Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (But Still So Far): Assessing Liberland’s Claim of Statehood
2016; University of Chicago Law School; Volume: 17; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
1529-0816
Autores Tópico(s)Taxation and Legal Issues
ResumoTable of ContentsI. Introduction 308II. A Brief History of Uberland 309A. The Serbian-Croatian Border Dispute 3121. International principles of border disputes involving rivers 314III. Self-Determination: Customary International Law? 316IV. Recognition Theory: Is Statehood a Declaratory or Constitutive Act?.......318A. The Declaratory Approach 318B. The Constitutive Approach 320V. Competing Claims and Territorial Integrity: Defining Characteristics of the Post-Colonial World? 323VI. Analyzing Liberland's Claim of Statehood Under the Montevideo Criteria 326A. Permanent Population 327B. Defined Territory 3291. Application of the border dispute to Liberland's statehood claim........330C. Effective Government 331D. Capacity to Enter into Relations with Foreign States 333E. Liberland Likely Does Not Satisfy a Strict Application of the MontevideoCriteria for Statehood 334VII. Criticisms of The Montevideo Criteria 335A. Additional Requirements for Statehood 335B. Subjectivity and Conflating Statehood with Recognition 336VIII. Conclusion 338I. INTRODUCTIONOn April 13, 2015, Vit Jedlicka, a Czech politician, announced the creation of Liberland, an autonomous micronation located on the Western bank of the Danube River.1 Liberland is located on the Croatian side of the Danube, the natural boundary between Croatia and Serbia, on three square miles of uninhabited and disputed land that has been left unclaimed by both nations throughout a drawn-out border dispute.2 Jedlicka founded Liberland with the intent of developing the uninhabited land into a libertarian utopia and international tax haven.3 Despite Jedlicka's efforts, no United Nations member country has recognized Liberland as a state.4Liberland may be nothing more than a provocative experiment undertaken by a libertarian iconoclast in an attempt to antagonize Serbia, Croatia, and the rest of the international community. But there is every reason to think that Jedlicka seriously wants to found a microstate. Moreover, regardless of Jedlicka's true motives, Liberland's aspirations to attain statehood present interesting and important legal questions about self-determination, how states are created, and the role that international recognition has in the emergence of a new state as a legal entity. This Comment will explore these questions.I have structured this Comment as follows. First, I provide a brief history of Liberland, including a discussion of the unique history that precipitated the current territorial dispute between Serbia and Croatia. …
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