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Coordinates: 45°46′00″N 18°52′30″E / 45.76667°N 18.87500°E / 45.76667; 18.87500
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Liberland, also known as the Free Republic of Liberland, is a micronation promoted by Czech right-libertarian politician and activist Vít Jedlička, who began claiming in 2015 that an uninhabited stretch of floodplain on the Croatian bank of the Danube (known as Gornja Siga), is the territory of a new independent country. Not recognized by any country, Liberland has since become one of the best known examples of a micronation. Jedlička was inspired by classical liberal thinkers such as Ludwig von Mises and Ayn Rand, and he envisioned a political system characterised by laissez-faire capitalism, minimal government, no taxation, and an economy based on cryptocurrency.

Notable supporters of the project include Ron Paul, Gary Johnson, Glenn Beck and Roger Ver.

The stretch of floodplain the project claims is about 6.5 to 7.7 square kilometres (about 2.5 to 3 square miles) in size, flooded in winter and used as a public beach by local Croatian residents in summertime. The area has been controlled by Croatia since Croatia's original establishment as a republic in 1945 but belongs to a group of riverbank pockets that Croatia hopes to trade control of to Serbia in exchange for control of a number of larger pockets on the Serbian bank. Liberland asserts that Croatia's statements regarding the possible trade are tantamount to a quitclaim and have rendered the pocket ownerless, a theory dismissed as unfounded by the local and international legal community.

The European Commission includes Liberland passports, the group's main source of income, on its list of harmless fantasy passports.

Location

[edit]

Geography

[edit]
Satellite image of Gornja Siga taken by ISS Expedition 14 in 2007.

Liberland claims an uninhabited stretch of floodplain on the western bank of the middle Danube, approximately ten river kilometres (six river miles) upstream from Apatin,[1] the nearest significant port.[2] The stretch, locally known as Gornja Siga,[3] is a largely forested teardrop of marshland nestled into a bend in the river.[4] Estimates for its size range from 6.5 km² (2.5 sq mi) at the low end to 3 sq mi (7.7 km²) at the high.[5] One commonly quoted number is 7 km² (2.7 sq mi),[6] about the size of Gibraltar.[7]

Gornja Siga is unstable and prone to seasonal inundation.[8] The water level reaches three metres (ten feet) above ground at least once every few years.[9] Except for a rudimentary access road,[10] Gornja Siga has no infrastructure or improvements. There is no connection to the power grid, potable water, or sewage system.[11] The only structure standing in the area in living memory was a flimsy yellow lodge, apparently used as a hunting cabin.[12] Terminally dilapidated in its final years, the lodge was torn down in September 2017.[13]

Croatians use Gornja Siga itself for hunting,[14] the sandy beaches of the point bar off the shore of Gornja Siga for leisure and recreation during summertime.[15] Forest management is performed by the Croatian national forest administration.[9]

History

[edit]

Early modern period

[edit]

The area now known as Gornja Siga is known to have been inhabited once. In fact, Gornja Siga is the likely location of the lost medieval town of Bodrog.[1] The area was gradually abandoned over the centuries on account of frequent flooding. It appears to have been deserted for good by 1722. The former residents of Gornja Siga rebuilt in the nearby village of Bački Monoštor.[16]

Gornja Siga and its surroundings were part of the Kingdom of Hungary from the Middle Ages to the end of World War I, with two interruptions. The region containing Gornja Siga was annexed to to the Ottoman Empire after the Battle of Mohács, becoming part of the Sanjak of Segedin in 1526, but returned to Hungary a few decades later with the Treaty of Karlowitz in 1599.[17] The region also became part of the short-lived Serbian Vojvodina during the Revolutions of 1848, only to be attached to Hungary once again the following year.[18] It then remained part of the Kingdom of Hungary until the formation of the new Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1918.[19]

Throughout most of its recorded history, Gornja Siga was situated on the left, eastern bank of the Danube, a river then freely meandering through the soft sedimentary basin of the southern Pannonian plain. By the late 19th century, extensive engineering work was undertaken to straighten the Danube and make it easier to navigate for larger boats.[7]

Between 1887 and 1891, a geodetic survey established a detailed cadastre for the region.[20] In 1894, a channel was cut to widen and straighten the river between Batina and Apatin. Gornja Siga thus moved from the eastern to the western bank of the Danube. Significantly, no changes to cadastral limits were made.[21] Real estate records for Gornja Siga, now geographically connected to the County of Baranya, continued to be held in Sombor in the County of Bács-Bodrog, now on the other side of river.[22]

Yugoslav era

[edit]

Among a number of other regions, the new Kingdom of Yugoslavia would incorporate the erstwhile Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia and the erstwhile Kingdom of Serbia. It would also incorporate a strip of formerly Hungarian territories collectively referred to as Banat, Bačka and Baranja. Regardless of the regulation of the Danube and its legal repercussions, if any, this strip would include Gornja Siga.[23]

