Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of I Heart Radio, Hey
Speaker 1: brain Stuff. Lauren Vogelbaum. Here. In May of the year
Speaker 1: two thousand, Rodney Marks, an astro physicists spending the winter
Speaker 1: at the South Pole, died suddenly after an acute illness.
Speaker 1: Because no flights could land during the frigid winter, Mark's
Speaker 1: body had to be stored for months until late October
Speaker 1: and then autopsied in New Zealand, and Arctica's nearest neighbor.
Speaker 1: The mysterious death touched off an international incident. Marks was
Speaker 1: an Australian working on a US base, and the investigation
Speaker 1: into his death was being handled in New Zealand. If
Speaker 1: it turned out to be ruled a homicide, where would
Speaker 1: the case be tried. It's not a simple question. Despite
Speaker 1: being the temporary home for thousands of scientific researchers, civilian staffers,
Speaker 1: and a few hardy tourists, Antarctica is literally in no
Speaker 1: man's land. According to the nineteen sixty one and Art Treaty,
Speaker 1: the snowpacked continent belongs to no nation, which makes criminal
Speaker 1: jurisdictions a messy affair. In the United States, if you
Speaker 1: commit a crime, you're tried by either a state or
Speaker 1: federal court, depending on the type of crime and where
Speaker 1: it took place. American courts even have jurisdiction for certain
Speaker 1: crimes committed outside the nation's borders, like a murder on
Speaker 1: a ship flying the American flag or a crime at
Speaker 1: a U S military base or installation overseas. Pretty straightforward.
Speaker 1: An Arctica, though, is anything but straightforward. For the article
Speaker 1: of this episode is based on How Stuff Work. Spoke
Speaker 1: by email with Dr Alan Hemmings, an expert on Antarctic
Speaker 1: governance who spent two winters at the South Pole with
Speaker 1: the British Antarctic Survey. He explained that there are no
Speaker 1: clear legal jurisdictions in Antarctica because there are no recognized territories.
Speaker 1: Seven countries Argentina, Australia, Britain, Chile, France, New Zealand and
Speaker 1: Norway make pie shaped territorial claims on the ic waste land,
Speaker 1: and the United States and Russia exercise sovereignty at their
Speaker 1: own research stations, but none of these claims are officially
Speaker 1: recognized by the Antarctic Treaty, and a few of them
Speaker 1: even overlap. Instead, the general rule is that a crime
Speaker 1: committed by a US citizen at a US owned research
Speaker 1: facility would be prosecuted in a US court. The same
Speaker 1: goes for Russia, New Zealand, Japan, or any of the
Speaker 1: other twenty nine countries operating research stations in Antarctica. Hemmings said,
Speaker 1: But if the dead person and the alleged murderer are
Speaker 1: from different states, that is, countries and don't recognize each
Speaker 1: other's claim, and most don't. Particularly if the critical events
Speaker 1: occur away from anybody's station, say at a campsite, then
Speaker 1: it won't necessarily be clear who has jurisdiction. As far
Speaker 1: as Hemmings knows, there's never been a criminal prosecution for
Speaker 1: a murder committed on the continent. That's not to say
Speaker 1: it's free from violence and vice. The dark and frigid
Speaker 1: Antarctic winner, coupled with long stretches of isolation and cramped cohabitation,
Speaker 1: plus heavy drinking, have driven some visitors to the brink.
Speaker 1: Stories circulate of a Russian man who killed a companion
Speaker 1: over a chess game, and of a researcher sick with
Speaker 1: cabin fever who burned down his own station. Ultimately, New
Speaker 1: Zealand claimed legal jurisdiction in the Marks case, which we
Speaker 1: mentioned at the top since it had possession of his body.
Speaker 1: An investigation uncovered no clear evidence of foul play, so
Speaker 1: there were no arrests or prosecutions. The leading theory is
Speaker 1: that Marks drank a batch of bad liquor, as his
Speaker 1: autopsy showed his body contained lethal traces of methanol. Hemmings
Speaker 1: believes that in the event of a particularly heinous crime
Speaker 1: involving citizens from different countries, the parties quote will likely
Speaker 1: cooperate with each other and may very well agree that
Speaker 1: one of them takes jurisdiction or come up with some
Speaker 1: imaginative of solution. But some legal observers are concerned that
Speaker 1: goodwill and cooperation aren't enough, and that the decades old
Speaker 1: in Arctic Treaty needs to be updated before a truly
Speaker 1: messy crime happens on the ice. In a two three paper,
Speaker 1: Townsend University law professor W. Michael second Ish proposed that
Speaker 1: the twenty two nations that made up a governing Committee
Speaker 1: for an Arctic Affairs establish a unified criminal code. Second
Speaker 1: Is wrote one cannot easily determine whether an action is
Speaker 1: a criminal act because of the various countries involved and
Speaker 1: multiple basis for jurisdiction. This is an intolerable situation for
Speaker 1: a criminal defendant and violates any reasonable concept of due process.
Speaker 1: In the absence of such an international agreement, there's no
Speaker 1: saying how or where in an Arctic murderer would be
Speaker 1: called to justice. This issue may become increasingly important as
Speaker 1: more and more nations in corporations i in Arctica's rich
Speaker 1: oil reserves or future exploitation. Today's episode is based on
Speaker 1: the article Who's in charge of investigating depths? In an
Speaker 1: article on how stuff works dot Com written by Dave Rubes.
Speaker 1: Brain Stuff is production by Heart Radio in partnership with
Speaker 1: how stuff Works dot Com, and it's produced by Tyler Klang.
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