I’ve often wondered whether cars of diplomats were territories of the states those diplomats worked for (more accurately, whether their volumes were extraterritorial to the host country). Perhaps this is what the special red-and-white diplomatic license plates in Ontario signify?
When I saw the thread title “portable sovereignty”, I immediately thought of Neal Stephenson’s “Snow Crash”. In this science-fiction novel, Stephenson postulates a balkanized future North America containing sovereignties of all sizes, down to single-person size. There were also “franchise-oriented quasi-national entities” (FOQNEs), which were essentially nothing but embassies (imagine McDonald’s as its own country).
There was a hint of a recognized ‘Sovereign’ status that could be obtained by an idividual, presumably through wealth and/or offensive capability (informational or military). The example single-person sovereignty rode around on a motorcycle with a nuke in the luggage compartment.
This seems to go a little against the requirement for a ‘defined territory’ laid down in Cecil’s column “How do I go about starting my own country?”. Possibly in the past there were a wider variety of sovereignties generally recognized, and this may be so again in the future?
The plane in question is US territory, right? Is entering it then like crossing a border into the US?
Is this normal for travelling vehicles? Was my stepfather’s Canadian-registered car Canadian territory when he was driving it across the US to California? If he had been pulled over, would the US police officer have the same permissions (if any) to enter the car as to enter a US car?
I wonder whether there’s some kind of treaty between the US and Canada that explicitly covers this.
I know that there are agreements between Ontario and a number of US states regarding billing of toll payments on Highway 407 around Toronto. Payments are tied to the vehicle owner, not the driver; the system works by scanning license plates or by triggering transponders, so the system needs access to Ministry of Transport license records, and the corresponding records for other jurisdictions.