Being ethnically thoroughly mixed, the territory of Banat, Bačka and Baranja was not an obvious candidate for wholesale attachment to either Croatia or Serbia. Since the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was a centralist state that recognised no right to autonomy for its constituent ethnicities in the first place, it also saw no reason to carve the territory up for annexation of its predominantly Croatian parts to Croatia, its predominantly Serbian parts to Serbia. Instead, the territory simply became a new province of its own.[24] The Kingdom went on to redraw its provincial boundaries multiple times between its establishment in 1918 and its destruction by the Axis in 1941, but none of the various versions of its map of dehistoricised administrative subdivisions was imbued with any particular emotional investment or carried any lasting legal significance.[25]

When Yugoslavia began to rebuild itself in the final months of World War II, the country chose to structure itself as a federal republic based on a principle of equality between the its constituent nations. At first, there was no debate regarding boundaries beyond a general agreement to broadly respect historical delimitations.[26] In April 1945, however, the decision was made to dissolve the former province of Banat, Bačka and Baranja. Banat and Bačka would be integrated into the new Socialist Republic of Serbia, creating the Socialist Autonomous Province of Vojvodina. Baranja would almost certainly be annexed to the new Socialist Republic of Croatia. Since the partition had no historical precedent to look to, a commission under the leadership of Milovan Djilas was tasked with working out the definitive Croatian–Serbian boundary.[27]

Having undertaken extensive fieldwork, the Djilas Commission presented its findings in July 1945. The Commission recommended a "provisional" boundary whose northern two thirds, starting at the Hungarian border and ending at the town of Bačka Palanka, would simply coincide with the Danube.[28] Formally but "temporarily" adopted by Serbian statute law in September 1945, the new border placed Gornja Siga in the Republic of Croatia.[29] There is either no statement or no comparably clear statement of the Danube border in Croatian law.[30] No equivalent statute was enacted on the federal level either.[31]

Border dispute

[edit]
Pockets coloured yellow are east of the Danube but west of the old cadastral line. The opposite is true for pockets coloured green.
Further information: Croatia–Serbia border dispute

It remains a topic of controversy who, if anyone, accepted the Djilas border as final, or in fact as real.

Cadastral lines, relevant to questions of ownership of public or private real estate under private law, continued to reflect the historical, pre-regulation course of the river. The discrepancy between pre-regulation and post-regulation border resulted in numerous pockets of woodland – and some islands – physically located on one republic's side of the Danube but cadastrally belonging to the other.[32] The discrepancy was massively in favour of Serbia,[3] approximately 10:1 just in terms of area.[33]

On the one hand, Croatia took steps to ensure that cadastrally Croatian pockets on the Serbian bank would remain under Croatian control and integrated into Croatian infrastructure.[34] On the other hand, there exist Yugoslav-era Croatian ministry reports and statutes that acknowledge the middle of the main navigable channel of the Danube as the boundary line.[34] On the third hand, there also exist Yugoslav-era Serbian legal instruments and maps that appear to acknowledge the cadastral line as the de jure border.[35]

Because the pockets in question were uninhabited, of limited economic value, and frequently flooded, the border dispute never became a major issue until the breakup of Yugoslavia, which elevated the border between the two republics to the status of international boundary.[36] Croatia demands a return to the cadastral boundaries. Serbia is happy with the status quo.[37] Regarding Gornja Siga in particular, it has been suspected that both Croatia and Serbia avoid formally claiming the pocket and its point bar for themselves so as not to undermine their respective claims to more desirable pockets on the east bank.[38] It has also been noted, on the other hand, that Croatia is clearly exercising sovereign authority over Gornja Siga, however unenthusiastically,[39] and that neither state has explicitly renounced its claim.[40]

International law is of limited assistance in settling the matter.[41] It is a firmly established principle that, in the event of a subnational entity leaving a sovereign state to become a sovereign state itself, the new international boundaries should match the old internal ones.[42] International law does not absolutely insist on following the principle of uti possidetis juris, i.e. upholding the existing de jure boundary, over following uti possidetis effectivités, i.e. upholding an existing de facto boundary that is different from the de jure one, under any and all circumstances.[31] Clear legal title does carry more weight than mere effective control,[31] especially in the context of the former Yugoslavia, where the importance of uti possidetis juris has been forcefully reaffirmed by the Badinter Commission.[43] The possibility remains, however, that the existing de facto border, even if it is different from the de jure border originally, will increasingly take on the character of de jure border if left unchallenged for too long.[44] Croatian legal scholars are on record worrying about this possibility.[3]

For the time being, Gornja Siga is "within the internationally recognized borders of Croatia".[45] Croatia and Serbia are pragmatically collaborating on the practical aspects of the management of the shared stretch of river. The two countries signed a bilateral agreement on navigation issues and technical maintenance in 2009 and participate in the European Union Fairway Rehabilitation and Maintenance Master Plan.[46] There is ongoing security cooperation.[47] The conflict may be considered dormant.[46]

Proclamation

[edit]

At some point in the early 2010s, Vít Jedlička, a Czech IT salesman, financial analyst and right-libertarian politician, began dreaming of establishing his own country.[48] Jedlička was an avowed small-government libertarian and Eurosceptic,[49], described himself as anarcho-capitalist,[50] thought of Murray Rothbard as one of his defining influences,[51] and believed that all existing governments were detriments to prosperity.[48] He was convinced that secret cabals of central bankers were working to undermine freedom and that "an international political coup" had targeted former Czech president Václav Klaus for his opposition to homosexuality and his support for Russia's intervention in Ukraine.[51] At last, Jedlička concluded that it would be "easier to start a new country than to fix an existing one".[52]

