Wednesday, August 4, 2004

Gibraltar and other contested territories

Bloomberg.com::
"In a 2002 referendum, 99 percent of Gibraltar's 20,683 registered voters chose to reject any plan of shared sovereignty of the territory between Spain and the U.K. The Spanish and British governments said the referendum had no legal merit.
Spanish exports to Gibraltar last year totaled 420.3 million euros ($505 million), and imports from the territory amounted to 1.7 million euros, according to Spain's chamber of commerce."

By those numbers, it looks like Gibraltar is a cash cow for Spain, and that nobody there wants to live in Spain. I wonder how many other national territory disputes are there out there: Gibraltar, Taiwan, Guantanamo, Belize (Guatamala claims it), Falkland Islands, Spratley Islands, Cyprus, Kuril Islands, Kashmir, Kuwait, Chafarinas Islands, ... I think the more interesting ones are between countries where the territory is obviously noncontiguous to the current de-facto owner.

Interesting Links:

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