Any other nations (then the USA) have sovern nations inside them?

[sailor]

Well, the OP is obscure enough that no one is sure what we are looking for. Enclaves in one country belonging to another are one thing. Parts of a country that have some degree of autonomy are another. This thread is becoming a mish mash of political and geographical oddities. Which I guess is ok too.

[everton]

Well the site is not particularly well organised, but eventually you discover that these German enclaves are mentioned:

There exist six German exclaves. One of them is the German town of Büsingen in northern Switzerland, east of the town of Schaffhausen. The five remaining exclaves, the so-called Vennbahn enclaves, are Munsterbildchen, Rötgener Wald [which comprises the southern parts of Rötgen town], [a farm near] Aderich, Mützenich and Ruitzhof. These exclaves are created by a Belgian railway track that cuts into German territory around and between the German towns of Rötgen and Monschau south of Aachen.

He also gives a broken link to “German site with a lot of information and many maps”. It seems to be stretching the definition somewhat to include territory separated from the rest of a country by nothing more than a foreign railway line, but there you go.

Here are a couple of other links I was able to find:
Büsingen am Hochrhein
Vennbahn

[kanicbird]

friedo very interesting post. I thought any taxes they paid were only through agreements with the states, like we will let US citizens enter your land and gamble but in return you must pay a percentage or some other deal.

Also IIRC Indian reservations are exempt from fed clean air act and can run dirty polluting coal power plants with impunity. Also IIRC some eskimo’s can still hunt whales and seals which are banned. It seems that any compromise is sovernity is made with agreement of both parties for mutitual benifit.

[everton]

kanicbird: are you interested in clearing up the apparent confusion about what your OP was asking for?

[everton]

kanicbird: are you interested in clearing up the apparent confusion about what your OP was asking for?

[Schnitte]

Thanks, everton! That’s completely new to me, but very intersting.

[sailor]

It seems kanicbird has some axe to grind with respect to indian reservations rather than an interest in geography.

[hibernicus]

*Originally posted by Polycarp *
**Autonomy and full sovereignty are two distinct concepts, however, although I’ll leave it to a professional political scientist to explain the distinction more clearly than I can. **

A good working distinction would be that a fully sovereign country has an independent foreign and defence policy, whereas a merely autonomous self-governing region or territory shares in the foreign and defence policy of the country of which it forms part (for example Greenland as a county of the Kingdom of Denmark, with Home Rule) or the country of which it is a colony (for example Gibraltar as a Crown Colony).

By this definition, Indian reservations (and Nunavut) are not truly sovereign as they can not send or receive ambassadors, declare war or sign international treaties (other than with the US/Canada).

[Monty]

The Apartheid Bantustans were set up as independent countries so that the racist government of South Africa at the time could absolve themselves of all responsibility for treating Africans like they weren’t South Africans. Now that the Apartheid regime is a memory, the Bantustans were abolished and their citizens enjoy citizenship in their own country, South Africa.

Nunavut doesn’t even pretend to be a sovereign nation. It was established as a federal territory subject to the laws and constitution of Canada.

Hibernicus’s “working definition” doesn’t always work either. There are sovereign nations whose defense is provided by the United States.

[Johanna]

Russia has internal republics that are the equivalent of the Navajo nation in the USA.

The Tatar Republic, the Sakha Republic (formerly Yakutia), and the ill-fated Chechnya come to mind. These are the republics within Russia that have actually declared independence from Russia. However, in the case of the Tatars and Sakha, they have limited their declarations of independence to merely symbolic value, without trying to put them into effect.

Uzbekistan has a subordinate republic of its own, the Qaraqalpaqistan Republic.

[Johanna]

P.S. about the passports: The Iroquois nation within New York State claims sovereignty over its territory and issues its own passports. When a delegation of Iroquois traveled to Colombia for a pan-American Indian conference, their Iroquois nation passports got them through Colombian customs.

[Schnitte]

hibernicus: I don’t want to nitpick around here, but I like this thread, so I’d like to say that there are several fully sovereign nations that don’t maintain an army, nor do they pursue their own foreign policy. Some tiny Pacific islands, for example (Nauru is the one I’m having in mind) let Australia do foreign politics for them; nonetheless they’re sovereign and independent. I don’t think foreign or defense policy is a good criterion for a nation’s sovereignty.

