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Tuvalu looking at legal ways to be a state if it is submerged

reuters.com

71–80 of 211 posts

Re: Tuvalu looking at legal ways to be a state if it is submerged

#71
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brittany and Galicia are both the result of an explicit land grant to British refugees from the English invasion.

Who granted it to them?

Brittany: IIRC, it was still part of the Roman Empire when Cadwalldr and his followers migrated there.

Galicia: the local king.

Re: Tuvalu looking at legal ways to be a state if it is submerged

#72
post #29
post #3

If the worst case scenario happens and Tuvalu is submerged, how will the state manage to survive even without territory? Is that in the best interest of its citizens? Can any of the nation's collective wealth be preserved, either in the form of an enduring landless state as proposed, or by in some way transferring that wealth as the citizens emigrate somewhere else? Or is this proposal the futile death throes of a st…

The Sovereign Military Order of Malta has had observer status at the UN since the early 1990s despite having no territory.[0] They issue their own passports and enters intro treaties like a regular state. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_Military_Order_of_Ma...

They even had a tremendous airforce..

Re: Tuvalu looking at legal ways to be a state if it is submerged

#73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tuvalu exists as a state because the international community decided to let them. They export coconuts and fishing licenses for hard currency, and there is no way they could muster the money and hardware to defend their patch of the ocean. So if the same institutions that decided to enable the foundation of the republic of Tuvalu decide to protect Tuvualuan territorial waters as a way to give the Tuvaluan diaspora so…

They also export .tv domains (e.g., twitch.tv)

So they can exist forth on the metaverse.

Re: Tuvalu looking at legal ways to be a state if it is submerged

#74
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

call me cynical, but would any country be willing to give up its land like that? Tribal lands only exist to give back a small fraction of stolen lands back. Would any country give land to another country just for goodwill?

Brittany and Galicia are both the result of an explicit land grant to British refugees from the English invasion.

??? Brittany and Galicia were the destination for some Briton migrations during the Roman and Anglo-Saxon eras...

Calling the Britons "British" and Anglo-Saxons "English" is confusing... Usually those terms are used for modern Great Britain and modern English.

Re: Tuvalu looking at legal ways to be a state if it is submerged

#75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tuvalu exists as a state because the international community decided to let them. They export coconuts and fishing licenses for hard currency, and there is no way they could muster the money and hardware to defend their patch of the ocean. So if the same institutions that decided to enable the foundation of the republic of Tuvalu decide to protect Tuvualuan territorial waters as a way to give the Tuvaluan diaspora so…

> there is no way they could muster the money and hardware to defend their patch of the ocean. You also cannot defend a patch of ocean without some land, at least with current technology. War ships require quite a bit of time in dry dock for fueling, refit, and rearmament. And that's before we consider the subpar fighting capability that crews without shore leave would provide. No, they'd still need to buy or borrow…

I think the point is even with land there's no way they could actually defend their territory so what difference will it make when their land goes away? They'll be in the same situation they're in now (at least with respect to their sovereignty and existence as a state).

Re: Tuvalu looking at legal ways to be a state if it is submerged

#76
I understand why they are trying to do that but the effort is ridiculous and shows the inadequacy of last centuries' institutions to deal with the current challenges. Reactive in nature as humanity is, nothing will be done until well past due and many will suffer because of it.

Re: Tuvalu looking at legal ways to be a state if it is submerged

#78
Ken Liu has a relevant short story [1] - set in a future Earth where climate change and rising sea levels have forced people to live on floating settlements. It's also included in his collection The Hidden Girl and Other Stories.

[1] https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/dispatches-from-t...

Re: Tuvalu looking at legal ways to be a state if it is submerged

#79
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is most certainly not true of every state; if no one recognizes your claims, but you can still feed your citizens and defend your borders, you are "a state".

> and then acts with impunity against you

Russia acts with impunity on Ukraine soil, however Ukraine is a state for all definitions of state I could find.

Re: Tuvalu looking at legal ways to be a state if it is submerged

#80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Tuvalu exists as a state because the international community decided to let them. This is true of every state. If no one recognizes your claims, and then acts with impunity against you, you’re not a state.

Depends on how big of an army you have. Plenty of states get recognition not because other states want to, but because they have sufficient ability to defend their borders.

Well, then they can’t with impunity against you.

Monaco remains a country, because of interference by France, and the fact that they’d be severely sanctioned by EU and the rest of their allies.

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