So if a Canadian national were to commit a crime in space, they would be subject to Canadian law, and a Russian citizen to Russian law.
Space law also sets out provisions for extradition back on Earth, should a nation decide it wishes to prosecute a citizen of another nation for misconduct in space.
I is weird. I expected something like the laws for international waters, i.e. the flag of the ship determines the jurisdiction.
In case someone in the (former) Space Shuttle kills another person on purpose, I expect USA to prosecute him/her in spite the nationality of the murderer.
Perhaps there are special rules in the ISS because each module is from a different country??? (What happens if someone shots from the Russian module, the bullet goes to the European module and it kills someone in the American module?)
> Let us suppose that an astronaut located in the module of State B shoots a weapon and injures another astronaut located in the module of State C: On which territory did the offense actually take place? In order to eliminate all these practical problems, the territoriality principle was again excluded, and instead the active nationality principle was adopted as the basic rule for criminal matters on the ISS.
The "active nationality principle", which is part of the space station agreement, the treaty governing the station, states that jurisdiction belongs to the state of which the perpetrator is a citizen. There is also a secondary "passive nationality principle" which applies if the perpetrator's state doesn't prosecute them, and allows the state of the victim, or which owns any property which was damaged, to take jurisidiction.
> What happens if someone shots from the Russian module, the bullet goes to the European module and it kills someone in the American module?
In this case, at least per the article, it'd just be prosecuted under the suspect's nation's laws.
If space law were modeled off international waters law, though, then I'd imagine any case law pertaining to crimes involving multiple ships of different nationalities (e.g. an American ship, a European ship, and a Russian ship are bridged together to exchange supplies, and someone shoots from the Russian ship, bounces the bullet off the European ship, and the bullet hits and kills someone on the American ship) would apply here.
I would not be surprised at all if ISS is governed by a specific treaty involving the member nations, which may or may not supercede or be different than whatever would be 'defacto law' in some other hypothetical situation
Seems even childish. Do the Earth nations really expect to have that kind of leverage against potentially hundreds or thousands of spaceships of some mining corporation?
I have a feeling they got that leverage because these vessels are still on Earth, and the corporations are still bound by earthly limits. Space is a whole different game.
Jeeze HN, why the downvotes? I give you Article VIII of the Outer Space Treaty of 1967:
> A State Party to the Treaty on whose registry an object launched into outer space is carried shall retain jurisdiction and control over such object, and over any personnel thereof, while in outer space or on a celestial body.
The American module group, where this alleged crime probably took place (as US astronauts use the laptops in their own area), is governed under the USA's laws.
But the nexus of the crime involves a US person, so the US has the authority to investigate independent of what or where or who allegedly was involved.