[sailor]

The diffrence is than when you are sovereign you can unilaterally change your mind and tell Australia you don’t want them doing it any more but when you are not sovereign you can’t do that. They, in fact, have the sovereignty to pursue international relations if they so choose, they have just chosen not to do it. American Indian Tribes or Gibraltar cannot do it even if they want to.

[Monty]

Jomo Mojo: Could you provide a cite please for that bit about the Iroquois passports & Columbia?

[kanicbird]

kanicbird: are you interested in clearing up the apparent confusion about what your OP was asking for?

Well sort of. This stemmed from a thread (IIRC pit) that a cellular company has billed a SD member roaming charges - although he had a national - no-roaming plan. The Cellular company rep asked if he had used his phone out of the country like in Conneticut.

After that comment I remembered some sign on the interstate in CT stating something like Now entering the Nation of the Mohegan Indians. After checking their web site (in response to the pit thread), I see that the Mohegan tribe claims sovernty. (I made a comment about him going gambleing again in the other thread).

The Mohegan Tribe is a sovereign, federally recognized Indian Nation with a reservation on the Thames River near Uncasville, Connecticut

from http://www.mohegan.nsn.us/tribe/g100.html

This got me thinking (oh no, you say). The Indians basically lost the war with the white man but instead of enslaving them or ruling them we gave them their own sovern country (ok it took many years - but still we did). I think this is a little unusual in human history and wondering if such a policy exists in other nations who’s presnet ‘ruling’ majority conqured the native people but allowed them to set up such sovern states. If so such sovern nations withing a nation must by default exist.

Jomo Mojo: Could you provide a cite please for that bit about the Iroquois passports & Columbia?

I don’t have a site either but remember visiting a store in IIRC Senica terratory (SW NY) where one Indian was asking another how he could get diamonds across the Canadian boarder w/o paying tax. The reply was just show your (Indian nation ID card - forgot the exact term).

It seems kanicbird has some axe to grind with respect to indian reservations rather than an interest in geography.

Not so much with the Indians - more of a curosity, my axe to grind is w/ our gov’t and it’s unfair tax policy if you must know. I personally love it when I can buy untaxed gas at a reservation and wish there were more tax free zones.

[Polycarp]

The “independent nations in free association with the United States” that occupy what used to be the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands are yet another example of independent states that depend on another, larger power for defense and diplomatic representation. There are three or four of them: Belau, the Federated States of Micronesia, and the Republic of the Southern Marianas are what I can recall.

An independent enclave is a fully independent nation that is completely surrounded by another nation, as San Marino is by Italy. There have been a couple of threads on enclaves of one nation in another, enclaves of one U.S. state in another, etc.

Qaraqalpaqistan Republic

…which won the U.N. award for most Q’s in a country name.

Just out of curiosity, the Romanized name of that back when it was an part of the Soviet Union was the Kara-Kalpak A.S.S.R. Do you happen to know the reason for the use of the Q’s in place of K’s? I’m fairly sure they’re a Turkic-speaking country, so it can’t be a question of distinct phonemes (I don’t think!).

[brianmelendez]

*Originally posted by kanicbird *
This got me thinking (oh no, you say). The Indians basically lost the war with the white man but instead of enslaving them or ruling them we gave them their own sovern country (ok it took many years - but still we did). I think this is a little unusual in human history and wondering if such a policy exists in other nations who’s presnet ‘ruling’ majority conqured the native people but allowed them to set up such sovern states. If so such sovern nations withing a nation must by default exist.

The history here is a little mixed up. Indian tribal land belongs to the Indian tribes not because “the white man”–by which I assume that you mean the European colonial powers and their successor, the United States–gave it to them, but because the tribes never ceded it: the land was never the colonizers’ to give. A “reservation” is so called because the tribe occupying it has reserved its dominion over that territory, as opposed to having ceded or otherwise vacated its claim over the other land that the colonial powers acquired by discovery, conquest, or purchase. (This concept is a bit of a fiction in many cases, though, since the United States forcibly resettled many tribes from desirable land near the Atlantic seaboard to less desirable land in the West, and thus the resettled tribes were “reserving” land that they had never formerly occupied.)

