WEBVTT - Who Investigates Deaths in Antarctica? 0:00:01.920 --> 0:00:06.480 Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of I Heart Radio, Hey 0:00:06.559 --> 0:00:11.119 brain Stuff. Lauren Vogelbaum. Here. In May of the year 0:00:11.160 --> 0:00:14.920 two thousand, Rodney Marks, an astro physicists spending the winter 0:00:14.960 --> 0:00:18.400 at the South Pole, died suddenly after an acute illness. 0:00:19.440 --> 0:00:22.919 Because no flights could land during the frigid winter, Mark's 0:00:22.920 --> 0:00:25.680 body had to be stored for months until late October 0:00:25.960 --> 0:00:29.240 and then autopsied in New Zealand, and Arctica's nearest neighbor. 0:00:30.720 --> 0:00:34.519 The mysterious death touched off an international incident. Marks was 0:00:34.560 --> 0:00:37.840 an Australian working on a US base, and the investigation 0:00:37.880 --> 0:00:41.040 into his death was being handled in New Zealand. If 0:00:41.080 --> 0:00:44.160 it turned out to be ruled a homicide, where would 0:00:44.159 --> 0:00:48.680 the case be tried. It's not a simple question. Despite 0:00:48.720 --> 0:00:53.080 being the temporary home for thousands of scientific researchers, civilian staffers, 0:00:53.120 --> 0:00:56.760 and a few hardy tourists, Antarctica is literally in no 0:00:56.880 --> 0:01:00.520 man's land. According to the nineteen sixty one and Art Treaty, 0:01:00.840 --> 0:01:04.480 the snowpacked continent belongs to no nation, which makes criminal 0:01:04.560 --> 0:01:09.120 jurisdictions a messy affair. In the United States, if you 0:01:09.160 --> 0:01:11.840 commit a crime, you're tried by either a state or 0:01:11.920 --> 0:01:14.560 federal court, depending on the type of crime and where 0:01:14.600 --> 0:01:18.479 it took place. American courts even have jurisdiction for certain 0:01:18.560 --> 0:01:22.000 crimes committed outside the nation's borders, like a murder on 0:01:22.040 --> 0:01:24.800 a ship flying the American flag or a crime at 0:01:24.800 --> 0:01:29.039 a U S military base or installation overseas. Pretty straightforward. 0:01:29.880 --> 0:01:35.080 An Arctica, though, is anything but straightforward. For the article 0:01:35.080 --> 0:01:37.199 of this episode is based on How Stuff Work. Spoke 0:01:37.240 --> 0:01:40.360 by email with Dr Alan Hemmings, an expert on Antarctic 0:01:40.400 --> 0:01:42.880 governance who spent two winters at the South Pole with 0:01:42.920 --> 0:01:46.200 the British Antarctic Survey. He explained that there are no 0:01:46.360 --> 0:01:50.960 clear legal jurisdictions in Antarctica because there are no recognized territories. 0:01:52.760 --> 0:01:57.800 Seven countries Argentina, Australia, Britain, Chile, France, New Zealand and 0:01:57.920 --> 0:02:02.680 Norway make pie shaped territorial claims on the ic waste land, 0:02:03.040 --> 0:02:06.000 and the United States and Russia exercise sovereignty at their 0:02:06.000 --> 0:02:09.880 own research stations, but none of these claims are officially 0:02:09.919 --> 0:02:12.960 recognized by the Antarctic Treaty, and a few of them 0:02:13.000 --> 0:02:17.400 even overlap. Instead, the general rule is that a crime 0:02:17.440 --> 0:02:20.200 committed by a US citizen at a US owned research 0:02:20.240 --> 0:02:24.040 facility would be prosecuted in a US court. The same 0:02:24.120 --> 0:02:26.960 goes for Russia, New Zealand, Japan, or any of the 0:02:26.960 --> 0:02:32.920 other twenty nine countries operating research stations in Antarctica. Hemmings said, 0:02:33.600 --> 0:02:36.840 But if the dead person and the alleged murderer are 0:02:36.880 --> 0:02:40.359 from different states, that is, countries and don't recognize each 0:02:40.360 --> 0:02:44.080 other's claim, and most don't. Particularly if the