The Government of the Empire of Austenasia has formally reaffirmed its adherence to the Wrythe Convention of 2018, the Edgbaston Convention of 2019 and the Montediszamble Convention of 2020, restating the Empire’s commitment to each in full.
The reaffirmation was issued as a single instrument covering all three conventions. The Government said that it had considered whether the passage of time, and the changes of circumstance since each was signed, had altered the obligations they impose, and had concluded that they had not.
The three conventions
The Wrythe Convention, concluded at the imperial city of Wrythe on 15 September 2018, condemns the use of false personas for the purposes of deception, the impersonation of real persons, and false claims presented as fact without disclaimer or context. It further provides that a well-founded suspicion of such conduct is sufficient ground to suspend diplomatic relations, and that overwhelming evidence of it is sufficient ground to revoke recognition altogether.
The Edgbaston Convention, agreed at Edgbaston in the county of Warwick on 28 June 2019, addresses the standards by which small nations state their citizenship figures, territorial claims and economic indicators. It holds it improper to count as a citizen any person who does not acknowledge the state, has never sought its citizenship or cannot be contacted; improper to claim inhabited territory in which no permanent resident is a citizen; improper to found the whole of a claim upon an object in outer space or a purely virtual space; and improper to inflate an economic indicator with assets neither earned within the territory nor spent within its economy.
The Montediszamble Convention, executed on 22 November 2020, concerns freedom of expression, civility and the protection of copyright. Its signatories undertake not to resort to personal insults, to deal with disputes through private diplomacy rather than public denunciation, not to exclude others from intermicronational venues on grounds of political or religious belief expressed civilly, and not to make use of the work of other micronationalists without consent.
The Government’s position
The instrument states that the three conventions are complementary rather than overlapping, addressing in turn the truthfulness of what a nation says of itself, the proportion of what it claims, and the manner in which it conducts itself towards others. It notes that adherence to each is a matter of standing obligation and not of convenience, and that the obligations are owed irrespective of whether a given counterparty observes them.
The Government further confirmed that the Empire’s own published figures, territorial claims and public communications are maintained in accordance with the Edgbaston standards, and that the Foreign Office will continue to have regard to all three conventions in the conduct of the Empire’s relations.
On the Montediszamble undertakings in particular, the instrument observes that the requirement to conduct disputes privately and civilly is at its most demanding precisely where a dispute is bitterest, and that a convention observed only in easy conditions is not observed at all.
Prime Minister Andrew Musgrave said that the reaffirmation was intended to be read as much within the community as outside it.
“In divisive times such as these, it is more important than ever that we hold to the tenets of these conventions,” the Prime Minister said. “They were not written for easy conditions. They were written precisely for the moments when honesty is inconvenient, when a claim would flatter us to overstate, and when a dispute would be simpler to conduct in public than in private. A convention observed only when it costs nothing is not a convention at all. Diplomacy between small nations rests on very little beyond our word, and that is exactly why our word must be worth something.”
The Government further confirmed that the Empire’s own published figures, territorial claims and public communications are maintained in accordance with the Edgbaston standards, and that the Foreign Office will continue to have regard to all three conventions in the conduct of the Empire’s relations.
Open to others
All three conventions remain open for signature by any state, nation, international organisation or sovereign entity, regardless of its recognition by existing signatories, and none of them extends recognition of any kind between the parties to them. The Government said it would welcome further accessions, and encouraged those small nations which have not yet acceded to consider doing so.
