Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of iHeart Radio. Hey brain Stuff,
Speaker 1: Lauren vog Obam here. Maybe it will be a jealous
Speaker 1: astronaut who decides to eliminate a rival in an orbital
Speaker 1: love triangle. Or maybe being cooped up in a spacecraft
Speaker 1: on an interplanetary flight will cause one crew member to
Speaker 1: finally lose it at a colleague's annoying throat clearing. Or
Speaker 1: maybe it will be a killing made to look like
Speaker 1: an accident for some kind of nefarious space plot. But
Speaker 1: sooner or later it seems likely to happen. Given humans
Speaker 1: propensity for committing homicidal violence against one another all over
Speaker 1: the world, somebody is going to commit a murder in
Speaker 1: space or on another planet or moon, And when it happens,
Speaker 1: authorities will have to figure out how to catch the
Speaker 1: perpetrator and restore justice. But it's not going to be easy.
Speaker 1: Investigating a murder in space would be vastly more complicated
Speaker 1: and difficult than probing a crime on Earth, and law
Speaker 1: enforcement agencies and words may have to deal with tricky
Speaker 1: jurisdictional issues that end up requiring negotiations among spacefaring companies,
Speaker 1: and until the laws are rewritten, judges will have to
Speaker 1: take statutes and legal standards that were developed to deal
Speaker 1: with murder allegations on Earth and figure out how to
Speaker 1: apply them to accusations of lethal violence in space. You
Speaker 1: might be surprised to learn that nations already have legal
Speaker 1: jurisdiction that stretches outside the confines of this planet. That's
Speaker 1: covered an Article eight of the nineteen sixty seven Treaty
Speaker 1: on Principles Governing the Activities of States and the Exploration
Speaker 1: and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and other
Speaker 1: celestial bodies. It specifies that whenever one of the nations
Speaker 1: that's a party to the Treaty launches an object the spacecraft, satellite,
Speaker 1: or space station into space, or builds one on a
Speaker 1: celestial body, that nation retains jurisdiction and control over it. Thus,
Speaker 1: according to legal experts, if a U S astronaut is
Speaker 1: accused of killing another American while try raveling in a
Speaker 1: NASA spacecraft or on a commercial space vehicle launched from
Speaker 1: the United States, the FBI and federal prosecutors would be
Speaker 1: within their authority to arrest the alleged killer and bring
Speaker 1: them back to Earth for trial in federal court. Things
Speaker 1: might get a little more complicated if the murder occurs
Speaker 1: on the International Space Station and the alleged killer and
Speaker 1: victim are citizens of different countries. But yes, there are
Speaker 1: experts in this. We spoke via email with Franz G.
Speaker 1: Von der Dunk, the male professor of space law at
Speaker 1: the University of Nebraska Lincoln's College of Law. They said
Speaker 1: Article twenty two of the intergovernmental agreement concluded between the
Speaker 1: parties deviates from the aforementioned international treaty clauses and by
Speaker 1: contract concedes jurisdiction to the state of nationality of the offender.
Speaker 1: But there's a caveat quote, if the life or safety
Speaker 1: of persons with other nationalities and or the safety of
Speaker 1: the space station is at stake, consultation should take place
Speaker 1: with these other countries concerned on which country should actually
Speaker 1: initiate prosecution, which may result in the country of nationality
Speaker 1: of the victim doing that. But this only covers the
Speaker 1: International Space Station or I s S. Things could get
Speaker 1: even more complicated jurisdictionally if there's a killing on a
Speaker 1: future private sector orbital hotel, the sort of place where
Speaker 1: this is probably more likely to occur. We also spoke
Speaker 1: via email with Michelle Hanlon associate director of the Air
Speaker 1: and Space Law Program at the University of Mississippi School
Speaker 1: of Law. She said, if you have four hundred civilians
Speaker 1: in space, you know crime inevitably is going to happen.
