Space Diplomacy and Humanitarian Intervention: the case of Ukraine and beyond

Since Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, data from a wide array of government and commercial space assets has helped the general public understand the trajectory of the war in a transformative way. For diplomats and aid workers, the growing availability of data from multispectral satellite-based imagers has helped drive diplomatic strategies to support Ukrainian sovereignty, while providing the capability to develop effective strategies to deliver aid to Ukrainian citizens in need. Furthermore, coupling these image sets with communications capacities provided by distributed satellite-based internet platforms, diplomats and aid workers have also been able to leverage space assets to devise humanitarian evacuation corridors and support regional food and water security, while remotely assessing the state of civilian critical infrastructure across the country.

There is much to be learned from the role that space assets have played in delivering humanitarian assistance for Ukraine, both to understand what more can be done to support the Ukrainian people now, while applying these space-enabled diplomatic and aid strategies to other ongoing and future global challenges.

Please join the Duke University Center for International and Global Studies (DUCIGS) Rethinking Diplomacy Program Space Diplomacy Lab for a timely event focused on the role that space technology has to support humanitarian assistance objectives globally on Friday May 20, 2022. The Space Diplomacy Lab team is delighted to welcome space security, law, and policy expert, Professor Saadia Pakkanen, the Job and Gertrud Tamaki Endowed Professor at the Jackson School of International Studies and Adjunct Professor in the School of Law, both at the University of Washington. The event will be hosted by Dr. Benjamin L. Schmitt and Dr. Giovanni Zanalda, Co-chairs of the Space Diplomacy Lab.