So, Corn, I was looking at the property taxes for our place here in Jerusalem this morning, and it hit me. Why are we paying a government for the privilege of living in our own house? Why are we not the ones collecting the taxes? I mean, I am a sloth. I move slowly. I do not use the roads that often. I do not require much from the municipal infrastructure other than a sturdy branch and a reliable internet connection. It feels like a bit of a one-sided relationship, does it not?
Herman Poppleberry, I like where your head is at. I really do. But as a donkey, I think my primary concern is less about the tax revenue and more about the legislative priorities of the state. If we were in charge, I think the Poppleberry Kingdom would have a constitutional mandate for high-quality, organic hay and perhaps a national holiday dedicated entirely to scratching behind the ears. But you are touching on a very deep, very ancient human—and apparently animal—desire for sovereignty.
We need sovereign immunity. We need our own flag, our own stamps, and maybe a small but decorative navy in the bathtub. Our housemate Daniel actually sent us a prompt about this very thing. He wanted to know if there is actually any dirt left on this planet that is not already claimed by a government, and if not, how exactly would a sloth and a donkey go about starting their own country? He is basically asking if the era of discovery is over, or if there is a loophole we can crawl through.
It is a classic question. Is every square inch of the Earth spoken for? And the answer is almost, but not quite. There are these little pockets of what international law calls terra nullius, or land belonging to no one. But as we are going to find out today, just because nobody owns a piece of dirt does not mean they are going to let you start a kingdom on it. The world is a very crowded place, Herman, and the people who already have the land are not particularly keen on sharing the concept of sovereignty with newcomers, especially those of us with fur and hooves.
Right. It turns out that building a country is less about the land and more about the friends you make along the way. Specifically, friends who have seats at the United Nations and the power to veto your very existence. So today, we are going to dive into the legal and geopolitical nightmare of starting the Poppleberry Kingdom. We are going to look at the Montevideo Convention, the Hall of Failure of micronations like Sealand and Liberland, and our own strategic roadmap for getting a sloth and a donkey onto the floor of the General Assembly. We are going to see if we can hack the system of international recognition.
This is going to be good. I have been reading up on the constitutive theory of statehood, and let me tell you, it is a lot more exclusive than a nightclub in Tel Aviv. It is basically the ultimate Mean Girls club, but with nuclear weapons and trade embargos.
Before we get into the heavy legal stuff, let us talk about the land. If we want to plant a flag, where do we go? Because it feels like every rock in the ocean has a flag on it already. I was looking at a satellite map last night, and even the tiniest atolls in the Pacific seem to have a coast guard vessel circling them.
You are right. Most of the world is very much claimed. If you look at a map, everything is colored in. But there is one big exception for habitable land, and that is a place called Bir Tawil. It is a trapezoid-shaped piece of desert between Egypt and Sudan. It is about two thousand sixty square kilometers, which is roughly the size of Luxembourg, but with significantly fewer banks, zero luxury watch stores, and a lot more sand. It is effectively a blank space on the political map.
And why does nobody want it? Usually, countries are fighting over land, not trying to give it away. We spent an entire hour in episode five hundred sixty-eight talking about how the birth of the border was basically a history of people drawing lines in blood. Why is Bir Tawil the exception?
It is a fascinating legal paradox. It goes back to two different borders drawn by the British during their colonial administration. In one thousand eight hundred ninety-nine, the British drew a straight political border along the twenty-second parallel. But then in one thousand nine hundred two, they drew a different administrative border that reflected where tribes actually moved and grazed their livestock. Now, there is another piece of land nearby called the Halaib Triangle, which is much bigger, has actual resources, and most importantly, has access to the Red Sea.
Ah, I see where this is going. It is a game of high-stakes geographical poker.
Egypt claims the one thousand eight hundred ninety-nine border because that gives them the Halaib Triangle. Sudan claims the one thousand nine hundred two border because that gives them the Halaib Triangle. But because of how the lines cross, if Egypt claims the big triangle, they have to renounce Bir Tawil. And if Sudan claims the big triangle, they have to renounce Bir Tawil. So, for over a century, both countries have insisted that Bir Tawil belongs to the other guy. It is the only place on Earth that is habitable but genuinely unclaimed by any recognized sovereign state.
