Niklas Hedman is Chief of Committee, Policy and Legal Affairs Section (CPLA) of the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA).
Mr. Hedman serves as Secretary of the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) and its Scientific and Technical Subcommittee and Legal Subcommittee. He is Secretary of the United Nations Inter-Agency Meeting on Outer Space Activities (UN-Space), which is the central coordination mechanism for space related activities in the United Nations system. He is responsible for the Office’s capacity-building programme in space law and policy.
Before joining the United Nations in 2006, he worked in the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs, particularly in the areas of ocean affairs and law of the sea; space law and space policy; as well as disarmament and non-proliferation, including PAROS and The Hague Code of Conduct Against Ballistic Missile Proliferation (HCOC). He represented Sweden to COPUOS for 10 years and held various positions, including Chair of the UNISPACE III+5 report A/59/174. He represented Sweden to the final rounds of negotiations on the International Space Station Intergovernmental Agreement (ISS-IGA) and was chief negotiator to the governmental framework agreement on space cooperation between Sweden and the United States of America.
He is a member of the International Space Law Committee of the International Law Association (ILA), International Academy of Astronautics (IAA), and International Institute of Space Law (IISL). He received IISL Distinguished Service Award in 2017. He serves as Vice-Chair of the COSPAR Planetary Protection Panel.