SPLAWG

Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson recently noted that “space is not a ‘benign’ environment to support  warfighters, but a domain of warfighting in of itself.” The inhabitants of Alderaan and the Hosnian system found out how right she was. While destroying a planet is horrendous, to be sure, the exact context merits consideration when discussing the legal implications. There are some arguments that destroying planets is in harmony with the Outer Space Treaty . As Secretary Wilson stated, space is a domain of warfighting. Let’s consider what happens in war. Alderaan: Planet of Peace . . . or War? Alderaan is well known as a peaceful planet. Shortly before its destruction, Princess Leia plead that they had no weapons . But it was also home to two Senator who were key members of the rebellion - Bail and Leia Organa. In the events leading up to the Rebellion’s stealing of the Death Star plans, Bail Organa stated “Yes I agree, I must return to Alderaan to inform my peo...

That’s right, this little mastermind is going to the slammer. The only real question here isn’t about guilt, but punishment. So let’s get right to it. Ender’s entire life had been devoted to killing the buggers. Ender had the actus reus. Firing the particle demoleculorizer thing was voluntary and intentional – he reasoned through it. He had the correct mens rea, he fired the it with the intention and for the purpose of destroying the bugger’s planet. “But wait,” you’re probably thinking, “Ender didn’t know it was real life! He can’t be held responsible for annihilating an entire species of intelligent beings when he thought it was just a simulation.” Thinking real life is a videogame is a mistake of fact – not a valid excuse When it comes to mistakes, only mistakes of law (and sometimes hybrid mistakes – but those don’t make sense, so we’re not going to talk about them) are valid. The best example of this is SpongeBob. I’m sure you’re familiar with the Free Ballo...

Today we discuss Space Crime #9, which examines the actions of one Dr. Mann in the film Interstellar — by actions, I mean pretty much everything he does in the movie. Anyone who’s seen it knows that Mann messed up (pun intended). So, logically the next question is just what would happen if Mann, or rather his estate (*spoiler alert* he dies), were taken to court. (Read the full list of the galaxy’s greatest space crimes here .) To begin: He falsified the data about his “habitable” planet He tried to kill his fellow space travelers and actually succeeded with one of them And he damaged their ship the Endurance in his suicidal attempt to manually dock their other ship To make sure that he gets his day in court we need to figure out (1) where a case could be brought and (2) what the claims would be. Proper Forum The first question we have got to address is where this case can be brought. Article VIII of the United Nations Outer Space Treaty states, a ...