Maybe it’s possible a volcanic eruption could create a new island far from land and sit there waiting to be claimed? Like this -
I guarantee if it’s anything more than a tiny, lifeless rock, the closest country with a navy will have already claimed it before you even heard of it. Just like Iceland claimed Surtsey.
It was Kāzimah, far as i can tell in that time period give or take
In the Conquest scheme of things, it does not matter much if the dominated care or not
they can like it, or die.
At least back then, in today’s world that does not wash anymore.
IIRC, some Silicon Valley type did claim Bir Tawil, and purportedly started his own nation. His primary reason was that his daughter wanted to become a princess, so he made himself a king.
Interestingly, I was watching a video on this topic earlier today: How to Create a Country - YouTube
It mentions Liberland a “state” that was founded on a bit of unclaimed land between Serbia and Croatia. There is also the Montevideo Convention that gives a list of requirements for statehood that doesn’t include “being recognized by other states”, under which Liberland could be considered an actual bona fide state.
Why go to the bother of getting them to cede sovereignty? Just take over the entire government of an existing recognised nation. Nauru has a population of 10,000 and is recognised as a sovereign nation and is a member of the UN. It’s total GDP is $36 million US. A billionaire or group of billionaires could in theory pay off the entire population to move elsewhere, stack the local government with their own employees and bingo there you go, fully sovereign nation under your control. Change the name and the flag as you desire and create whatever laws you want.
The minor issue might be that Australia might object to this (Nauru used to be an Australian trusteeship).
Lots of virgin (= uninhabited) lands got settled within historic time. New Zealand for a start (1200-1300 AD), and Madagascar (700 AD or so).
Also, Pakistan didn’t ‘split’ from India: both India and Pakistan were formed at exactly the same time (Pakistan a day earlier, IIRC) as part of the negotiations on how to decolonize the British-ruled South Asian territories.
The real answer here seems to be that to create a new country you need a powerful sponsor (e.g. Russia in the ‘frozen conflict’ zones, Taiwan starting from 1949, etc.; yes I know Taiwan isn’t a country de jure). So, work on convincing a powerful country to back up your territorial claims.
I live in my own country already. 50% of the population happens to be feline.
Didn’t an affiliation of billionaires try to found their own libertarian city-state in Honduras?
Atlantic islands as well. Iceland in the 10th century (although there were some Irish monks there earlier, but we only know about them because of archeology), Madeira, the Azores, Cape Verde, the Savage Islands (all 15th century), Bermuda (discovered in the 16th century, not settled until the 17th), the Falklands in the 17th century, and miscellaneous others in the south Atlantic at various times.
Technically speaking…does the new country have to be on land?
If you search carefully, there might be some relatively shallow sections of seabed that no country has a* claim on.
If you’re willing to settle for underwater habitats, and keep from drawing anyone’s attention, you could chose something different. Something…impossible…
*Enforceable, easily enforceable, or cost-effectively enforceable.
Hmm… I doubt existing countries will be happy to recognise something extremely tiny as a country, that would set a precedent of having a million member UN and so on…
Having a million extradition treaties ?
They aren’t going to allow trivial countries to set up and start doing things like imposing maritime or air transport restrictions at the site. And then claim for mineral rights in seabed nearby too ?
Gaza is claiming to be a country, but can’t even get it. Of course there is a reason for the delay, Israel occupies West Bank, and no one wants to cause trouble by giving some status to Gaza that West Bank isn’t getting. What this shows is that the existing countries stop the claim of Gaza to be a country…
In some circumstances countries exist even without UN membership but the main modern way to prove existence, and protection against the angry country that has lost the land, is to get UN membership.
I can think of a way. Say you’re a silicon valley billionaire. Develop some type of high end AI that gives you the capability to make self replicating factories and killer robots. Develop some of the key tech in offshore labs or something so it isn’t subject to the weapons limitations of the host country.
In principle, with enough killer robots as a force multiplier, you could then just hire some mercenaries and take over a weaker country somewhere, maybe one of the weaker states in Central America or Africa.
That’s the key thing, though, you do it by killing the people currently defending the country and now it’s yours to rule. I guess you technically have not ‘started’ your own country, you just stole someone else’s. But this is about the closest you can get.
Technically you could perhaps use self replicating robotics technology to start a private, sustainable Moonbase. That would be a truly new country.
I believe that if any human being on the planet today is capable of pulling off starting a new country it would be President Obama. He is enormously popular around the world and could most likely garner huge billionaire and millionaire support. I could see him buying his way into an African country through the support of the people and investors. I doubt it would be bloodless but I don’t think it would even approach anything like genocide, more like resistance fighters. It might not even be such a bad thing.
Such a habitat would, just like a ship, fall under the international law of the sea. The open sea, legally, can’t be the sovereign territory of any state.
If you could build up enough dirt to CREATE an island, now you’ve got something, maybe. If it’s in a country’s economic zone, though, it’s theirs. So you need to be way, way out there.
Those ‘laws’ are just negotiations made at gunpoint with *other *nations. If you were powerful enough (aka a sci fi/fantasy scenario like in Bioshock), you could force the other nations to amend those laws of the sea eventually. It might take decades, but initially, you’d be in violation of international law, but if you could do damage to anyone who tried to object with force, they might let you get away with it. Once your nation has been around long enough - and has enough trading partners and allies to get those needed votes at the UN - you could get the laws changed.
Buying a presidency through money / celebrity status isn’t difficult (trump did it, while being much less qualified than Obama), but it’s not the same as what I thought we were talking about, creating a new country.
To do that you really need backing from some powerful existing countries.
The easiest option to form a new country wouldn’t require the purchase of any land. It would be a continuation of the decolonization movement that saw much of Africa declaring Independence and forming new nations in the last half of the 20th century.
The United Nations has a Special Committee on Decolonization and maintains a list of 17 non self-governing territories.
If Bermuda or the Cayman Islands voted in favor of independence the UK would be under a lot of international pressure not to oppose the independence process. But such a vote is unlikely. When it has been tried here in Cayman the public vote to continue to remain a colony, seeing a greater stability and benefit from maintaining UK ties than going it alone.
Of those on the list, my best guess for voting for independence would be the Turks and Caicos. They could further develop their tourism infrastructure and hold their own as well as several other Caribbean nations.
I am talking about creating a new country. Doing away with an existing country and starting over. I think he could pull it off.