Say a person managed to build their own spacecraft, took off from earth with a passenger and flew to the moon, or Mars, wherever. They go for a spacewalk on the surface, have a falling out, and in the heat of the moment one kills the other. Has a “crime” been committed? Does anyone have any legal jurisdiction in space?

You’ll be shocked to learn that the lawyers are way ahead of you and the crimes would be tried by the ICC

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_jurisdiction

Hmm… What about a child born in space, grows up in space then kills someone in space? Surely your earth courts can’t try them?

Can you tell I have work to do and I’m procrastinating?

They would be alienated by society.

this is entirely hypothetical as there are no statutes relating to crime in space and no one has jurisdiction over space. Countries have it over their spaceships and their agreed rules over what we will put there.

International treaty prevents any country owning the moon. I am not sure if there is one for Mars.

I will go for in your state lex talionis applying if only to give you something to google 😉

Luthor, …..

Lex Luthor

🙄

Junkyard – lazarus
this is entirely hypothetical as there are no statutes relating to crime in space and no one has jurisdiction over space. Countries have it over their spaceships and their agreed rules over what we will put there.

International treaty prevents any country owning the moon. I am not sure if there is one for Mars.

I will go for in your state lex talionis applying if only to give you something to google
While this is fine in principle, what’s stopping someone from doing a ‘land-grab’ and claiming whatever moon, planet, whatever for themselves and setting up colonies? Nobody’s going to send in the gunboats…
Should someone establish a viable colony, which then develops the tech for asteroid mining with all the valuable materials available out there, and which colony then decides, ‘sod it, hello Earth, here’s our UDI, and there’s nothing you can do about it’, what would any court, international or otherwise, be able to do, stuck, as they are, at the bottom of a gravity well.
There are many SF stories about colonies going independent in space, and the issues involved, not least of which is the ready availability of many millions of large rocks that would do a staggering amount of damage lobbed back down the well…

“this is entirely hypothetical as there are no statutes relating to crime in space and no one has jurisdiction over space. “

that’s not true. plenty of countries have laws with extraterritorial jurisdiction.

edit: well, actually, I suppose it absolutely is hypothetical because it’s a hypothetical person. but a person could be prosecuted on earth for their conduct in space. It depends who they are and what they did.

Sean would get ye

On earth, if I commit a crime outside of my home state, I would be prosecuted in the place I commit the crime. (I’m aware that’s not always true with some US tax laws, there are probably other exceptions). So in theory I would be bound by UK law in space but not in France?

Can international law supersede national law? If a country made murder legal could someone still be prosecuted for it?

Must get back to work…

Based on that film poster, is Sean actually George Clooney’s dad?

“Jupiter’s moon”

Well that’s an ambiguous statement if ever there was one. I quite fancy my chances in 1/67 odds…

CountZero – Member

what’s stopping someone from doing a ‘land-grab’ and claiming whatever moon, planet, whatever for themselves and setting up colonies?

The incredible difficulty and fragility of space colonisation mostly- if you set up a moonbase, anyone else can drop a rock on it from orbit and spoil your day. And lunar days are long, so that’s a lot of spoiled day.

Presumably it’d be tge same as committing the crime on a boat in international waters?

anyone else can drop a rock on it from orbit and spoil your day.

Well sort of… but one thing we’ve learned lately is that landing on one of those rocks is a long winded and difficult process. changing the course to accurately target a moon base would likely be equally hard.

Much easier to just ditch a rocket into it.

Landing accurately is hard. But dropping something from a great height, not so much. Especially if you’re trying to destroy something that’s already probably marginal on integrity etc- bursting an airtight dome or cave wouldn’t take a direct hit.

Course, once you start getting into this sort of thing, the winner is whoever’s on top of the gravity well… So the solution isn’t to set up a pirate moonbase, it’s to set up a legit one then turn pirate and “throw rice”

Hmm, may have just given away the plan

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraterritorial_jurisdiction_in_Irish_law

If a country made murder legal could someone still be prosecuted for it?

potentially – if either the murderer or the victim was covered by some other country’s extraterritorial jurisdiction. if you an Irish citizen who murdered a French citizen, you could be tried under either Irish or French law (I think).

it’s especially important for prosecuting child sex tourism and foreign bribery offences where the country in which the offence happened is unlikely to prosecute offenders. luckily there are no children or foreign public officials on the moon yet.

Anyone else remember the ’80s BBC show Star Cops?

Here with a guest appearance by Anne Robinson:

International treaty prevents any country owning the moon

You can buy some here:

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well, actually, I suppose it absolutely is hypothetical because it’s a hypothetical person. but a person could be prosecuted on earth for their conduct in space. It depends who they are and what they did.

But what would happen if you comitted a crime in space but then didn’t come back to earth? I can’t imagine them sending a police rocket up to come and fetch you.

Sounds like the perfect crime!

what happens if some super advanced alien being in a super advance craft comes along and squidges a space craft with people in it and they use the defence of “well you squish flies on you car windscreen and they dont put you on trial”

Trying nonhumans has fallen out of fashion since the middle areas. You might be able to run a technical defence and get them off.

“Jupiter’s moon”

Well that’s an ambiguous statement if ever there was one. I quite fancy my chances in 1/67 odds…

I believe they’ve recruited a number of PCSO’s to help him now since they found the other 66.

I like outland, even have the novel somewhere

what happens if aliens stated above, were us but from the future and evolutionirised into super higher beings?

what happens if some super advanced alien being in a super advance craft comes along and squidges a space craft with people in it and they use the defence of “well you squish flies on you car windscreen and they dont put you on trial”

I think it’d come down to whether we had the capability to enforce a sentence on them or not. If we didn’t then yes, to them, we’re flies. If not then they were wrong and could/should/would be punished.

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMrZrAWFnes[/video]

Read ’Gradisil’ by Adam Roberts – that’ll explain everything.