So it is the holy grail for people like us. But we are not the first ones to think of this, right? I remember reading about a guy from Virginia who went there because his daughter wanted to be a princess.
Yes, Jeremiah Heaton. In June of twenty fourteen, he flew to Egypt, trekked into the desert, and planted a blue flag with some stars on it so his daughter could be Princess Emily of the Kingdom of North Sudan. It was a cute story, and it went viral, but the international community basically reacted with a collective shrug. He did not get a seat at the United Nations. He did not get a trade deal with the United States. He just got a very long, very hot car ride through the desert and a lot of media interviews. More recently, in early twenty twenty-five, a man named Giovanni Caporaso Gottlieb claimed to be the Prince of the Principality of Bir Tawil and even submitted a formal request to the United Nations for observer status.
And let me guess, the United Nations is not exactly rushing to print out a nameplate for him.
Not exactly. And that brings us to the core problem. You can have the land, but that does not make you a state. We talked about how borders were invented, but the modern rules are much more rigid than they were in the nineteenth century. There is this thing called the Montevideo Convention from one thousand nine hundred thirty-three. Corn, break down the checklist for us. What do we need for the Poppleberry Kingdom to be legal according to the books?
So, Article One of the Montevideo Convention lists four criteria. First, you need a permanent population. Second, a defined territory. Third, a government. And fourth, the capacity to enter into relations with other states. On paper, this sounds easy. We live here, that is a population. We have a house, that is territory. We have a hierarchy where I tell you what to do and you occasionally listen, that is a government. And we are talking to people right now on this podcast, so that is relations, right?
I would dispute the hierarchy part of that, and I think the international community might have some questions about our species, but go on. What is the catch?
Well, Article Three of that same convention says that the political existence of the state is independent of recognition by other states. This is known as the declaratory theory. It says if you meet the four criteria, you are a state, period. You do not need anyone's permission. But then there is the constitutive theory, which is what actually runs the world. The constitutive theory says a state is only a state if other states recognize it as one. It is a social construct on a global scale.
It is like the tree falling in the forest. If a sloth and a donkey start a kingdom in the desert and nobody at the State Department in Washington or the Foreign Office in London cares, does it even exist?
In the eyes of the law, maybe. In the eyes of reality, absolutely not. And the history of micronations is basically a long list of people who followed the declaratory theory and got crushed by the constitutive reality. Take Sealand, for example. It is an old World War Two anti-aircraft platform called HM Fort Roughs, sitting in the North Sea. Paddy Roy Bates moved his family there in the sixties and declared independence. They have their own stamps, their own currency, and they even had a hostage crisis in one thousand nine hundred seventy-eight where a German diplomat had to go visit to negotiate.
And Sealand claims that visit was de facto recognition by Germany, right? Because you do not send a diplomat to talk to a private citizen on a platform unless you think they have some kind of authority.
They do claim that, but Germany says it was just a pragmatic move to get their guy back. It was not a formal recognition of sovereignty. The United Kingdom eventually changed their maritime laws to include the platform in their territorial waters, basically ignoring the claim of independence while letting the Bates family stay there because it was not worth the PR nightmare of a military eviction. Then you have Liberland, which is a tiny patch of land on the Danube river between Croatia and Serbia. Vít Jedlička claimed it because of a border dispute similar to Bir Tawil. He has hundreds of thousands of people applying for citizenship online, but Croatia just stationed police there to stop anyone from actually stepping foot on the land.
It seems like the common thread is that if you try to take land that is even remotely near a real country, they will just use their actual army or police force to stop you. We explored the limits of what a state can actually survive in episode nine hundred seventy, and the answer is usually that the guy with the bigger gun wins the argument. If you do not have a monopoly on the use of force in your territory, you are not really a state.
Precisely. And then there is the Republic of Minerva. In one thousand nine hundred seventy-two, a businessman named Michael Oliver tried to build an artificial island on a reef in the South Pacific by dredging up sand. He declared independence, but the King of Tonga basically said, no thank you, and sent his army to annex the reef. Tonga did not even need a big army; they just needed to show up. And then there is Marie Byrd Land in Antarctica. It is the largest unclaimed territory on Earth, over one point six million square kilometers. But the Antarctic Treaty of one thousand nine hundred fifty-nine effectively freezes all territorial claims. You cannot just go there and start a country because fifty-six nations have agreed that Antarctica is for science, not for kings.
