(((interesting precedent)))
Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2000 10:35:13 -0700
To: politech@politechbot.com
From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
Subject: FC: U.K. law prof says HavenCo may be beyond reach of English law
[This is courtsey of HavenCo CEO Sean Hastings, who had earlier emailed me
to take issue with this post (http://www.politechbot.com/p-01272.html).
--Declan]
********
From: "Sean Hastings" <sean@havenco.com>
To: "Declan McCullagh" <declan@well.com>
Subject: FW: Daily Times
Date: Wed, 9 Aug 2000 10:29:06 +0100
http://www.the-times.co.uk/news/pages/tim/2000/08/08/x-timlwtlwt01009.html
Tuesday August 8 2000
A tiny, man-made island is causing an international incident, says
Gary Slapper
How a law-less 'data haven' is using law to protect itself
When is a state not a state? When it is a playground on stilts in
30ft of water, some might say, looking out at Sealand, the world's
newest self-proclaimed state, off the Suffolk coast.
The Government has apparently allowed itself to be painted into a
corner over an intriguing issue of international law. A story that
began in an apparently risible way in September 1967, and was
nothing much more than a minor item of local news about a small
eccentric family, has metamorphosed into an international incident.
[...]
The commonly accepted criteria among jurists for determining
whether an entity is a state are taken from the jus gentium - the
law of nations. This law is derived from the Institutes of
Justinian, the major treatise written by the command of the Roman
Emperor Justinian and published in AD 533. One thorny problem for
the Government is that according to the three major criteria of
statehood, Sealand does appear to have a good claim.
The requirements are: a national territory; a people coming
together as a nation; and a sovereign state authority. It does not
matter that it is only 932sq yd in size because there is no minimum
area legally articulated for something to be a state. Vatican City
is classified as a state even though it is minuscule. Neither is
there a requirement that the population rises above a certain
minimum. Nor is it an argument that the structure was created by
the Government as it was legally terra nullis - abandoned land -
when it was taken over.
Article 1 of the Montevideo Convention on Rights and Duties of
States, signed in 1933, itemises the same criteria as the jus
gentium, plus the capacity to enter into relations with other
states. Sealand appears also to have satisfied this criterion. If
Sealand is an independent state, it could legitimately claim its
own coastal waters and regulate its own airspace. The Government is
also in difficulties over this because on two occasions it has
appeared to endorse the idea that Sealand is both beyond its
jurisdiction and has the status of a state.
[...]
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