Abstract
This chapter returns to the topic of borders, but specifically looks at lax and absent national boundaries. Cases discussed include the Neutral Zone; the land between Croatia and Serbia that neither side wants; the so-called Google War; and the author’s investigation of an American golf course that was strangely left on the wrong side of the US-Mexico border. The chapter concludes with a few strange instances where two or more states agree to share territory, calling into question the common assumption that that states always set definitive borders, that states have claimed all of the world’s available territory, and that states never give up territorial claims willingly.
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Notes
- 1.
He would soon be the 24th president, too. Cleveland was, perhaps, the weirdest US president.
- 2.
Cleveland’s traveling legal show took him all over the place. His most famous action took place in Venezuela. See Nelson M. Blake, “Background of Grover Cleveland’s Venezuela Policy,” The American Historical Review 47, No. 2 (January 1942), 259–260, https://www.jstor.org/stable/1841667.
- 3.
Technically, Costa Rica is demilitarized. That’s weird in its own right. Costa Rican security forces are something like part-time law enforcement.
- 4.
At this point, whenever a government sends troops to a border as part of a “routine exercise,” we should just assume that there is going to be an invasion.
- 5.
Coincidentally, someone said the same thing about me at a recent faculty meeting.
- 6.
Trust me, there are some really weird rocks out there and they make you wonder why anyone would ever want to claim them as sovereign territory. See Judith Schalansky, Pocket Atlas of Remote Islands: Fifty Islands I Have Not Visited and Never Will, translated by Christine Lo. New York: Penguin, 2014.
- 7.
Andorra is a sovereign nation-state that was once a condominium shared by a Spanish Bishop and the French King, who by agreement served as co-princes of the tiny territory. To this day, Andorrans recognize the Bishop of Urgell and the French President as co-heads of state. Until they adopted their first constitution in 1993, they paid tribute to the co-princes by giving each a wad of cash, six hams, six wheels of cheese, and six chickens.
References and Suggested Readings
Blake, Nelson M. “Background of Grover Cleveland’s Venezuela Policy,” The American Historical Review 47, no. 2 (January, 1942): 259–260.
Peterson, J.E. “Sovereignty and Boundaries in the Gulf States,” in Mehran Kamrava, editor, The International Politics of the Persian Gulf. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2011.
Reuters Staff. “Cambodia Blasts Google Map of Disputed Thai Border,” Reuters Wire Service, February 5, 2010. Accessed on March 10, 2018 at https://www.reuters.com/article/cambodia-google/cambodia-blasts-google-map-of-disputed-thai-border-idUSSGE61406G20100205.
Schalansky, Judith. Pocket Atlas of Remote Islands: Fifty Islands I Have Not Visited and Never Will, translated by Christine Lo. New York: Penguin, 2014.
Swaine, Jon. “Google Maps Error Sparks Invasion of Costa Rica by Nicaragua,” The Telegraph, November 8, 2010. Accessed on March 10, 2018 at https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/centralamericaandthecaribbean/nicaragua/8117902/Google-maps-error-sparks-invasion-of-Costa-Rica-by-Nicaragua.html.
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Mislan, D.B., Streich, P. (2019). Terra Nullius and the Neutral Zone: Not an Indie Band. In: Weird IR. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75556-4_7
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