The Code of Conduct for International Space Station Crews

When reading the Code, one
may be surprised by the number
and scope of the various sets
of regulations that will apply

specifically to ISS crew, bearing in mind that a
number of provisions of the IGA and MOUs are
also directly relevant to astronaut activities. In
addition to the Code itself and the related
disciplinary policy, a crew member is subject to
the provisions of the ISS Flight Rules and the
other requirements imposed by the Cooperating
Agency providing him or her, those relating to
the Earth to Orbit Vehicle (ETOV) being used for
the mission, those defined by the various ISS
cooperation bodies listed in Article 11 of the
MOUs dealing with various aspects of astronaut
matters and, finally, to the requirements
contained in the rules of the various institutions
hosting the training. It is therefore normal that
the Code specifies that the ISS crew member
has a right to know about these requirements,
and that he or she will be educated as to the
applicable rules by the Cooperating Agency
providing him or her, through the crew training
curriculum and normal programme operations.

The disciplinary policy for ISS crew has been
developed by the Multilateral Crew Operations
Panel (MCOP), a cooperative body established
through Article 11 of the MOUs, and approved
at the above-mentioned MCB meeting of
15 September 2000. This policy will be further
expanded through detailed documentation
being established on the various steps it
outlines. It covers matters on which the MCOP
will exercise a central role, such as the
procedure required for submitting a statement
asserting violation of a prescription of the Code
by a crew member, examining and making
determination on this statement, the manner in

which a decision may be revised, and the type
of disciplinary measures that could be imposed
depending on whether the violation occurred
on Earth or during flight, etc. The interest of this
disciplinary policy lies in the implicit recognition
by the Cooperating Agencies that their
astronauts’ behaviour may be subject to a
process that is administered not only on the
basis of their own personnel policy, but also of
rules developed by the ISS partnership.

The prescriptions of the Code apply to an ISS
crew member from the time he or she is assigned
to a specific ISS expedition until completion of
post-flight activities. Some of the provisions, for
example those outlining the responsibilities of
the Commander on board the ISS, are
obviously not relevant to the activities of the
astronaut while on the ground, training for the
flight, or conducting activities on return from the
ISS, although the Commander at these stages
is still ‘directing the activities of the ISS Crew
Members as a single integrated team to ensure
the successful completion of the mission’. As
mentioned above, the requirements outlined in
regulations pertaining to the space vehicle used
by the crew member must also be observed.
The Code applies to visiting crew members
who will be staying on the ISS for only a few
days: the basic idea is that, while on board for
a visit or a full stay, all crew members are
covered by the same legal prescriptions and
are subject to the authority of the ISS
Commander.

The Code stipulates that a crew member must
refrain from any use of that status motivated by
private gain. This requirement is not limited in
time, but it is understood that each Agency will
have to deal with the conditions applicable to
post-employment activities of astronauts and
determine what is acceptable in terms of
compensation, in the form of bonuses, special
remuneration for non-government agents, etc.
Making a distinction between personal effects
and mementos that could be carried on board
by the crew members, the Agencies agreed
that constraints of manifest, safety and stowage
allocation were already sufficient and that there
was no need for the Code to spell out the
discretion exercisable by an Agency in this
regard.

One of the Agencies was adamant that ‘zero
tolerance’ must be enforced in or on the ISS for
interpersonal or group harassment, as an express
provision of the Code. The discussion showed
the difficulty of harmonising the Partners’
respective legal concepts of harassment in a
multi-national environment. In order to accom-modate
the multiplicity of views, it was decided
to repeat in the general rules of conduct for
the crew member outlined in Section II of the
Code, a sentence originally drafted for the
next section pertaining to the Commander’s
responsibilities. This sentence calls for the need
to ‘maintain a harmonious and cohesive
relationship among the crew and assure an
appropriate level of mutual confidence and
respect’. In other words, the Agencies recognised
that such language would make the application
of sanctions possible in a case where the
MCOP determined that harassment had taken
place.