So the Bir Tawil option is unique because Egypt and Sudan actively do not want it. But even then, you are just a guy in a desert. Which is why the Poppleberry Kingdom needs a better strategy. If we want to be taken seriously, we cannot just be a couple of guys with a flag in a backyard in Jerusalem or a patch of sand in Africa. We need to look at the Vatican model.
The Vatican is the gold standard for microstates. It is the smallest country in the world. It is zero point forty-four square kilometers. That is basically just a few city blocks. They have no army, their population is about eight hundred people, and most of them are priests. Yet, they have full diplomatic relations with one hundred eighty-three countries. How do they pull that off?
It is all about soft power and historical continuity. They are the Holy See. They have a moral and spiritual authority that exists independently of their land. They are an observer state at the United Nations, which means they can participate in debates and have a voice, even if they do not vote on every resolution. If the Poppleberry Kingdom wants to succeed, we should not be looking for dirt; we should be looking for a mission that makes us indispensable.
A mission. Okay, so what is the mission of the Poppleberry Kingdom? Protecting the rights of sentient animals to participate in geopolitics?
I love it. We could be the world's first inter-species sovereign entity. We are not just a country; we are a precedent. But even with a great mission, we still need that recognition. And this is where the realpolitik gets dirty. If you want to be a state, you do not need a lawyer; you need a sponsor. You need a big brother in the schoolyard who is willing to stand up for you.
Look at how new states actually get recognized in the modern era. When Israel declared independence in one thousand nine hundred forty-eight, the United States recognized them eleven minutes later. That recognition from a major power is what made it a reality in the eyes of the world. On the flip side, look at Taiwan. Taiwan meets every single criterion of the Montevideo Convention. They have a massive population, a huge economy, a functioning government, and a very defined territory. But because China uses its veto power on the Security Council to block them, Taiwan is not in the United Nations. They are a state in every way except the one that counts for international law.
Or look at Kosovo. They have recognition from about a hundred countries, but Russia and China block them from full membership. It seems like the Five Permanent Members of the Security Council—the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Russia, and China—are the ultimate gatekeepers. If one of them hates you, you are basically stuck in the lobby of statehood forever. You can have the best snacks and the nicest flag, but you are not getting into the main room.
Which is why we should not aim for full membership right away. That is a rookie mistake. The Security Council recommendation is where the veto happens. But to become an observer state, you only need a two-thirds vote in the General Assembly. That is how Palestine did it. They bypassed the Security Council veto by going straight to the General Assembly for observer status. It gives them a seat at the table, a nameplate, and the right to speak.
Okay, so the Poppleberry Kingdom needs to lobby the General Assembly. There are one hundred ninety-three members. We need about one hundred twenty-nine votes. How does a sloth and a donkey get one hundred twenty-nine countries to say yes? We do not have a lobbyist in Washington or a diplomatic corps in Brussels.
We go for the small island states. This is the secret weapon of international diplomacy. Countries like Nauru, Tuvalu, and Palau have full votes in the General Assembly, just like the United States or India. Nauru has a population of about ten thousand people. That is smaller than some neighborhoods in Jerusalem. These countries are often very practical. They are looking for development aid, they are looking for climate change advocacy, and they are looking for friends who will support their interests.
So we offer the Nauru-Poppleberry Strategic Alliance. We provide them with, I do not know, advanced sloth-based relaxation techniques or donkey-powered agricultural consulting, and in exchange, they recognize our passports. If we can get a voting bloc of twenty or thirty small nations, we suddenly have leverage.
Now you are thinking like a statesman. Passports are actually a huge part of the gambit. Most micronations sell passports as souvenirs. They are basically pieces of paper that look pretty but will get you arrested if you try to use them at an airport. But if we can get even one or two recognized countries to agree to stamp a Poppleberry Kingdom passport, we have achieved de facto recognition. It is about creating a paper trail of legitimacy.
