# Could you start a country this way? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 7, 2012, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-start-a-country-this-way/615044 "2012-03-07T17:18:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2012, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-start-a-country-this-way/615044/21 "2012-03-09T13:53:00Z")
> [@DrFidelius](#): > > … and to get back to the description of the TV show; are we to presume that the scenario includes an actual nuclear exchange? Because that could make the disposition of a single boomer a relatively low priority for whatever national governments had survived. Actually, since this isn’t Cafe Society I was more interested in the premise as it was first described and its application in real life, and not the developing show itself. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2012, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-start-a-country-this-way/615044/22 "2012-03-09T17:42:16Z")
> [@DrFidelius](#): > > Any historical precedents where a pirate (or mutinied) crew successfully established a sovereign state? No, although there are one or two cases where mutineers were allowed to keep their (merchant, privately owned) vessels under salvage lwas. I’ll see if I can find a case. ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2012, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-start-a-country-this-way/615044/23 "2012-03-09T18:57:12Z")
Pitcairn Island? Not sovereign now but I’m figuring it easily could have been so. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2012, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-start-a-country-this-way/615044/24 "2012-03-09T19:11:30Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > This is… a curious attitude. The point is, there isn’t a checklist of criteria and if you check each box, then BAM you’re a country. You’re only an independent country if other countries agree to act as if you are an independent country. If they don’t agree, then you’re not. There’s nothing stopping you from declaring your private zeppelin an independent country, except that no one from the US state department will go along with your plan, and neither will the foreign ministries of any other country. Countries only exist because people act as if they exist. If nobody else will act as if your country exists, then it doesn’t exist. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2012, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-start-a-country-this-way/615044/25 "2012-03-09T19:22:01Z")
Sure, but how do you think other countries determine whether to recognize your state? They do it by checking off the four criteria I mentioned above, and then determining whether any _other_ countries will get pissy about you recognizing the new one. ---
**Author:** ![Diceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2012, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-start-a-country-this-way/615044/26 "2012-03-09T19:56:57Z")
> [@Jonathan\_Chance](#): > > Pitcairn Island? Not sovereign now but I’m figuring it easily could have been so. Pitcairn is actually a good example. The crew had a functioning colony for several years before they were found. Of course, they were hiding on a tiny island in the middle of Buttfuck, Nowhere. Our sub crew that took over a NATO outpost is going to get noticed much quicker than that. ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2012, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-start-a-country-this-way/615044/27 "2012-03-09T20:17:47Z")
> [@heathen\_earthling](#): > > Is the TV show supposed to be taken seriously? That sounds like it would be an interesting comedy pilot. Canada did it! > **[Buried on Sunday](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buried_on_Sunday)** > > Buried on Sunday is a Canadian comedy film, released in 1992. Also known as "Northern Extremes", it was directed by Paul Donovan, and written by Donovan and Bill Fleming. > The film stars Paul Gross as Augustus Knickel, the mayor of Solomon Gundy, a fictional island off the coast of Nova Scotia; the island name and film title are taken from a nursery rhyme. > The community is in an economic crisis due to the cod fishing moratorium, but finds its fortunes transformed when an AWOL Russian nuclear sub... ---
**Author:** ![Chessic\_Sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7c8e57/32.png) [@Chessic\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chessic_Sense)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2012, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-start-a-country-this-way/615044/28 "2012-03-09T20:41:38Z")
The OP may be interested in [this](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_legal_theory) wiki article. One of the first things they teach in PoliSci courses is that international law is whatever nations say it is. And a nation is whatever other nations say it is. Because there are no overruling authorities, when talking about making countries, it’s a jungle out there. So really, to be a country, you just have to get others to act as if you are a country. It’s interesting to note that the concept of a modern nation-state only goes back to [1648](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westphalia_Treaty#Results). Before that, there weren’t countries so much as there were “lands” belonging to this or that warlord, i.e. king. Even today, we have places that some people consider countries and others don’t, like Palestine, Tibet, Taiwan, or South Sudan. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2012, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-start-a-country-this-way/615044/29 "2012-03-10T04:12:45Z")
> [@Chessic\_Sense](#): > > It’s interesting to note that the concept of a modern nation-state only goes back to [1648](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westphalia_Treaty#Results). Before that, there weren’t countries so much as there were “lands” belonging to this or that warlord, i.e. king. No, it doesn’t. The Peace of Westphalia is notable because it established fixed borders for a bunch of nation-states that already existed, not because it created the concept. It’s a handy reference point, but mostly a massive oversimplification. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2012, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-start-a-country-this-way/615044/30 "2012-03-13T00:10:12Z")
Found what I was looking for. The Montevideo Convention [on the rights and duties of states] of 1933: [ > [@](#): > > The state as a person of international law should possess the following qualifications: (a) a permanent population; (b) a defined territory; (c) government; and (d) capacity to enter into relations with the other states. ]([MONTEVIDEO CONVENTION ON THE RIGHTS AND DUTIES OF STATES](http://www.molossia.org/montevideo.html)) ---
**Author:** ![Isamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7c8e57/32.png) [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2012, 8:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-start-a-country-this-way/615044/31 "2012-03-14T08:20:16Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Found what I was looking for. The Montevideo Convention [on the rights and duties of states] of 1933: > [URL=“[MONTEVIDEO CONVENTION ON THE RIGHTS AND DUTIES OF STATES](http://www.molossia.org/montevideo.html)”] Interesting but not definitive. The only signatories to that were in the Americas. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2012, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-start-a-country-this-way/615044/32 "2012-03-14T14:01:42Z")
It’s definitive. At the time, it was just a multilateral treaty between the signatory states but now it’s _jus cogens_- a restatement of customary international law. See [here](http://207.57.19.226/journal/Vol3/No1/art12-13.pdf), for example. ---
**Author:** ![Meurglys](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/258eb7/32.png) [@Meurglys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meurglys)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2012, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-start-a-country-this-way/615044/33 "2012-03-14T17:06:15Z")
Sounds like a situation that the crew of HMS Troutbridge might have stumbled into! Good thing they didn’t have nukes! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-start-a-country-this-way/615044.md?page=1)