It is unclaimed if you choose to accept both the Croatian and Serbian border definitions at the same time (which they apparently have done)

Seems like Serbia’s position is that Croatia owns it and Serbia has no intent to administer it given that, while Croatia’s position is that (1) either Serbia or Croatia owns it, (2) it's probably Serbia, and Croatia makes no positive claim, but also won’t force the issue pending international arbitration to clarify the border, and (3) Criatia will continue administering it as an interim matter until the border is resolved.

So it seems clear that (1) its either non-ceded Croatian territory being administered by Croatia with a diplomatic choice not to make an affirmative claim without arbitration of the border, or (2) it's by prior treaty Serbian territory, which may or may have been ceded to Croatia, which is being administered by Croatia without challenge to any rights Serbia (and only Serbia) may have.

In terms of international law, does Croatian law enforcement performing a court order and making arrests within the land, make this an affirmative claim? Otherwise wouldn't it be an cross-border action?

Its not really meant as a "documentary" but more as entertainment, but a youtuber visited the area under this idea. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jb8T9X5K1AA

Technically it is a cross-border action, but neither Croatia nor Serbia are claiming the island so Croatia didn't cross into any other recognized country.

Furthermore international law differs from normal law as usually at least one party has tanks.

Without dignifying any of this supremely silly drama, that's not an option that logically avails. Both Serbia and Croatia agree that one of them is getting this territory.

Neither of them claim it. Why is their opinion on land they do not claim relevant? (Other than because of force.)

There's a border definition dispute whwre its unclear whose side this piece if land falls on, and where Croatia has decided (and Serbia has acceded to this decision) to administer it until the dispute is resolved.

But there's no dispute that either Serbia or Croatia owns it, and it doesn't really matter, as to any third party attempt to set up a state in defiance of the status quo administration, whether Croatia is conducting non-hostile administration of Serbian territory with Serbian consent or administering its own territory.

To extend your metaphor, with a big "IIUC", there's a sense in which "neither side wants the land" but that's because there's another term in the contract where the party with the smaller portion on this 60/40 split gets something they both want even more than the 20%. They'd both rather have that thing, but they'd both rather have the 20% than not.

Croatia asserts its right to administer the patch through the simple expedient of actually administering it. The fact that Croatia claims to only be controlling access and evicting squatters on behalf of Serbia does not change the fact that Croatia is controlling access and evicting squatters.

The Liberlanders' claim that the patch was terra nullius was silly from day one. An area is terra nullius if there is no recognized government hoping to run it, not if there is no recognized government that will publicly commit to keep running it forever.

The Liberlanders' new claim that the patch is bona vacantia is just completely batshit gaga. Bona vacantia is about private ownership title rather than sovereignty, does not exist in civil law jurisdictions, and when successfully invoked just means ownership of the item in question has reverted to the Crown.

We need a moratorium on ancaps having legal opinions until their semantics games become functionally distinguishable from SovCit woo.

You cannot accept both Croatia and Serbia's borders at the same time. Croatia's policy is Serbia has this worse land and they have a better plot of land. And Serbia's policy is they own the better plot and Croatia owns this worse plot.

So, neither side claims it, because they both claim a better area. But whoever ends up losing the better area is going to take it.

Define "scam"? Who is trying to scam who in this situation? The Liberlanders feel more like a LARP group than any sort of pyramid scheme, and it's not like there was any serious risk of them actually receiving recognition and depriving the actual nations nearby of the (as you point out) worthless land.

Edit: Replying to people by editing your own post is bad form. It makes the conversation very hard to follow.

People apparently took it seriously enough to move there and build buildings.

Look at the pictures in the article: those buildings weren't ever intended to be permanent structures. They're built with bare lumber directly on unprepared dirt, with no attempt at a foundation, in an area that OP points out is regularly flooded. If Croatia hadn't torn them down they'd have washed away.

It looks like a fun project, but I wouldn't consider it evidence that anyone there was fooled by the founder into thinking they could actually live there permanently.

Better to build a boat or a floating structure then.

> The "unclaimed territory" story is a blatant lie.

So who claims it?