Likewise, it was never the case that the United States “allowed them to set up such sover[eig]n states.” The Indian tribes were already sovereign nations. The European discovery and conquest largely extinguished that sovereignty. Chief Justice Marshall, writing for the Supreme Court in Johnson v. M’Intosh, 21 U.S. 543, 8 Wheat. 543 (1823), offered the prevailing legal rationale for how the British colonists took the Indian tribes’ sovereignty and land, conflating seemingly incompatble theories of discovery, conquest, and purchase:

This principle was, that discovery gave title to the government by whose subjects, or by whose authority, it was made, against all other European governments, which title might be consummated by possession.

The exclusion of all other Europeans, necessarily gave to the nation making the discovery the sole right of acquiring the soil from the natives, and establishing settlements upon it. It was a right with which no Europeans could interfere. It was a right which all asserted for themselves, and to the assertion of which, by others, all assented.

Those relations which were to exist between the discoverer and the natives, were to be regulated by themselves. The rights thus acquired being exclusive, no other power could interpose between them.

In the establishment of these relations, the rights of the original inhabitants were, in no instance, entirely disregarded; but were necessarily, to a considerable extent, impaired. They were admitted to be the rightful occupants of the soil, with a legal as well as just claim to retain possession of it, and to use it according to their own discretion; but their rights to complete sovereignty, as independent nations, were necessarily diminished, and their power to dispose of the soil at their own will, to whomsoever they pleased, was denied by the original fundamental principle, that discovery gave exclusive title to those who made it.

While the different nations of Europe respected the right of the natives, as occupants, they asserted the ultimate dominion to be in themselves; and claimed and exercised, as a consequence of this ultimate dominion, a power to grant the soil, while yet in possession of the natives. These grants have been understood by all, to convey a title to the grantees, subject only to the Indian right of occupancy.

The history of America, from its discovery to the present day, proves, we think, the universal recognition of these principles.

. . . .

The United States, then, have unequivocally acceded to that great and broad rule by which its civilized inhabitants now hold this country. They hold, and assert in themselves, the title by which it was acquired. They maintain, as all others have maintained, that discovery gave an exclusive right to extinguish the Indian title of occupancy, either by purchase or by conquest; and gave also a right to such a degree of sovereignty, as the circumstances of the people would allow them to exercise.

The power now possessed by the government of the United States to grant lands, resided, while we were colonies, in the crown, or its grantees. The validity of the titles given by either has never been questioned in our Courts. It has been exercised uniformly over territory in possession of the Indians. The existence of this power must negative the existence of any right which may conflict with, and control it. An absolute title to lands cannot exist, at the same time, in different persons, or in different governments. An absolute, must be an exclusive title, or at least a title which excludes all others not compatible with it. All our institutions recognise the absolute title of the crown, subject only to the Indian right of occupancy, and recognise the absolute title of the erown to extinguish that right. This is incompatible with an absolute and complete title in the Indians.

We will not enter into the controversy, whether agriculturists, merchants, and manufacturers, have a right, on abstract principles, to expel hunters from the territory they possess, or to contract their limits. Conquest gives a title which the Courts of the conqueror cannot deny, whatever the private and speculative opinions of individuals may be, respecting the original justice of the claim which has been successfully asserted. The British government, which was then our government, and whose rights have passed to the United States, asserted title to all the lands occupied by Indians, within the chartered limits of the British colonies. It asserted also a limited sovereignty over them, and the exclusive right of extinguishing the title which occupancy gave to them. These claims have been maintained and established as far west as the river Mississippi, by the sword. The title to a vast portion of the lands we now hold, originates in them. It is not for the Courts of this country to question the validity of this title, or to sustain one which is incompatible with it.

Eight years later, in Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, 30 U.S. 1, 5 Pet. 1 (1831), the Supreme Court–again speaking through Chief Justice Marshall–defined the legal status of the Indian tribes as “domestic dependent nations”:

The Indian territory is admitted to compose a part of the United States. In all our maps, geographical treatises, histories, and laws, it is so considered. In all our intercourse with foreign nations, in our commercial regulations, in any attempt at intercourse between Indians and foreign nations, they are considered as within the jurisdictional limits of the United States, subject to many of those restraints which are imposed upon our own citizens. They acknowledge themselves in their treaties to be under the protection of the United States; they admit that the United States shall have the sole and exclusive right of regulating the trade with them, and managing all their affairs as they think proper; and the Cherokees in particular were allowed by the treaty of Hopewell, which preceded the constitution, ‘to send a deputy of their choice, whenever they think fit, to congress.’ Treaties were made with some tribes by the state of New York, under a then unsettled construction of the confederation, by which they ceded all their lands to that state, taking back a limited grant to themselves, in which they admit their dependence.

