We probably shouldn’t publish this…
Unless you happen to be Wikileaks, it is generally inadvisable to publish a top-secret minute, especially if it comes from the United Nations and is stamped with the word ‘Restricted’. But as this week the UN General Assembly is meeting in New York, we’d thought we’d make an exception.
What places the humble staff of the Tricky Genre Press in the blabbing company of Julian Assange, Edward Snowden or certain Cambridge University alumni?
The answer is that we are very much hoping one can’t be indicted for releasing into the public domain a document that has yet to be written.
The following document was found amongst the autograph manuscript for jjhudsson’s EPUB Other Places Which Also Are the World’s End. It purports to be a minute from a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly that takes place in the year 2047.
The document begins by establishing the legitimacy of the United Nations in governing space, detailing a long history extending back to The Committee on the Peaceful uses of Outer Spaces set-up in 1958. Thereafter, numerous legal, technical and scientific sub-committees have been established to explore an ever increasing range of possibilities regarding space and outer space, culminating in the grandly titled Office for Outer Space Affairs, based in Vienna (Ed. see our cover image).
Believe it or not, that is all true. But here jjhudsson’s mind gets to work. Amongst five major international conferences on outer space convened by the UN since 1968, only four have actually taken place. The last of these - which will, we are reliably informed, take place in 2043 - will call for the development of a PORTAL75 agenda - the subject of the very minute we are prematurely releasing.
For anyone who has read Other Places, the word portal will immediately account for our rebellious turn. For this is the very document in which sanction is given to a:
“…Working Group on Interstellar Travel, for the purpose of convening humankind’s foremost intellectual capabilities as applied to the questions, practice and effect of safe interstellar travel by humans.”
Here, then, the founding document of UN-WGIT - the United Nations Working Group on Interstellar Travel - which drives (admittedly from behind the scenes), so much of the novel. Look out for the redacted Objective 4:
United Nations
GENERAL ASSEMBLY
Distr.: Restricted
29 July 2047
Orginal: English
One hundred and second session
Agenda item 13
Resolution adopted by the General Assembly on 29 July 2047
[without reference to a Main Committee (A/AC.105)
102/3 PORTAL2075 Agenda
The General Assembly,
Recalling it’s resolution 99/6 of 12 December 2044
Adopts the following document:
PORTAL2075 Agenda
The General Assembly,
Recognizing the common interest of humankind as a whole in furthering the peaceful use of outer space,
Believing that the exploration, settlement and use of outer space should be only for the betterment and sustenance of humanity and to the benefit of States irrespective of the stage of their economic or scientific development,
Desiring to avoid the extension of national rivalries into this new field,
Recognizing the great importance of international cooperation in the exploration, settlement and exploitation of outer space for peaceful purposes,
Noting the continuing programmes of scientific cooperation in the exploration of outer space being undertaken by the international scientific community, in particular in the realms of transit
Believing also that the United Nations should promote international co-operation in the peaceful uses of outer space,
Adopts the PORTAL2075 Agenda.
Part A. Preamble
1. Introduction
The United Nations has been at the centre of international cooperation in space activities since the beginning of the space age. The Committee on the Peaceful uses of Outer Space came into being as a result of the recognition by the General Assembly, in its resolution 1348 (XIII) of 13 December 1958, of the importance of using outer space for peaceful purposes and of the need to promote international cooperation in the conduct of space activities; in its resolution 1472 (XIV) of 1959, the Assembly permanently established the Committee.
Owing to its unique mandate and position at the centre of international cooperation in the peaceful uses of outer space, and the global governance of outer space activities, consistent with international law, the Committee played a key role in the organization of the five United Nations conferences on the exploration and peaceful uses of outer space, held in 1968, 1982, 1999, 2027 and 2043.
Seventy-five years after the first United Nations Conference on the Exploration and Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (UNISPACE), States Members of the United Nations and representatives of the international space community gathered in Vienna on 14 and 15 June 2043 for the high-level segment of the seventy-fifth anniversary of the first United Nations Conference on the Exploration and Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (UNISPACE+75) to reflect on more than 75 years of achievement in space exploration and use and to strengthen global cooperation in outer space and the use of outer space for sustainable human settlement and development.
