaceful uses of outer space, to devise programs in this field to be undertaken under United Nations auspices, to encourage continued research and the dissemination of information on outer space matters, and to study legal problems arising from the exploration of outer space.

Fighting against monopoly in taking advantage of space and providing equal opportunities for all nations to take peaceful advantage of the space are among the other duties of that committee.

The Committee has two standing Subcommittees of the whole: the Scientific and Technical Subcommittee; and the Legal Subcommittee, of which their bureau are elected from all member states every two years.

The Committee and its two Subcommittees meet annually to consider questions put before them by the General Assembly, reports submitted to them and issues raised by the Member States. The Committee and the Subcommittees, working on the basis of consensus, make recommendations to the General Assembly.

For the period of 2010-2011, the chairmen of the science and technical committee and the legal committee had to be from Western Europe and Asia respectively, and after several meetings considering all candidates, the chairman of the science and technical committee was chosen from Germany and the chairman of the Legal committee was chosen from I.R. Iran.

It is the first time that an Iranian is elected as the chairman of the committee in past 50 years starting from the establishment of the committee.

H.E. Mr. Ahmad Talebzadeh holds a masters degree in space industrial engineering from Tennessee University in the United States of America, and has been working as the deputy minister of Information and Communication Technology and the president of the Iranian Space Agency from 2003 till present. Before 2003 he has had the various positions such as: Deputy of the president of the Iranian Space Agency 2002-2003, Deputy of the director of the Iranian Remote Sensing Center 1995-2002, Member of several space and satellite projects and also providing lectures in the Tehran and Sharif industrial universities. He has conducted the first workshop on Space Law in Tehran last year, in which several distinguished international speakers and about 60 local participants were present. He has attended the COPUOS meetings for several years as the head of delegation of the I.R. Iran.