Been wondering, if for example you committed a crime in Antartica, what would happen to you? Are you going to be deported back to your country or serve jail time in Antartica?
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They’ll do whatever they feel like. Just make s**t up.
You think they’re gonna care about some treaties from 100-200+ years ago?
“Obviously, if they didn’t. They’d be punished.” By who? 😛
It likely depends on where you are and where you’re from, but a catch-all for crimes with no specific jurisdiction would be maritime courts. A few years ago, the first crime was committed from space, and that’s exactly what’s happened. Most of our laws about space are based on what we decided with maritime law, and most of our decisions about territory control were based on Antarctica.
A friend of mine was at the Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station one summer conducting atmospheric research, and he heard that one winter many years ago a guy stationed at the station went stir crazy and tried to beat the snot out of someone else. The people there basically built a wooden stockade and locked him in it until summer came and he could be flown back home and face charges.
I have no idea if this story is true or not.
Is this a marketing post? Just a preview for “Murder at the End of the World” or something like that.
Anywhere that isn’t directly controlled by a country is considered International Waters from a legal perspective, even if it isn’t actually on water. Antarctica, the bottom of the ocean, the Moon, Mars, Pluto, a space ship traveling between galaxies, all International Waters.
Basically, if the accused and the victim are from the same country, then it’s easy, they deal with it. If the parties are from different countries then there are guidelines and procedures for choosing what country will try the accused.
I spent two summers on the ice, early October to 6 mid February. Honestly, they’re pretty good about getting people off the ice fast whet things go south. We had an electrician from Maryland with a giant rebel flag tattoo on his forearm. Now, he’s not among people who have any love for that way of thinking. He was kinda shunned a bit, but people were still polite enough. He broke. As I understand, he threw a bit of a tantrum, urinated all over his room. Yeah, he got evac’ed on the next flight that came in.
The winter after I left apparently descended into madness. There were maybe 40 people in the station, but somehow, gang violence happened. Attempted sabotage, fisticuffs, and accusations of attempted murder. It was a very bad winter. Surly September came with a vengeance. I understand that the first person off the first plane that landed was a US Marshall who took someone into custody and escorted them home. I had a couple of friends who stayed over and kept me informed of the madness. I’m so glad I decided against wintering that year.
They take conflict seriously. The one time I butted heads with someone, and it was nowhere near descending into anything more than an argument, we were at hr after lunch with her mediating hard. I tell you, accidentally make a small fuel air fireball and safety gets all bent out of shape.
I have a story about this. My friends uncle (I know him, he’s insufferable) worked as a janitor at the research facility in Antartica. One night he got really drunk, got in a bar fight, and shattered a dudes jaw. That dude had to be helicoptered to South America for surgery.
My friends uncle is infamously banned from Antartica.
People assume that if you commit a crime in some area with no jurisdiction you can get away with it because nobody is allowed to prosecute you. Nothing could be further from the the truth.
If you commit a crime in, say, Sweden the reason the Americans won’t get you is that you’re Sweden’s problem, so they don’t need to, and even if they did, Sweden won’t allow US police in to do an investigation on their territory because it’s a Swedish matter. You’re protected by the country you’re in.
If you kill someone in an unclaimed area, nobody’s protecting you. Anyone with an interest in the case can come after you if they see fit – your home country, your victim’s home country, the home country of one of the witnesses, some country with an unrecognised claim to the land, the country with the nearest base. If they want to go in and take CCTV logs from the Antarctic Base who’s going to stop them? Nobody.
Unless it’s some crime that’s not broadly recognised, nobody is going to stop them doing whatever they want to you, except if some other country want to prosecute the accused first.
They would be charged for the crime and either be court marshalled or brought to a court of the victims country …but i dont really know
Wasn’t there a hollywood movie about this hypothetical question?
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