By his own accounting, Jedlička spent two years looking for suitable real estate.[7] Either Jedlička himself or one of his friends, a fellow IT professional, eventually discovered the Wikipedia page on terra nullius, a legal term of art for a type of territory that does not belong to any existing recognised country. Jedlička interpreted the article to mean that the purported examples of terra nullius it listed were indeed available to be claimed, including by random private citizens and including on behalf of a country not previously in existence.[53] He originally considered a parcel of land near the Slovenian village of Brezovica pri Metliki and a swath of African desert known as Bir Tawil.[54] Rejecting the former as too small and the latter as too inconvenient and dangerous,[7] Jedlička ultimately settled on Gornja Siga.[55]

On 13 April 2015 a party consisting of Jedlička, his then-girlfriend, and a college friend entered Gornja Siga, planted a flag, and proclaimed the Free Republic of Liberland. Jedlička was unanimously elected its first president on the spot.[56]

Vision of governance

[edit]

The three mainstays of Jedlička's political programme were minimal government, a complete absence of public education or healthcare, and zero taxation. What little there was going to be in terms of state expenditures was going to be crowdfunded by volunteers, using cryptocurrency.[57] The country was going to be run according to the principles of Ludwig von Mises and Murray Rothbard.[58].

The details, however, were still in flux when the country was proclaimed. Jedlička was fielding a wide variety of comments and suggestions,[59] volunteered by supporters with backgrounds and motivations that turned out to clash in unexpected ways.[55] There were supporters demanding prohibitions on interest and supporters demanding prohibitions on concrete construction, an activist writing for the Czech Ludwig von Mises Institute observed, just like there were supporters demanding a Muslim ban.[60]

One early point of contention was immigration. Jedlička personally believed in the free movement of people. Many of his fellow libertarians and Eurosceptics desired tight restrictions on immigration, especially as regards to economic migrants and refugees.[61] Niklas Nikolajsen, a Danish Bitcoin trader living in Switzerland and the leader of the Liberland Settlement Association,[62] indicated opposition to "people [coming] to Liberland just because there isn’t political freedom in their country".[63] Pierre-Louis Boitel, another prominent early supporter, suggested running the country as an exclusive private club, on a subscription basis and with formal background checks for prospective members.[64] The two aspiring Liberlanders who showed up to a meeting Jedlička hosted in London, meanwhile, turned out to be Polish nationals worried about rising anti-immigration sentiment in the United Kingdom. The pair specifically cited the UK Independence Party, which Jedlička's own party, the Czech Party of Free Citizens, was formally affiliated with.[65] Another party Jedlička was closely aligned with was the far-right Alternative for Germany.[66] Jedlička strategically avoided committing to any one particular immigration regime.[67]

While Nikolajsen believed that "the real promise" of a right-libertarian microstate was the creation of "an armed redoubt of brothels and meth labs",[64] Jedlička focused on voluntary taxation as a selling point.[68] He eventually declared that Liberland would implement a form of shareholder democracy in which citizens would be awarded votes in exchange for monetary contributions or public service. Units of suffrage would be called "merits" and would double as the country's currency.[69] The Liberland merit would be implemented as a cryptocurrency similar to Bitcoin.[70] Concurrently with the merit, Jedlička envisioned gold to be used in Liberland, another medium of exchange not controlled by central bankers.[71]

In addition to the absence of a central bank and in spite of known fears that Liberland would come to be seen as primarily a vehicle for money laundering,[72], Jedlička promised minimal financial regulation.[73] On the other hand, Jedlička also wanted to join the Schengen Area and the European single market,[74] ideally while keeping "a safe distance" from the European Union.[75]

Insignia and symbolism

[edit]
Flag of Liberland

The flag of Liberland is yellow and black. The yellow background represents capitalism,[76] the black horizontal stripe represents anarchism,[77] in some versions rebellion.[78] The flag is defaced with a coat of arms that shows a tree, the sun, and a bird soaring over a river.[79] The tree and the bird represent, respectively, abundance and freedom; the river is the Danube.[80] The sun stands for energy.[76]

The motto of Liberland is "Live and let live".[81]

The date Jedlička chose for his proclamation of Liberland, 13 April, is the birthday of Thomas Jefferson.[82] Liberland promotional material prominently featured George Washington, whose poses Jedlička has studied and occasionally emulates.[83]

In his proclamation ceremony, Jedlička read out a short speech invoking the right of discovery.[7] Jedlička, who the official promotional video of the event shows using a Croatian-built access road to move through the territory he is purportedly discovering,[84] has compared his road trip to the voyages of European settlers leaving for the unknown.[48]

Public reactions

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Governments

[edit]

The Croatian Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs released an informal note stating that Gornja Siga was not actually terra nullius;[85] as a matter of fact no terra nullius was involved in any locality affected by the border dispute.[86] Jedlička's proclamation was a stunt not requiring elaborate comment, the ministry claimed,[87] further stating that the plot in question clearly belonged to either Croatia or Serbia, a fact that the final settlement of the border dispute assuredly would reflect.[88]

The Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs agreed with its Croatian counterpart, stating that Gornja Siga was not terra nullius,[89] that Liberland had no basis in international law,[89] that Czech nationals abroad were expected to abide by the laws of their respective host countries, and that Jedlička's conduct was inappropriate.[90]

Serbia confirmed that the activists were not violating its borders.[91] Jedlička's actions were a "frivolous act" that Serbia was happy to ignore.[55]

Local residents

[edit]

Inhabitants of nearby settlements found themselves unable to take the project seriously.[14] Some local residents thought Liberland was amusing, others expressed irritation at what they considered the "plain stupidity" of the endeavour; most were indifferent.[9]

Investors

[edit]

Liberland immediately attracted the attention of "financial supporters ranging from internet entrepreneurs to venture capital firms".[50] In early May 2015, less than a month after Liberland's proclamation, Jedlička claimed that investors had already pledged "billions" of dollars.[92] In June 2015, the amount Jedlička quoted changed back and forth between $2 billion and $20 billion.[93]

Jedlička explained the Liberland had "drawn interest from IT companies, financial institutions and private equity firms" due to its promise of "voluntary taxation", which he called Liberland's "biggest selling point".[68] Writing in 2018, the Telegraph observed that Liberland had "certainly grabbed the attention of business moguls who fear their ventures will be stifled by European law". The paper particularly noted Roger Ver, whom it described as "an early investor in Bitcoin".[52] An avowed anarcho-capitalist himself, Ver had pledged $10,000 per month for the cause in 2016.[48]

Potential settlers

[edit]

Liberland became an instant "global phenomenon" that was "riding an international wave of dissatisfaction with government-as-usual" on the one hand,[50] coinciding with the 2015 European migrant crisis on the other hand. According to Jedlička, the project received between 220 thousand and 250 thousand applications for citizenship in its first week,[94] some 300 thousand by the end of April,[95] and well over 400 thousand by the end of 2016.[96] Jedlička, a strong believer in the free movement of people, was both "proud" and "slightly troubled" to learn that the greatest number of early applicants came from Egypt, followed by Turkey, Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia.[97] At some points more than thirty percent of applications for citizenship were from the Middle East;[98] at others more than forty.[48]

Applicants writing from Syria and Turkey dominated in the long term.[99] Many of them were refugees.[97] In the span of a few months in the summer of 2015, a number of people in the low six figures were trying to cross the border from Serbia into Hungary. In September 2015, Hungary completed the construction of a four-meter (thirteen-foot) border barrier that made aspiring immigrants look for an alternative route through Croatia.[100] A surge of email enquiries from anguished Syrians was the result.[75]

Jedlička emphasized the social status of aspiring Liberlanders and the selectivity of the citizenship process. In an interview in March 2016, he stressed that "1200 lawyers and architects" had applied;[98] an interview later that year mentions "1000 lawyers and 1200 architects".[48] Even so, Jedlička had only awarded about 100 citizenships by June 2015, 300 citizenships by June 2017.[58] By July 2023, there were approximately 700 thousand applications and 1000 citizens.[101]

Academia

[edit]

The performative practices and representational dynamics that characterise Jedlička and his project have attracted the attention of political geographers and geopolitical scholars. A journal article discussing Jedlička's performance of the colonial claim of terra nullius, comparing his attempt at utilising the history and cultural geography of the Balkans to Orientalism,[102] has elicited a number of scholarly responses.[103] Political geographers described Jedlička's ceremonial "discovery" of Gornja Siga as an attempt to "conjure a blank space",[104] classing Jedlička's roleplay of a "fantasy geography of emptiness" with other "hackneyed performances that self-proclaimed micronations undertake to legitimize themselves".[105]

The legal and diplomatic communities have largely ignored the project.[106] One online editorial has argued early on that the Liberland had a colourable claim to statehood and that the United Nations should reward "productivity, ingenuity, and economic growth" by recognising the country.[107] A small handful of articles have since appeared listing some of the doctrinal reasons the United Nations would disagree on both counts.[108]

Cultural critics

[edit]

An essay in Die Welt has described Jedlička's undertaking as reminiscent of a Peter Handke story and as an attempt to forcibly (German: handgreiflich) establish the unity of locatedness and order (German: Einheit von Ortnung und Ordnung) idealised by Carl Schmitt.[109]

Eviction

[edit]

For the first three weeks after the proclamation of the Free Republic of Liberland, Jedlička and his supporters were able to come and go as they liked. Jedlička himself spent weekdays in his home in Prague but regularly drove to Gornja Siga for the weekend.[7] The day after the proclamation, Croatia had issued a statement contending that Gornja Siga was not in fact terra nullius and that it considered Liberland to be harmless folly.[110] Serbia had also declared itself unconcerned.[55] Soon, however, aspiring settlers began to arrive.[62]