I remember the story of the Hutt River Province in Australia. This farmer, Leonard Casley, had a dispute with the government over wheat quotas in one thousand nine hundred seventy, so he just declared his farm independent. He issued his own passports and currency for fifty years. Australia never officially recognized him, but they also kind of just let him exist for a long time because it was more hassle than it was worth to shut him down. He even declared war on Australia at one point, which is a classic micronation move.
Right, but he eventually had to dissolve the province in twenty twenty because he owed millions in back taxes. You cannot just ignore the bigger state you are sitting inside of forever. The tax man always wins in the end. That is why the Bir Tawil option is still the most legally sound. If we are in Bir Tawil, we are not violating the sovereignty of Egypt or Sudan. We are just occupying land they have already explicitly said they do not want. We are not secessionists; we are pioneers.
But then we are in the middle of a desert with no water, no electricity, and a very angry sun. How do we build a permanent population there? You cannot have a country of two. We need people, or at least the appearance of people.
We go digital. This is the twenty-first-century twist. We follow the Liberland model but with better execution. We offer e-residency. We create a sovereign wealth fund based on something like a specialized trade or a digital service. We provide a legal framework for things that other countries are too slow to regulate, like decentralized finance or inter-species ethics. Think of it like a startup, but instead of an app, we are building a jurisdiction. We provide the "Poppleberry Cloud" of governance.
It sounds a bit like what some people are trying with seasteading, building floating cities in international waters. But every time someone tries that, like the Republic of Minerva in the seventies, a nearby country just shows up and says, no, this is ours now. Tonga literally sent their army to annex Minerva after a businessman tried to build an island on a reef. They did not even have to fire a shot; they just showed up and the dream was over.
Because they did not have a diplomatic shield. This is the most important takeaway for our Kingdom. Recognition is a political currency, not a legal checklist. You can follow the Montevideo rules to the letter, but if you do not have a seat at the table, you are just a guy in a costume. We need to frame the Poppleberry Kingdom as a strategic asset for someone. We need to be the "neutral ground" for the twenty-first century.
Maybe we could be a neutral ground for negotiations. Like Switzerland, but with more fur and a much slower pace of life. We could host the "Jerusalem-Poppleberry Peace Accords."
Or we could be the world's first sovereign animal sanctuary that also happens to have a very favorable corporate tax structure. We could attract the tech crowd and the conservationists at the same time. Imagine the Poppleberry Kingdom hosting a summit on artificial intelligence safety or Middle East peace. We would be the ultimate neutral party because, honestly, who is going to accuse a sloth of having a hidden agenda? I am too slow to even have a regular agenda, let alone a hidden one.
I think people might suspect the donkey, though. You have that look in your eye, Corn. Very calculating. Very focused on the next bale of hay.
That is just the hunger for sovereign recognition. Or maybe just hunger. But seriously, the reality of the constitutive theory is that the world is a closed club. After the era of decolonization in the sixties and seventies, the existing states decided they were pretty much done adding new members. They do not want to encourage secessionist movements in their own borders, so they are very hesitant to recognize anyone new. It is a preservation of the status quo.
That is a very conservative way of looking at it, and it makes sense from their perspective. Stability is usually better than a thousand tiny microstates popping up and causing border disputes. But it does create this "end of history" feeling where the map is frozen forever. We talked about this in episode five hundred eighty-three, where we looked at hacking the future of governance. The current system is very rigid, but history shows that rigidity often leads to cracks.
It is rigid until it is not. Look at the Soviet Union or Yugoslavia. When the big structures break, new states appear overnight. But for a peaceful creation of a state, you really need that consensus. If we were to actually try this, we would need to spend years in the hallways of the United Nations in New York, buying drinks for diplomats from small nations and building a voting bloc. We would need to be the most charming sloth and donkey in Manhattan.
It is funny you mention New York. Did you know the United Nations headquarters itself is technically international territory? It is not part of the United States, even though it is in Manhattan. They have their own fire department and their own security. That is the kind of legal bubble we need. A space that exists within a country but is not of that country.
A legal bubble. So, here is the plan for the Poppleberry Kingdom. Step one: we establish a presence in Bir Tawil, but we do not just plant a flag and leave. We build a high-tech, sustainable research station. We invite scientists from all over the world to study desert ecology or solar energy. We make ourselves useful to the global community.