critical events 0:02:44.080 --> 0:02:47.359 occur away from anybody's station, say at a campsite, then 0:02:47.400 --> 0:02:53.200 it won't necessarily be clear who has jurisdiction. As far 0:02:53.240 --> 0:02:56.240 as Hemmings knows, there's never been a criminal prosecution for 0:02:56.280 --> 0:02:59.679 a murder committed on the continent. That's not to say 0:02:59.720 --> 0:03:03.600 it's free from violence and vice. The dark and frigid 0:03:03.600 --> 0:03:08.280 Antarctic winner, coupled with long stretches of isolation and cramped cohabitation, 0:03:08.760 --> 0:03:12.120 plus heavy drinking, have driven some visitors to the brink. 0:03:13.080 --> 0:03:16.160 Stories circulate of a Russian man who killed a companion 0:03:16.200 --> 0:03:19.000 over a chess game, and of a researcher sick with 0:03:19.080 --> 0:03:24.480 cabin fever who burned down his own station. Ultimately, New 0:03:24.560 --> 0:03:27.840 Zealand claimed legal jurisdiction in the Marks case, which we 0:03:27.880 --> 0:03:31.360 mentioned at the top since it had possession of his body. 0:03:31.919 --> 0:03:35.200 An investigation uncovered no clear evidence of foul play, so 0:03:35.280 --> 0:03:39.000 there were no arrests or prosecutions. The leading theory is 0:03:39.040 --> 0:03:41.320 that Marks drank a batch of bad liquor, as his 0:03:41.360 --> 0:03:46.960 autopsy showed his body contained lethal traces of methanol. Hemmings 0:03:47.000 --> 0:03:49.920 believes that in the event of a particularly heinous crime 0:03:50.000 --> 0:03:53.960 involving citizens from different countries, the parties quote will likely 0:03:54.000 --> 0:03:56.840 cooperate with each other and may very well agree that 0:03:56.880 --> 0:03:59.280 one of them takes jurisdiction or come up with some 0:03:59.360 --> 0:04:04.560 imaginative of solution. But some legal observers are concerned that 0:04:04.680 --> 0:04:08.080 goodwill and cooperation aren't enough, and that the decades old 0:04:08.080 --> 0:04:11.040 in Arctic Treaty needs to be updated before a truly 0:04:11.120 --> 0:04:15.280 messy crime happens on the ice. In a two three paper, 0:04:15.560 --> 0:04:19.359 Townsend University law professor W. Michael second Ish proposed that 0:04:19.440 --> 0:04:21.760 the twenty two nations that made up a governing Committee 0:04:21.800 --> 0:04:27.440 for an Arctic Affairs establish a unified criminal code. Second 0:04:27.520 --> 0:04:31.000 Is wrote one cannot easily determine whether an action is 0:04:31.000 --> 0:04:34.080 a criminal act because of the various countries involved and 0:04:34.240 --> 0:04:38.560 multiple basis for jurisdiction. This is an intolerable situation for 0:04:38.600 --> 0:04:42.919 a criminal defendant and violates any reasonable concept of due process. 0:04:44.760 --> 0:04:47.800 In the absence of such an international agreement, there's no 0:04:48.000 --> 0:04:50.920 saying how or where in an Arctic murderer would be 0:04:50.960 --> 0:04:55.160 called to justice. This issue may become increasingly important as 0:04:55.200 --> 0:04:58.720 more and more nations in corporations i in Arctica's rich 0:04:58.760 --> 0:05:07.880 oil reserves or future exploitation. Today's episode is based on 0:05:07.920 --> 0:05:10.520 the article Who's in charge of investigating depths? In an 0:05:10.600 --> 0:05:13.560 article on how stuff works dot Com written by Dave Rubes. 0:05:14.080 --> 0:05:16.440 Brain Stuff is production by Heart Radio in partnership with 0:05:16.440 --> 0:05:18.960 how stuff Works dot Com, and it's produced by Tyler Klang. 0:05:19.520 --> 0:05:21.800 Four more podcasts from my heart Radio visit the i 0:05:21.880 --> 0:05:24.599 heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to 0:05:24.640 --> 0:05:25.520 your favorite shows.