With the support of the Colorado-based Secure World Foundation (SWF), the UNL College of Law will lead a research project with the contribution of a number of renowned worldwide international space law scholars on several key legal and institutional aspects of international responses to threats posed by Near-Earth Objects, notably the development of an international platform for proper information-sharing and decision-making. This issue is currently debated by the UN member states in the context of, in particular, the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS), and the leadership of that Committee has already expressed great interest in the outcome of the research project. The project, which will be supervised by Frans von der Dunk, Harvey and Susan Perlman Alumni / Othmer Professor of Space Law at UNL, will therefore result in a report mid-January 2010, in time to become part of the documentation in the UN COPUOS context and hence advise UN member states on the legal and institutional issues involved in their decision-making on NEO threat response. The research project is a consequence of the UNL's participation in the effort of the Association of Space Explorers' efforts to attract the attention of the world community to these problems, which had culminated in an international conference on the topic at UNL on April 23-24, 2009.