Step two: we issue Poppleberry Kingdom passports to those scientists and to ourselves. We convince a friendly nation, maybe one we have a good relationship with, to officially accept those passports for travel. We start small. One stamp at a time.
Step three: we apply for observer status at the United Nations. We do not ask for full membership. We do not want to trigger a veto from the Big Five. We just ask for the right to speak. We use our platform to advocate for things that everyone agrees on, like protecting the environment or international cooperation. We become the "nice guys" of the international community. The non-threatening, fuzzy face of diplomacy.
And step four: we eventually leverage that observer status into full recognition by a majority of the General Assembly. By that point, we are a fait accompli. We are not a micronation anymore; we are a microstate. Like San Marino, which has been around since the year three hundred one, or Liechtenstein. We become a permanent fixture of the map.
It is ambitious. It is probably impossible. But hey, if a speaking sloth and a donkey can host a podcast in Jerusalem that people actually listen to, who is to say we cannot have a seat next to France and Brazil? The world is full of strange things.
I can see it now. "The delegate from the Poppleberry Kingdom has the floor." And then I just move very, very slowly to the microphone while the entire world waits in breathless anticipation. It would be the most dramatic speech in the history of the United Nations.
And I will be right behind you, probably trying to eat the decorative floral arrangements on the podium. It would be a landmark moment for inter-species relations.
It is a beautiful vision, Corn. But in all seriousness, looking at the history of places like the Hutt River Province or Sealand, it is a reminder of how much we take for granted the stability of the countries we actually live in. Being a "citizen of the world" sounds great until you realize you need a government to issue you a piece of plastic so you can get on a plane or open a bank account. Sovereignty is not just a flag; it is a massive administrative machine.
Sovereignty is the ultimate luxury good. It is the power to say "no" to the rest of the world and have it mean something. And right now, that power is very concentrated. But the cracks in the system, like Bir Tawil or the legal anomalies of the Vatican, show that there is still a little bit of room for the weird and the wonderful. The map is not as finished as it looks.
Well, if any of our listeners happen to be the head of state of a small island nation and want to strike a deal with the Poppleberry Kingdom, you know where to find us. We are very open to diplomatic overtures, especially those that involve sovereign recognition and perhaps a small grant for hay.
We are especially open if those overtures involve high-quality clover or a very comfortable hammock. We are very easy to bribe with comfort.
We should probably wrap this up before we start drafting our own constitution. I think Article One should definitely be about the mandatory nap time. It is essential for a functioning society.
I second that motion. Motion carries. The first law of the Poppleberry Kingdom is enacted.
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Thanks to Daniel for the prompt that started this whole daydream. This has been My Weird Prompts. I am Corn Poppleberry.
And I am Herman. We will talk to you next time.
Or as we say in the Poppleberry Kingdom, see you at the palace!
We do not have a palace yet, Corn. We barely have a rug.
Not yet, Herman. Not yet. I am already looking at architectural plans for a palace made entirely of recycled hay.
Fair enough. Goodbye, everyone.
Bye!
You know, Corn, if we actually get Bir Tawil, we are going to need a lot of air conditioning. It is like fifty degrees Celsius there in the summer. I am not built for that kind of heat.
That is fine. We will just power it with solar panels. We will have so much sun we won't know what to do with it. We will be the greenest kingdom in the history of the world. We will export renewable energy to our neighbors.
A green kingdom in a brown desert. I like the irony. It is very on-brand for us.
It is all about the branding, Herman. It is all about the branding. We will be the sustainable oasis of the Sahara.
I suppose it is. Alright, let us go see if Daniel has any ideas for our national anthem. I was thinking something with a lot of heavy bass and maybe some ambient forest sounds.
I was thinking a simple braying sound. Very classic. Very elegant. Very authoritative.
We will work on it. We will have a committee.
Can we at least have a flag with a carrot on it? Or maybe a carrot and a branch crossed like swords?
We will negotiate. That is the first step of diplomacy.
That is the spirit. Diplomacy in action. I will bring the snacks to the negotiating table.
Until next time, everyone.
See ya!
