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Whose Laws Apply On the ISS?
Hugh Pickens writes "Whose laws apply if astronauts from different countries get into a fight, make a patentable discovery, or damage equipment belonging to another country while on the International Space Station? According to the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, ratified by 98 nations, states have legal jurisdiction within spacecraft registered to them. When the space station was assembled from modules supplied by the United States, Russia, Japan and the European Space Agency (ESA), partners rejected an initial proposal that US law should prevail throughout the space station. "It was agreed that each state registers its own separate elements, which means that you now have a piece of the US annexed to a piece of Europe annexed to a piece of Japan in outer space, legally speaking," said Dr Frans von der Dunk of the International Institute of Air and Space Law at the University of Leiden. So what happens if a crime is committed in space? "If somebody performs an activity which may be considered criminal, it is in the first instance his own country which is able to exercise jurisdiction," Dr. von der Dunk added."
The vast majority of the cost that goes into the space station is American. Launching the large components, doing the risky spacewalks, delivering personnel. Other countries build some of the components (science labs), and Russia provides supplies the station as well as delivers personnel. The risk and investment in the station though has primarily fallen to the American's. American law should be defacto onboard the station. However, with patentable materials, the organizations responsible for the research of the patent maintain patent rights, so this could include multiple governments. The American government fronts somewhere along the lines of 2/3 to 3/4 the cost of the station, so I think it makes sense that American law should be the precedent to go by.