Even though activist-journalists accompanying the settlers immediately came across evidence that at least parts of Gornja Siga were privately owned,[111] the settlers appear to have made no attempt to identify the cadastral owners of the land they were taking and gave no indication of wanting to compensate them.[112] Treating the parcel not just as terra nullius but as res nullius besides, the settlers thus attempted to effect a kind of expropriation that, commentators have pointed out, a libertarian society predicated on private property would usually be expected to decry as violent dispossession and as a corrupt government land grab.[113]

By early May, the settlers had become numerous and aggressive enough to irritate Croatia into evicting them. Dozens of settlers were arrested.[114] Jedlička himself was in fact arrested and briefly detained on two occasions.[115] He later remembered his interactions with officers and officials as perfectly amiable,[116] describing his interviews in detention as "very friendly" and admitting that the Croatian legal system clearly had a sense of humour about the situation.[48] Nineteen settlers were eventually convicted of illegal entry into Croatia.[48] The misdemeanour court handling the cases imposed nominal fines.[117]

Liberlanders established a makeshift base camp on the Serbian bank of the Danube.[118] They could still watch Croatians use the Gornja Siga point bar as a public beach but were no longer able to join them.[119] Liberlanders who attempted to enter Gornja Siga by boat had their equipment confiscated. By their own accounting, the activists lost "two flags and two rubber boats a day" for a while.[64] Eyewitnesses reported that some of the activists trying to reach Gornja Siga were missteering their boats and inadvertently landing in places that they themselves agreed belonged to Croatia.[120] Croatian and Serbian authorities cooperated in preventing settlers from reentering.[121]

Later developments

[edit]

Attempted entrapment

[edit]

In early June, Jedlička attempted to engineer a diplomatic incident by baiting Croatian police into arresting Tomáš Zdechovský, a friend who served as a member of the European Parliament and therefore held a diplomatic passport.[61] The officers declined to take the bait. They arrested the filmmakers Jedlička had brought along. They arrested neither Zdechovský nor Jedlička, the latter not having stepped off the boat.[122] Zdechovský later stated that the police explained the situation adequately and that he understood why Croatia does not want people to "take land from it".[123]

Lobbying efforts

[edit]

Unable to reestablish a presence in Gornja Siga and unwilling to be arrested again,[93], Jedlička focused his energy on lobbying. Jedlička had already briefly met Tonino Picula, a Croatian member of the European Parliament, and Lars Schmidt, the ambassador to Croatia from Sweden, in early May, before being evicted.[124] He now travelled to London, Paris and Las Vegas, where he gave a speech at the 2015 instalment of Glenn Beck's annual FreedomFest convention and met Peter Thiel.[125] He met representatives at the Cato Institute in Washington, D.C. and arranged to be interviewed on The Blaze in New York.[119] Jedlička won the endorsement of Gary Johnson, the Libertarian Party nominee to the 2016 United States presidential election, for his project.[126] He also won the support of Daniel J. Mitchell and arranged to be invited to present a Liberland passport and citizenship certificate to Ron Paul,[86] whom Jedlička said he "closely" identified with.[51]

Jedlička later endorsed Donald Trump for the 2016 presidential election.[58] After Trump had won, Jedlička declared himself "excited to work with" the incoming administration and stressed that there were "many ties and shared ideas between Liberland and President Trump".[127] Jedlička attended Trump's inauguration.[128]

In 2018, Liberland attempted to join the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization.[126]

Also in 2018, Jedlička became the founder and sole proprietor of the Liberland Group, a Serbian limited liability company domiciled in Sombor.[129] Jedlička claimed that Serbian authorities had been supportive of the Liberland project and that he had reached a formal cooperation agreement with the government of Vojvodina. Part of the agreement concerned investment in the development of education and tourism in Apatin; the Liberland Group DOO Sombor had been established to coordinate these efforts. Results continued to be described as forthcoming in 2020.[130]

Attempts at reentry

[edit]

In September 2016, Jedlička announced his plan to "sidestep" Croatia through a pivot to houseboats. He was going to line the Danube with a series of connected watercraft and had in fact already hired Serbian contractors to build them. He hoped to have put houseboats in the water by October. In addition to technically sitting in international waters, outside of full Croatian jurisdiction, the houseboats would have the side benefit of obviating the need to build structures on a floodplain.[48] According to material self-published by supporters, the effort eventually produced one makeshift boat, which appears to have spent the winter of 2023 at or near Gornja Siga.[131]

Croatia kept patrolling Gornja Siga and detaining anybody entering "as an expression of possession".[86] An organised effort to land a party of activists and supporters in Gornja Siga for Liberland's second anniversary in April 2017 was thwarted.[86] According to a local lawyer working for Jedlička, at least thirty activists had been prosecuted by that time.[58] As of 2022, Liberland was still "little more than a website";[132] it continued to "appear to be limited to field excursions to a difficult-to-access base camp and a deserted island".[133] Jedlička continued to live in Prague.[79]

In April 2023, another organised effort to land a party of supporters on the occasion of Liberland's eight anniversary was also thwarted. A Wired journalist observing the event noted that, eight years in, "nobody lives there and nothing has been built", with "few locals" even aware of the project. The activists "swung white, male, and middle-aged"; one attendee remarked that is was normal for Liberland events to be "sausage-fests".[71]