An issue discussed during the negotiations was
whether or not the authority of the ISS
Commander should extend to payloads. One
argument advanced was that such an
extension could jeopardise the understanding,
apparently reached bilaterally between NASA
and the RSA and reported in the press a
number of years ago, according to which any
crew member, whether an American or Russian
national, could be designated to be an ISS
Commander. One Agency contended that if
NASA considered that specific payloads would
be particularly sensitive during a mission, NASA
could object to the designation of a non-American
ISS Commander. This matter was settled by
the addition of an explicit interpretative sentence
stating that nothing in the relevant
section of the Code would affect the
designation by the MCOP of an
individual of any Partner State to be
an ISS Commander. This addition has
the double advantage of the first
recognition in writing at such a high
level of the ‘rotation’ principle (i.e. a
national of any Partner State) for
designation of the Commander and
the fact that no national of a non-Partner
State can become ISS
Commander.

In this connection, the discussion
developed further because of the
insistence of one Agency that the
authority of the ISS Commander over
the payloads must be put in the
appropriate framework, i.e. strictly in
relation with the Commander’s
responsibility to preserve the safety of
the crew and the ISS. The Agency in question
wanted to make sure in the drafting
of the Code that the authority of the ISS
Commander over payloads would not extend
to the right of disposal, for whatever reason,
over the other Partners’ elements and equipment.
This could lead, admittedly in the worst-case
scenario, to a situation in which the ISS
Commander orders the destruction of payloads
that would not be in the commercial interest of
its own cooperating Agency. It was stressed
strongly that such a far-fetched scenario could
simply not be envisaged under the IGA, the
MOUs and the Code.

Two of the Partners argued strongly against any
explicit reference in the Code to the possibility
of the ISS Commander making some ‘use of
force’, contending that the reference to the
right of the ISS Commander to use ‘reasonable
and necessary means’ to discharge his or her
responsibilities was sufficient. One of the other

Agencies expressed a concern that not
mentioning ‘use of force’ in the Code would
preclude the use of force or physical restraint of
any kind in or on the ISS in the future. After a
long discussion, it was agreed that the minutes
of the MCB meeting dedicated to Code
approval would contain the following inter-pretative
statement: ‘In cases where necessary
to ensure the immediate safety of the Crew
Members of the ISS, reasonable and necessary
means may include the use by the ISS
Commander of proportional physical force or
restraint’. It is the Cooperating Agencies’
understanding that force may be used only
when immediate safety is jeopardised and after
exhaustion of other possibilities. It should be
noted that it was not considered necessary to
make any explicit reference to the possibility
that any crew member other than the ISS
Commander may need to use force against
another.

Tackling the issue of ‘Physical and Information
Security Guidelines’ in Section V of the Code,
the Agencies examined the need to protect
data generated by activities conducted in or on
the ISS when such data could be considered to
be ‘proprietary’ or ‘export-controlled’. Because
protection of the corresponding data pursuant
to Article 19 of the IGA is linked to the
fact that they are marked with an
appropriate notice or otherwise
identified, the discussion focussed on
the need to mark or otherwise identify
the new data as soon as they are
generated through the conduct of
experiments on board the ISS. Through
these provisions, the Agencies have
excluded data that do not require
protection for reasons other than those
stated above, thus leaving the
astronauts with a significant amount of
data – even those not generally
available to persons outside the ISS
programme – to be exploited without
particular restriction, for example for
the purpose of writing articles or
books.

The Agencies agreed that it is up to the
Cooperating Agencies or the data
owner or provider to give instructions
for the marking of data generated on board the
Station, because leaving this matter to the
discretion of the astronauts themselves would
impose an undue burden on them. As for the
duration of the protection conferred to the data
by the marking, which entails an obligation to
seek permission from the owner before
divulging data to a third party, the point was

made that this protection was a ‘continuing
obligation’ that would apply in certain instances
even after an astronaut had ceased to be
subject to the Code. Finally, because of these
new rules in the Code, the Partners were for all
practical purposes extending the marking
obligation outlined in Article 19 of the IGA to
data that were not necessarily to be exported
or otherwise transferred to another Cooperating
Agency. Such an extension of the original
obligation, which could be justified by the
‘safety of information’ clause contained in
paragraph 8 of Article 19, was necessary
because of the presence of crew members of
more than one Partner on board the ISS.

The Agencies have been interested by the
steps to be taken on a solid legal basis in order
to persuade astronauts to abide by the rules
outlined in the Code, albeit on a voluntary
basis, as part of additional terms and
conditions enabling them to pursue astronaut
activities as employees of a Cooperating
Agency. These steps are necessary to eliminate
doubt as to the right of an Agency to require an
astronaut to abide by these rules when
assigned to an ISS expedition, or possibly face
the prescribed sanction in case of violation of
them.

