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Following the Third United Nations Conference on the Exploration and
Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (UNISPACE III), held in 1999, in its resolution
54/68, the United Nations General Assembly endorsed the "Vienna Declaration:
Space Millennium for Human Development". The Vienna Declaration called for
action, among other matters, to improve the efficiency and security of transport,
search and rescue, geodesy and other activities by promoting the enhancement of,
universal access to and compatibility of, space-based navigation and positioning
systems. In response to that call, in 2001 the United Nations Committee on the
Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) established the Action Team on Global
Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) to carry out those actions under the
chairmanship of Italy and the United States of America. The Action Team on
GNSS, consisting of 38 member States and 15 inter-governmental and
nongovernmental organizations, recommended, among other things, that an
International Committee on GNSS (ICG) should be established to promote the use
of GNSS infrastructure on a global basis and to facilitate exchange of information.