Later the same month, Jedlička convinced Niko Omilana, a British prank YouTuber, to plant a Liberland flag on the Gornja Siga point bar. Omilana managed to run the Croatian blockade by outracing Croatian patrol boats on a jetski. The video of the stunt appears to show officers abusing Omilana.[134] Croatian officials justified the novel terseness of their patrols by claiming that Jedlička had taken to pay "young people" to try to sneak into Gornja Siga, resulting in "hypothermic activists" having had to be rescued out of the Danube on multiple occasions.[135]

A second serious attempt at establishing a permanent presence in Gornja Siga was made in the summer of 2023 but was put to an end in September,[136] a few weeks before the annual flood.[137] Material self-published by Liberland activists the following winter appears to show Croatian police continuing to guard the area.[10]

Appeals

[edit]

Jedlička appealed his May 2015 misdemeanour conviction;[138] a number of other activists appealed theirs. In June 2017, the time of the last update volunteered by the group, cases had begun reaching the Croatian Constitutional Court.[58]

Miscellaneous

[edit]

In December 2015, Jedlička announced that Liberland was forming its own football team. Speaking at a press conference back home in Prague, he stated that he had already recruited "about 30" athletes. The Liberland Football association was hoping to join FIFA and to participate in the 2018 World Cup.[139] Liberland in fact did attempt to join FIFA in 2018.[126]

In March 2016, Jedlička announced that Liberland had now officially adopted the Liberland merit as its currency. The merit was implemented as a cryptocurrency and was pegged to the United States dollar at a fixed exchange rate of 1:1.[98]

Also in early 2016, Liberland adopted and formally published a constitution.[140] The author, Kacper Zając, cited a list of influences that included Voltaire, John Locke, Ludwig von Mises and Ayn Rand, among others, and claimed to have modelled the document on "the original version" of the Constitution of the United States.[141]

[edit]

Terra nullius

[edit]

The Liberland supporters' chain of logic starts from the theory that Gornja Siga used to be terra nullius because both Croatia and Serbia used to deny owning the patch.[142] There does exist one author willing to entertain the idea that the activists may be correct:[143] although it has to be admitted that "the land Liberland claims is within the internationally recognized border of Croatia",[45] it is possible that Croatia and Serbia have issued quitclaims the international community has simply not yet noticed.[144] Most commentators, however, disagree.[145]

In its broad original sense, terra nullius is a term describing "land or territory over which no state exercises sovereignty" on the one hand, a doctrine that states any such land or territory is "open to claims of exclusive rights or peaceful occupation by any state with the intention of acquiring sovereignty over it" on the other.[146] In the age of colonialism, the conceptual pair was repurposed to justify colonial land grabs,[147] specifically targeting territory inhabited by peoples European colonial powers chose to consider uncivilised and prepolitical.[148] In the resulting narrower sense, the term terra nullius describes "territory not formerly under the sovereignty of any state",[149] at least not of any state colonial powers would have acknowledged as such.[150] Postcolonial development, in particular the ICJ Western Sahara advisory opinion, has further narrowed the term to mean territory that truly lacks human presence and imprint and that has truly never been governed in the past.[151]

While it is uncontroversial that Gornja Siga has not recently been terra nullius in one of the more modern senses, experts deny that it would have been terra nullius even in the broader traditional sense. The border dispute is purely positional; Croatia and Serbia disagree about the exact course of the boundary but not about its meaning;[152] Gornja Siga must logically belong to either one or the other.[40]

Neither Croatia nor Serbia has actually renounced its respective claim to Gornja Siga;[153] and neither is like to do so for the foreseeable future: neither country would want to damage its negotiating position by weakening its hold on whichever Danube pockets it factually controls.[154] In managing the forest on the floodplain and in policing its borders, Croatia is actively exercising sovereign authority over Gornja Siga.[155] In addition to "peacefully and continuously displaying their territorial sovereignty", a course of action necessary and arguably also sufficient to establish claim under current customary international law,[156] Croatian authorities have gone on record expressly stating that the area is not in fact ownerless.[157]

The one scholarly publication that unambiguously supports Liberland's desire for international recognition does not endorse, or in fact mention, Liberland's terra nullius theory. On the contrary, the article refers to Liberland as a case of adverse possession.[107]

Other issues

[edit]

Dismissiveness has also greeted some of the other links in the Liberland chain of logic.

A purely symbolic appropriation of land, for example through planting a flag, is not sufficient to establish legal possession and has not been in centuries.[158] A 2007 Russian attempt to claim the North Pole by deploying a flag for example was widely and swiftly rejected as anachronistic by the international community.[159] Actual occupation is now a "concomitant test of legal title to terra nullius".[160] The claimant "must be able to point to actual, physical manifestation" of its dominion,[161] a bar that Liberland does not clear.[162]

Tracts of terra nullius can customarily only be claimed under international law by entities that are subjects of international law. A claim can be made by existing sovereigns, in particular by "any state",[146] but not by random private citizens.[163]

It is in fact no longer clear that tracts of terra nullius are subject to unilateral claim even by sovereign states; the concept may be obsolete;[164] contemporary international law may no longer feature the necessary provisions.[165] In any case, a parent state not having technical claim to some given tract of land under its control does not automatically justify violations of its factual territorial integrity.[166]