Speaker 1: We send the most disciplined and fit people, the best
Speaker 1: of humanity to the i s s. With a hotel,
Speaker 1: you're not going to be able to impose the same
Speaker 1: standards you need to make money. You're going to get
Speaker 1: a lot greater variety of people, and you know there
Speaker 1: is going to be crime, possibly from stealing a watch
Speaker 1: all the way to murder. Who actually qualifies as the
Speaker 1: hotel's launching state with jurisdaytion under the nineteen sixty seven
Speaker 1: treaty could be murky too. It could be Nation A,
Speaker 1: which is home to the company that operates the hotel,
Speaker 1: or it could be Nation B, where the installations components
Speaker 1: were manufactured, or Nation C, where the launch pad for
Speaker 1: the rocket that transported the parts into space was located,
Speaker 1: or Nation D, home to the company that rented the
Speaker 1: launch pad. Hamlin said, arguably any of these states could
Speaker 1: have jurisdiction as a result. Crimes in space, particularly incidents
Speaker 1: involving nationals from different countries most likely would lead to
Speaker 1: diplomatic negotiations to see who gets to take charge and
Speaker 1: what if an astronaut on a spacewalk decides to, say,
Speaker 1: cut another astronaut's tether, who would have jurisdiction then, since
Speaker 1: the act would have occurred outside of an object controlled
Speaker 1: by a nation. We also spoke via email with Henry R. Hertzfeld,
Speaker 1: a research professor and director of the Space Policy Institute
Speaker 1: at George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs. He said,
Speaker 1: although there is no sovereignty outside spacecraft, there are analogies
Speaker 1: to the law on ships and international waters, and also
Speaker 1: to issues that might occur in Antarctica. Of both places
Speaker 1: with no national sovereignty, any person in space has a
Speaker 1: national citizenship is the responsibility of the launching state or
Speaker 1: the person state of citizenship for their activities in space,
Speaker 1: and would be tried for a violation of the law
Speaker 1: in the appropriate state. But let's assume that the US
Speaker 1: takes jurisdiction over a space murder. Investigating the crime and
Speaker 1: building a case is going to be tricky considering that
Speaker 1: the crime scene and potential witnesses are outside the Earth.
Speaker 1: Hamlin said, you might have to add a whole new
Speaker 1: profession space cop. There's going to be a tremendous cost
Speaker 1: to send someone into space just to investigate a murder,
Speaker 1: and gathering evidence in space or on another planet or
Speaker 1: moon might be especially difficult. DNA, which is increasingly a
Speaker 1: key means of identifying perpetrators, would age differently on Mars
Speaker 1: than on Earth because of the increased exposure to solar
Speaker 1: radiation due to the red planets that are atmosphere. Additionally,
Speaker 1: lower gravity would lead to such things as different splatter
Speaker 1: patterns from stab wounds. On the plus side, the ubiquitous
Speaker 1: Martian dust clinging to the exteriors of space suits and
Speaker 1: other surfaces might provide a valuable new sort of evidence
Speaker 1: handling figures that investigators and prosecutors will find a way
Speaker 1: to deal with it. She said. Our law developed four
Speaker 1: fingerprints in DNA. When you prosecute a criminal case, you
Speaker 1: do what you can with what you're given. Space murderer
Speaker 1: may also require the courts to grapple with Fourth Amendment issues.
Speaker 1: Since astronauts are continually being monitored in myriad ways, including
Speaker 1: on video. Hanlon said there's a value to having cameras
Speaker 1: in every room of a spacecraft, but do you have
Speaker 1: an expectation of privacy? She expects that many of these
Speaker 1: questions will be resolved by wise judges and lawyers, but
Speaker 1: should also like to see spacefaring communities come together and
Speaker 1: work out a new international agreement on how to collaborate
Speaker 1: on handling future crimes in space. She said, what we
Speaker 1: don't want is an international space regime that has very
Speaker 1: different concepts from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Hopefully we can explore
Speaker 1: space together as a species and have common understandings. Today's
Speaker 1: episode was written by Patrick J. Kaiger and produced by
Speaker 1: Tyler Clang. Brain Stuff is production of I Heart Radio's
Speaker 1: How Stuff Works. For more and this and lots of
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