No, I’m not referring to the movie by the same name. I am referring to a system of justice in the sparsely populated western territories during the days of the American Old West. Laws were in place but oft times it required a marshal or other peace officer to act independently due to the distance/time barriers especially when crossing jurisdictional lines.
Today I got an RSS feed from Space.com that headlined “Europe Lays Down the Law for New Space Lab.” Perusing the article I discovered that there are a tangle of international laws governing the International Space Station. It seems that each countries module is the sovereign territory of that country. When astronauts are in a module they are subject to the laws of the country that produced that module. However, the new module “Columbus”, created by the European Union has no such set of laws since the EU is a collection of countries with various laws. Therefore if an altercation occurs within that module the astronaut will be subject to his/her own countries law.
There are currently 16 countries involved with the space station. That’s an awful lot of laws! Given what the public saw last year with a NASA astronaut and the love triangle, it’s likely not that long before attorneys start specializing in “space law.”
You never know when an astronaut will burn himself with coffee made in a coffee pot that was produced in the Canada, brewed in the Russian module and spilled in the Japanese module from a European made “space pouch”. What a tangled mess we weave.
Share on Facebook
