Using Space Technology to Monitor Global Crises: How Satellite Technology Contributes to Human Rights

By: Kevin McQueen

 Figure 1: Earth Rise: Seeing the rock we call home. Photo credit: NASA

The first manmade rocket ever launched into orbit took place on 4 October 1957. The Soviet R-7 ICBM launched the Sputnik satellite, and the Space Race between the Soviet Union and the United States. This space race heightened the fears of the Cold War and caused widespread concern on both sides of the ideological divide. While the Space Race may have begun as a competition against enemy states, it eventually evolved into a cooperative nature with the Apollo-Soyuz Test Mission that united the two powers in space. This cooperation morphed into wider international participation, culminating in the International Space Station, which is currently in orbit and unites space agencies from North and South America, Europe, and Asia. When nations pitted against one another realised that cooperative efforts would have a greater benefit in terms of technological improvement, a boom in technological advancement took place. Space programs have been responsible for such advancements as kidney dialysis, CAT and MRI scans, freeze-dried food, water purification, cordless power tools, GPS, light emitting diodes (LEDs), Tempur foam, and even the popularisation of Velcro. Perhaps the greatest technological advancement space exploration has offered though is the ability for mankind to look back down at earth and see humanity’s impact on the rock we call home. From climate science, geology, and even migratory patterns, satellites have for nearly a half-century been changing the way we see the world. It is surprising then that only recently have satellite imagery and technology been used to further the efforts of human rights activists.

This is beginning to change, however, with the proliferation of private companies launching satellites with high-resolution photography capabilities. One such initiative is the Satellite Sentinel Project, spearheaded by actor George Clooney and founded through collaboration with Not on Our Watch, The Enough Project, Google, UNOSAT, DigitalGlobe, the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, and Trellon, LLC. This project has used private commercial satellites to photograph areas of Sudan to monitor the human rights situation. The photographs have shown from above the destruction of whole villages, including the burning of 300 mostly civilian buildings in one village in Darfur, Sudan, in March 2011. These satellite images allow for evidence to be collected in areas where journalists and human rights activists are often barred. Governments that otherwise prevent access to areas where human rights violations occur cannot prevent these images from being released, thus raising the pressure the international community can exert.

Figure 2: Satellite imagery of a burned village in Darfur, March 2011. Photo credit: Satellite Sentinel Project

Satellite imagery can also be used to monitor troops on a border, protests in cities, or the effects of climate change on communities. Previously only available to national security apparatuses like militaries, the proliferation of satellite imagery can now be used by almost anyone. Jonathan Huston of Project Enough, says this “give[s] some early warning[s] to the world, and give[s] people a chance to get involved, to pressure policy-makers, to press for quick and immediate responses.” It is the hope, says Huston, that with this technology the old phrase “what if they threw a war and nobody came?” can be changed to “what if they threw a war and everybody came to stop it? That's the power of crowd-sourcing information, using public technology platforms and leading edge advocacy for waging peace."

Darfur is not the only region of the world where this technology has been used and can be valuable. With the string of anti-government protests arising in the Middle East and North Africa over the past few months, this technology can be used to monitor the size of crowds and government responses, and pressure both sides to act within international law. DigitalGlobe, the leading company in the field of private satellite image capturing, has captured images of the protests in Libya, Egypt, Yemen, and Bahrain, and distributed them widely.

 Figure 3: Protesters in Tahrir Square during the 2011 Egyptian protests. Photo credit: DigitalGlobe

The future of this technology will only get better as satellites acquire sharper resolution cameras; more NGOs adopt it; and it continues to receive exposure in mass and social media. It is especially imperative that activists in global climate change and in conflict resolution use this technology to advocate for their causes. There is a multitude of science to suggest that there is dangerous climate change taking place across the planet, but reports written for the academic community rarely use language accessible by someone without a degree in that field. A picture, however, to use the cliché, says a thousand words. The same concept applies to a report of a military mobilisation by a government attempting to quell a rebellion versus a picture of that same scenario. There is a visceral reaction to a photo that written words rarely can match, and satellite technology has unlocked the entire world for the first time. Now anyone, anywhere has access to the entire world. 

Figure 4: A picture says a thousand words: climate change showing ice cover in 2006 (left) and 2007 (right) in Alaska. Photo credit: US National Imagery Systems

The images from satellites make us rethink what we know about the world and those who live in it. Whether for climate change data, military operations, GPS navigation, satellite television, or human rights activism, satellite technology has changed the world in ways our ancestors could never have imagined. Now that space is no longer purely the domain of governments, the private sector and the non-profit sector can make alliances that allow for real progress in human rights monitoring. Can this really lead to a burgeoning change in how humans interact and treat each other? DigitalGlobe spokesperson Stephen Wood puts it this way: “the Satellite Sentinel project is designed to see events before they will happen, and to make sure that the world knows that it's watching and… do what we can as a group to try and prevent another genocide and another event like Darfur.” Space exploration has been responsible for the creation or promotion of some life-changing innovations on earth, from kidney dialysis, CAT scans and Velcro. Now we can hope that space technology leads to promoting another innovation: peace.

Kevin McQueen is a MA student in Understanding and Securing Human Rights at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London. He has a BA in History from the University of Florida. He can be contacted at kevin.mcqueen@postgrad.sas.ac.uk