Both Serbia and Croatia agree that one of them owns it.

Well, that's settled then! On to demolishing people's homes.

If you build your home in the middle of Yellowstone Park, nobody's going to cry any tears when the Bureau of Land Management comes and tears it down. Don't build your house on land you don't own.

If the federal US government doesn't cry foul that's that.

Everybody agrees Yellowstone is part of the US. This would be like part of Yellowstone the US considers part of Canada, while Canada doesn't claim it but manages it.

You’ve described half the legal situation. The other half is that both sides agree the territory is going to end up on one side or the other, and the only reason a decisive claim hasn’t yet been made is that doing so will weaken claims in contemporaneous disputes over different territories.

People are trying to play this off as if Croatia doesn’t “want” the territory, but that’s not really it at all. They don’t want to lose a larger dispute. They’re happy to have the land.

So: yes, this is approximately “building on Yellowstone” levels of silly.

Yellowstone being a national park that is a protected conservation area detracts from the analogy. There will be those who don't feel sorry for you mainly because you should have chosen another wilderness location, not because they believe you shouldn't build a dwelling in the wilderness anywhere.

It deserves to be noted that even people who camp in city parks do have some supporters. That said, people who have the resources to build a solid home with amenities, including electricity and satellite network access, and keep a website running to tell their one-sided story, are not comparable to homeless campers.

People camp in Yellowstone! Nobody builds a house in the middle of Garfield Park. If you did, even the people camping in Garfield Park would probably cheer it getting torn down.

Yellowstone is actually tricky because of how the Wyoming, Idaho, and Federal jurisdictions overlap. There are some people who believe that in the so-called "Zone of Death", it's impossible to be convicted for murder. The only person who has been charged with a felony in a similar region was given a plea deal that was conditional on him not bringing up the 6th Amendment issues

Apparently one of {Croatia, Serbia}. I think we need to consult the axiom of choice on this one.

That's not true. Neither of them claim it.

They don't but they claim one of them does.

Even if using a function of choice made sense here, you don’t need the axiom of choice to know that a function of choice exists in the case of finite sets.

Currently Croatia manages this territory as its own until the dispute is resolved; so while they don't claim that this is their de jure land in perpetuity, they clearly assert (and demonstrate with their actions as seen in this article) that their law applies there right now.

The squatters should attack this in an international arbitration court at considerable cost if they think it's abuse and they have a chance to win.

Lol, no, not even close. First, what do you mean by 'an international arbitration court'? Such courts exist only because (and in the scope of) treaties where countries explicitly agree to be bound such courts, for example, signing a treaty with a clause stating 'disputes for this treaty shall be resolved in this way'. The only thing binding a sovereign is the treaties they "opt in". But Croatia has no treaties with Liberland, and Croatia has no obligations whatsoever to Liberland - the default state is that sovereign may do as it pleases, including 'abuse', war, slaughter, pillaging, etc - except when they, for example, sign a treaty confirming that there will be a border and they agree not to violate your side of border. If it's really 'terra nullius', then everybody, including Croatia, could do as they please, including burning the place to the ground and killing all the inhabitants, and the only treaty that comes to mind that would prevent that is Croatia's obligations with respect to the European Convention of Human Rights (but again, only because Croatia chose to take on these obligations) that would be violated by slaughter.

This is why a key precondition of being a state is recognition and border agreements with your neighbours - without that, the hypothetical state literally has no rights, not even the right to exist.

The two sides disagree on the algorithm used to define the border. Croatia's algorithm gives it to Serbia and better stuff to Croatia. Serbia's algorithm gives it to Croatia and better stuff to Serbia. So neither claims it. But, nor will whoever loses the fight over the algorithm give it up either.

That doesn't mean either side will accept some third party adding another algorithm and set of borders into the mix.

> It gets completely flooded with water multiple meters deep every couple of years.

Ah, so that was the catch. I have to wonder, what do the libertarians do when their entire nation is meters deep in water? Apply for asylum at the Croatian border?

Or did it just not happen so far?

>I have to wonder, what do the libertarians do when their entire nation is meters deep in water?

They pull themselves up by their bootstraps!