Montevideo Convention

[edit]

Liberland activists have repeatedly demanded diplomatic recognition for Liberland, which they believe the project is owed under the terms of the Montevideo Convention.[7] The Convention suggests that entities be recognised as sovereign state if they have a defined territory, a permanent population, a government in effective control of both, and the capability to enter into relations with other sovereign states.[167] Widely endorsed,[168] albeit not always faithfully applied,[169] the Montevideo Convention is "the closest thing to customary international law that exists for determining when an entity is a state".[170]

Commentators have pointed out that Liberland does not appear to meet the Montevideo criteria. For one thing, Liberland is uninhabited.[171] While Liberland can be said to have a defined territory for Montevideo purposes, it has no government that actually controls any of it.[172] Liberland's purported government is unable to so much as enter the purported country;[173] the government in control of Gornja Siga is Croatia's.[174] The capacity of Jedlička's government to enter into international relations is likewise doubtful.[175]

The Montevideo Convention, "based on the principle of effectiveness among territorial units",[176] essentially argues that "a state exists by virtue of its being able to effectively govern over a defined territory";[177] it aims to provide self-determination to an actual people in actual control of an actual homeland.[178] In light of the Convention's teleology, Montevideo conformance is clearly "currently unobtainable for Liberland",[179] a conclusion admitted by commentators broadly sympathetic to the project.[180] Adherence to the Montevideo criteria would "exclude the possibility of Liberland being recognized" as a sovereign state.[181] At best, it might be compatible with recognition as some "incomplete, imperfect" alternative kind of subject of international law, comparable perhaps to the Sovereign Military Order of Malta.[182]

Sale of passports

[edit]

Liberland has been raising money through promotional merchandising,[183] originally mostly the online sale of "hats, shirts, pens, badges, mugs and flags".[75] In early 2015, merchandise was probably "the nation's primary revenue stream", despite Jedlička's claim of literal billions of dollars in investor money.[93] Later that year, however, Jedlička began announcing that Liberland citizenships would have to be paid for using "merits", units of national cryptocurrency. In theory, merits would normally be awarded by the government as a reward for useful community service.[93] They could also be bought for money, on the other hand, at the rate of one merit for one United States dollar.[98]

Originally, a Liberland passport was supposed to cost 10,000 merits.[184] In 2016, journalists reported that Liberland passports were also available for $10,000 in Bitcoin.[185] By 2023, the price for a Liberland passport had dropped to $5000 and the Bitcoin requirement had been removed. Jedlička claimed that one thousand people had "paid $5000 or made an equivalent contribution" and had thus become full citizens. Another six thousand had become "paying e-residents" at some unspecified lower rate.[186]

Jedlička stated that "a large chunk" of the revenue has been invested in the crypto sector.[71]

The European Commission includes Liberland passports on its list of harmless fantasy passports.[187] No travel visa may be affixed to them by European Union governments, but no penalty attaches to mere possession.[188]