The General Assembly, in its resolution 99/6 of 12 December 2044, noted with appreciation that the preparatory process and the high-level segment of UNISPACE+75 had resulted in documents outlining the potential for human interstellar travel. In that regard, the General Assembly invited the Committee to develop a “PORTAL2075” Agenda and implementation plan and to provide the General Assembly with the outcome of its work for consideration by the Assembly at its one hundred and second session, in 2047.
The “PORTAL2075” Agenda and implementation plan is submitted by the Committee to the General Assembly as a forward-looking strategy for reaffirming and strengthening the contribution of space activities, settlement and space tools to the achievement of global agendas, addressing the long-term sustainability concerns of humankind. It also contributes to charting the future contribution of the Committee to the framework for the global governance of outer space activities and settlement, consistent with international law.
II. Strategic Vision
We, the States Members of the United Nations, acknowledge that the exploration and peaceful uses of outer space have enriched our collective knowledge and revolutionized life on Earth. We acknowledge the distinguished historical record of the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space and its Legal Subcommittee and Scientific and Technical Subcommittee in the establishment and further development of the international legal regime governing outer space activities.
We commit to addressing changes in the undertaking of outer space activities at a time when new technologies have emerged and when an increasing number of participants, representing both governmental agencies and non-governmental entities, including industry and the private sector, are becoming involved in ventures to explore, settle and use space and carry out space activities.
In that regard, we commit to ensuring that the Committee, its subcommittees and Working Groups, supported by the Office for Outer Space Affairs, continue, as appropriate, to respond to such changes, in their role as unique platforms for international cooperation in the peaceful uses of outer space.
III. Objectives
We, the States Members of the United Nations, commit to pursuing, based on the above strategic vision, the following objectives. The actions described under each overarching objective could be taken by Member States to realize those objectives. The four overarching objectives are structured around the four pillars of space economy, space society, space accessibility and space diplomacy. Those four pillars are complementary and mutually reinforcing.
Overarching objective 1: Establish, under the auspices of States Members of the United Nations, supported by the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA), aligned with the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space and reporting to its Scientific and Technical subcommittee a ‘Working Group on Interstellar Travel’, for the purpose of convening humankind’s foremost intellectual capabilities as applied to the questions, practice and effect of safe interstellar travel by humans.
Overarching objective 2: To oversee an international programme of research to explore and evaluate the theoretical, technical, scientific, ethical and legal options for safe human interstellar travel and to provide the General Assembly with reports thereon.
Overarching objective 3: Develop such tools, methods and protocols as would be deemed necessary to govern an international programme of human interstellar travel and, with approval from the General Assembly, to cause such systems to be tested and refined.
Overarching objective 4. [REDACTED by order of Heads of States Members of the United Nations]
PART B. Implementation Plan
Each Member State will implement the “PORTAL2075” Agenda on a voluntary basis.
I. Partnerships
II. Tools
III. Resources
IV. Review of Progress
Did they mean that kind of world-building?
Here - perhaps mercifully for the English language - the document ends. Part B, if it ever existed, is missing.
What are we to make of such a document? It’s only value, as far as The Tricky Genre Press is concerned is as a testament to the ends to which jjhudsson will go to convince himself he is writing ‘believable fiction’. No mention of the document is made in the EPUB novel, although it must surely underpin the twelve International Conferences on the Physics of Interstellar Transit (ICPIT) that feature in Part 3 of the book (Ed. see our blog on Bibliomythology for more on this).
But if you are wondering about the mysterious Objective 4, jjhudsson is keeping uncharacteristically schtoom about that. Could there be a sequel in the works?
Notes
The fictious United Nations document discussed in this blog is based on an authentic UN document:https://www.unoosa.org/res/oosadoc/data/resolutions/2021/general_assembly_76th_session/ares763_html/A_RES_76_3_E.pdf
The cover image for this blog is ‘The United Nations Office in Vienna’, by IAU CPS/M. Isidro (SKAO), CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons.