Though the Indians are acknowledged to have an unquestionable, and, heretofore, unquestioned right to the lands they occupy, until that right shall be extinguished by a voluntary cession to our government; yet it may well be doubted whether those tribes which reside within the acknowledged boundaries of the United States can, with strict accuracy, be denominated foreign nations. They may, more correctly, perhaps, be denominated domestic dependent nations. They occupy a territory to which we assert a title independent of their will, which must take effect in point of possession when their right of possession ceases. Meanwhile they are in a state of pupilage. Their relation to the United States resembles that of a ward to his guardian.

They look to our government for protection; rely upon its kindness and its power; appeal to it for relief to their wants; and address the president as their great father. They and their country are considered by foreign nations, as well as by ourselves, as being so completely under the sovereignty and dominion of the United States, that any attempt to acquire their lands, or to form a political connexion with them, would be considered by all as an invasion of our territory, and an act of hostility.

These two cases, and the history that they recite, show that the Indian tribes within the United States are not “sovereign” in the traditional sense of controlling their own territory, policy, and destiny.

The United States government does sometimes refer to the Indian tribes as “sovereign.” See, for example, Department of Justice, “Policy on Indian Sovereignty and Government-to-Government Relations with Indian Tribes.” But that use of “sovereignty” is a politically correct buzzword that carries a far inferior connotation to what “sovereignty” has traditionally meant.

[hibernicus]

*Originally posted by Schnitte *
**hibernicus: I don’t want to nitpick around here, but I like this thread, so I’d like to say that there are several fully sovereign nations that don’t maintain an army, nor do they pursue their own foreign policy. Some tiny Pacific islands, for example (Nauru is the one I’m having in mind) let Australia do foreign politics for them; nonetheless they’re sovereign and independent. I don’t think foreign or defense policy is a good criterion for a nation’s sovereignty. **

These are not good counter-examples. A country would indeed lose its de facto independence if it ceded in perpetuity its rights to determine its foreign or defense policy to another power. If Nauru can say to Australia, thanks very much, but we will manage things ourselves from now on, and proceed to declare war on Fiji, then it is a sovereign nation (by my definition). If Australia would not allow this to happen, then it is fair to say that Nauru is an Australian protectorate, whether or not it has a seat at the UN.

Lack of an army is no consideration at all - several fully independent nations do not maintain a standing army, but could establish one without asking anyone’s permission.

[Eva_Luna]

*Originally posted by Polycarp *
**

…which won the U.N. award for most Q’s in a country name.

Just out of curiosity, the Romanized name of that back when it was an part of the Soviet Union was the Kara-Kalpak A.S.S.R. Do you happen to know the reason for the use of the Q’s in place of K’s? I’m fairly sure they’re a Turkic-speaking country, so it can’t be a question of distinct phonemes (I don’t think!). **

There are all sorts of transliteration schemes for Cyrillic to English; the Library of Congress system uses the K for that sound. There should be no difference in pronunciation, but don’t know which specific scheme uses the Q. I never would have gotten away with it in grad school; mainstream Slavics generally sticks to the K. (Besides, just think of Qadaffi vs. Khadaffi, or any of the zillion other alternate spellings. Transliteration is a very inexact science.)

I have some links bookmarked at work on the specific legal relationship of the ASSRs, oblasts, and other Federation Subjects (as they are called in the Russian Federation’s Constitution) to the central government. Of course, the exact way it all works out in practice is a matter of constant flux, and more so in some regions than in others (Chechnya, Tatarstan etc.). IMO the situation will shift constantly for many years yet to come. After all, don’t we right here at home in the U.S. still have lawsuits over which matters should be subject to state vs. Federal jurisdiction?

[kanicbird]

Thanks for all that good stuff brianmelendez