Notes

[edit]
  1. ^ a b Pánya 2022, pp. 42, 97.
  2. ^ Hasenbichler et al. 2019, p. 104.
  3. ^ a b c Vojković 2015.
  4. ^
  5. ^
  6. ^
  7. ^ a b c d e f g Lewis-Kraus 2015, p. 48.
  8. ^
  9. ^ a b c Bradarić 2015.
  10. ^ a b Liberland Official 2023.
  11. ^
  12. ^
  13. ^ Riding & Dahlman 2022a, p. 289.
  14. ^ a b Trako 2015.
  15. ^
  16. ^ Riding & Dahlman 2022a, p. 279.
  17. ^
  18. ^ Schofield & Klemenčić 2001, p. 7.
  19. ^
  20. ^ Bickl 2023, pp. 109–110.
  21. ^ Petrović 2021, p. 261.
  22. ^
  23. ^ Schofield & Klemenčić 2001, pp. 8–9.
  24. ^ Schofield & Klemenčić 2001, p. 9.
  25. ^ Schofield & Klemenčić 2001, pp. 9–11.
  26. ^ Schofield & Klemenčić 2001, p. 11.
  27. ^ Schofield & Klemenčić 2001, p. 12.
  28. ^
  29. ^
  30. ^
  31. ^ a b c Bickl 2023, p. 100.
  32. ^ Schofield & Klemenčić 2001, p. 17.
  33. ^ Schofield & Klemenčić 2001, p. 18.
  34. ^ a b Schofield & Klemenčić 2001, pp. 24–25.
  35. ^
  36. ^ Schofield & Klemenčić 2001, pp. 5, 21–22.
  37. ^
  38. ^
  39. ^ Petrović 2021, p. 266.
  40. ^ a b Petrović 2021, p. 267.
  41. ^ Petrović 2021, pp. 262–263.
  42. ^ Bickl 2023, pp. 99–100.
  43. ^
  44. ^ Petrović 2021, p. 262.
  45. ^ a b Rossman 2016, p. 311.
  46. ^ a b Bickl 2023, p. 111.
  47. ^
  48. ^ a b c d e f g h i Palmeri 2016.
  49. ^ {{
  50. ^ a b c Sakurai 2016, p. 13.
  51. ^ a b c Nolan 2015.
  52. ^ a b Murphy 2018.
  53. ^
  54. ^ Riding & Dahlman 2022a, p. 292.
  55. ^ a b c d Lewis-Kraus 2015, p. 53.
  56. ^
  57. ^
  58. ^ a b c d e Doherty 2017.
  59. ^ Lewis-Kraus 2015, pp. 49–50.
  60. ^ Stroukal 2015.
  61. ^ a b Lewis-Kraus 2015, p. 50.
  62. ^ a b Lewis-Kraus 2015, pp. 48–49.
  63. ^
  64. ^ a b c Lewis-Kraus 2015, p. 51.
  65. ^
  66. ^ Taylor 2016.
  67. ^
  68. ^ a b Sakurai 2016, p. 14.
  69. ^
  70. ^
  71. ^ a b c Khalili 2023.
  72. ^ Lewis-Kraus 2015, p. 55.
  73. ^ McKirdy 2015.
  74. ^
  75. ^ a b c Romero 2015.
  76. ^ a b Quito 2015.
  77. ^
  78. ^
  79. ^ a b Gajic & Heil 2022.
  80. ^
  81. ^
  82. ^
  83. ^
  84. ^ Parlamentní listy 2015.
  85. ^
  86. ^ a b c d Riding & Dahlman 2022a, p. 290.
  87. ^
  88. ^
  89. ^ a b MZV 2015b.
  90. ^
  91. ^
  92. ^ Miller 2015.
  93. ^ a b c d Lewis-Kraus 2015, p. 52.
  94. ^
  95. ^
  96. ^
  97. ^ a b Lewis-Kraus 2015, p. 49.
  98. ^ a b c d ČTK 2016. Cite error: The named reference "FOOTNOTEČTK2016" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  99. ^ Oegerli 2016.
  100. ^
  101. ^
  102. ^ Riding & Dahlman 2022a.
  103. ^
  104. ^ Riding & Dahlman 2022a, p. 293.
  105. ^ Riding & Dahlman 2022a, p. 278.
  106. ^ Petrović 2021, p. 257.
  107. ^ a b Balch 2015.
  108. ^
  109. ^ Gladic 2015.
  110. ^
  111. ^ Panenka 2015.
  112. ^ Miller 2022, pp. 316–317.
  113. ^
  114. ^
  115. ^
  116. ^
  117. ^
  118. ^
  119. ^ a b Lewis-Kraus 2015, p. 57.
  120. ^ ČTK 2015a.
  121. ^
  122. ^
  123. ^ Hayden 2015b.
  124. ^ Ristić 2015a.
  125. ^
  126. ^ a b c Paukszteło 2020, pp. 41–42.
  127. ^
  128. ^
  129. ^ SBRA 2024.
  130. ^ Paukszteło 2020, p. 41.
  131. ^
  132. ^ Riding & Dahlman 2022b, p. 323.
  133. ^ Miller 2022, p. 318.
  134. ^
  135. ^ Pavić 2023.
  136. ^
  137. ^ Liberland Daily News 2023.
  138. ^ Wirnitzer 2015.
  139. ^ ČTK 2015b.
  140. ^
  141. ^ Paukszteło 2020, p. 42.
  142. ^
  143. ^ Rossman 2016, pp. 311, 330.
  144. ^ Rossman 2016, pp. 311–312.
  145. ^
  146. ^ a b Fellmeth & Horwitz 2022.
  147. ^
  148. ^
  149. ^ Maryan Green 1987, p. 195.
  150. ^
  151. ^
  152. ^ Schofield & Klemenčić 2001, p. 5.
  153. ^
  154. ^
  155. ^
  156. ^
  157. ^
  158. ^
  159. ^ Koch 2022, p. 303.
  160. ^
  161. ^ Hillier 1998, p. 233.
  162. ^
  163. ^ Nyangaga 2022, pp. 119, 127–128, 129.
  164. ^ Nyangaga 2022, p. 125.
  165. ^ Nyangaga 2022, p. 128.
  166. ^
  167. ^
  168. ^ Rossman 2016, pp. 318–319.
  169. ^ Rossman 2016, pp. 319–320.
  170. ^
  171. ^
  172. ^
  173. ^
  174. ^
  175. ^ Rossman 2016, pp. 333–334.
  176. ^ Crawford 2007, pp. 45–46.
  177. ^ Rossman 2016, p. 326.
  178. ^
  179. ^ Petrović 2021, p. 269.
  180. ^ Rossman 2016, pp. 309, 334.
  181. ^
  182. ^ Petrović 2021, p. 270.
  183. ^
  184. ^
  185. ^
  186. ^
  187. ^ European Commission 2023, p. 4.
  188. ^ European Commission 2023, p. 1.
Cite error: A list-defined reference named "FOOTNOTERomero2015" is not used in the content (see the help page).

References

[edit]
  • Anghie, Antony (2005). Imperialism, Sovereignty and the Making of International Law. Oxford University Press.
  • Fellmeth, Aaron X.; Horwitz, Maurice (2022). "Terra nullius". Guide to Latin in International Law (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press.
[edit]
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