Edgbaston Convention

The Edgbaston Convention
On Standards to Prevent Frivolous Claims of Citizenship, Territory and Economic Activity within the Community of Small States and Nations

NOTING that the Wrythe Convention of 2018 did much to denounce those nations which attempt to deceive the outside world, but noting further that there are still many claims made within the community of small nations, relating specifically to citizenship numbers, the extent of territorial claims, and gross domestic product, we the undersigned, meeting at the town of Edgbaston in the County of Warwick in England, on this the twenty-eighth day of June of the two-thousand and nineteenth year of the Common Era, do agree as follows:

• 1. It is deemed improper for a nation-state to count as a citizen a person who:
  • a. Does not acknowledge the existence of the nation-state;
  • b. Has never stated any wish to be a citizen of the nation-state; or
  • c. Cannot be contacted by the nation-state.
• 2. The exception to section 1 is any minor who:
  • a. Was born into citizenship of the nation-state; or
  • b. Otherwise had citizenship arranged by their legal parent or guardian.
• 3. It is deemed improper for a nation-state to claim as its territory:
  • a. Any inhabited area in which a majority of the permanent residents, or a majority of the people who work there, are not citizens of the nation-state or family of citizens of the nation-state within three generations; or
  • b. Any inhabited area in which no permanent resident is a citizen of the nation-state;
• 4. The exceptions to section 3 are:
  • a. Claims over territory that are purely titular and ceremonial, and are clearly specified as being such;
  • b. Claims over areas of terra nullius, such as Antarctica and Bir Tawil; and
  • c. Claims which would have been proper at the time they were originally established, but have since entered a state where they might be considered improper in the present.
• 5. It is deemed improper for a nation-state to have the entirety of its territorial claims on any object in outer space, or in an entirely virtual space such as that of a video game.
• 6. It is deemed improper for a nation-state, in calculating its gross domestic product or any similar economic indicator, to include any assets which:
  • a. Did not come from activity which took place within the nation-state’s territory; and
  • b. Were not spent within the economy of the nation-state.
• 7. The exception to section 6 are assets which may have been earned by citizens of a nation-state in a different country, brought into the nation-state, and then spent on goods or services outside of the nation-state’s economy, but only if the labour performed abroad is treated as an export, and the goods and services bought are treated as imports, such that they cancel out for the purposes of calculating gross domestic product.
• 8. The signatories to this Convention promise not to uphold any of these improper claims, and they shall encourage their allies and other small nations to drop or amend any such improper claims if they have them.
• 9. No signatory to this Convention, by co-signing it, necessarily extends recognition of any sort to any other signatory.
• 10. This Convention takes effect on this present day of its signing, but is open for signature by any other state, nation, international organisation or sovereign entity, regardless of its recognition or lack thereof by any or all of the other signatories.