A question considered by the European Partner
States was whether there was a need for some
government-level involvement in the finalisation
of the Code because of the nature of the issues
it covered, bearing in mind that the IGA
stipulates that each State retains jurisdiction
and control over personnel who are its
nationals. They concluded that the matters

dealt with in the Code were within the scope of
the powers delegated by the IGA to the
Cooperating Agency of the European Partner,
and that ESA could therefore take the
appropriate measures, including through the
Agency’s delegate bodies. Also, because the
European astronauts are all members of the
European Astronaut Corps and, as such, ESA
staff members, the ESA Staff Regulations were
deemed applicable in the circumstances.

A second question was whether there would
be a need for some ratification-type procedure
at government level in any of the European
Partner States to confirm that the Code was
‘accepted’ by the European Partner as
prescribed in Article 11 of the IGA. Finally, it
was decided that
explicit acceptance of
the Code by the
European Partner will
be made in a letter
addressed to the ESA
Director General by the
competent authorities
of each European
Partner State, thus
enabling the Director
General to confirm
acceptance of the
Code on behalf of the
European Partners as a
whole. Before writing
their letter of acceptance, the government
representatives, generally the legal service of
the Foreign Ministry, had to check whether their
internal legal system enabled their authorities to
abide, albeit through ESA, by the commitment
spelt out in Article 5 on the exercise of
jurisdiction and control over their nationals and
in Article 11.2 of the IGA to the effect that:
‘Each Partner, in exercising its right to provide
crew, shall ensure that its crew members
observe the Code of Conduct’.

As a result of the above procedure, the Code
has been implemented in Europe through a
directive of the ESA Director General addressed
individually to members of the European
Astronaut Corps (EAC), in which they are
invited to agree in writing to the terms and
conditions in the Code, a process that is
consistent with the ESA Staff Regulations and
the decision taken in March 1998 by the ESA
Council on the modalities for building up the
EAC.

In the United States, the Code has become
part of the US astronauts’ terms and conditions
of employment through the adoption on
1 October 2000 of corresponding regulations
under NASA’s existing legislation (14 CFR Part
1214). In Japan, the Code will be incorporated
into regulations consistent with the terms of the
legislation that established the National Space
Development Agency (NASDA) and Japanese
astronauts, as employees of NASDA, will be
invited to sign up to the terms of the Code.
Similarly in Russia, the cosmonauts will be
invited to sign up individually to the terms of the
Code once it becomes part of the regulations
and policies applicable to the Russian Aviation
and Space Agency (RSA). In Canada, where
astronauts are appointed by decision of the
Cabinet, the Code will become part of the terms
and conditions of astronauts’ employment in
the same manner, i.e. through an Order in
Council issued by the Cabinet.

Conclusion

Adoption of the Code was clearly a milestone in
ISS cooperation. However, a number of issues
affecting ISS astronauts remain to be
addressed by the Cooperating Agencies and
may test the Code’s flexibility and adaptability.
For example, over the next few months, the
Agencies have to examine all of implications
of participation in ISS cooperation by States
other than the 15 Partner States. Nationals of
non-Partner States may be acquiring flight
opportunities from the Partners, either on the
basis of cooperation between space agencies
or privately, through a commercial venture. At
this stage, no distinction is made in the
applicable legal texts between a career astronaut
hired by an ISS Cooperating Agency, and an
individual flying to and from the ISS for only few
days on a fare-paying basis, although the
actual requirements in terms of training,
proficiency and performance and long-term
commitment would vary significantly. The
Partners still have to examine the implications,
and agree on the applicable rules and
procedures for enabling nationals of non-Partner
States to become ISS crew members,
primarily as visiting crew, since Article 5 of the
IGA prescribes that it is the Partner State that
retains jurisdiction and control over personnel
who are its nationals, and Article 22 of the IGA
constitutes the basis for a Partner State to
prosecute an ‘alleged perpetrator’ of a crime
committed on board the ISS, but only when
that person is a national of that State.
Commercialisation of ISS utilisation will also
bring opportunities for advertising, merchandising
and sponsoring, which may raise some
concerns for astronauts and their Cooperating
Agencies. All of these issues need to be
addressed and resolved in good time and to
the satisfaction of the Cooperating Agencies
and their astronauts.

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