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Comment by bin_bash | Hacker News Reader

call me cynical, but would any country be willing to give up its land like that? Tribal lands only exist to give back a small fraction of stolen lands back. Would any country give land to another country just for goodwill?

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> Tribal lands only exist to give back a small fraction of stolen lands back.

Tribal lands exist largely so that those resistant to integration will stay out of the way of colonizers.

The most likely resolution would be a land purchase in (for example) Fiji along with a grant of autonomous power on that land, in exchange for a fishing lease in Tuvaluan waters.

Fiji gets a share of Tuvaluan fishing grounds, and the Tuvaluans get a place to live AND some protection for their territorial waters by a nation that is still landed.

Why would Fiji treat them any differently than the Indians?

Fishing rights. Cultural affinity. But yes, there is very much a risk that the Fijians will mistreat the Tuvaluans.

Tuvalu’s total land mass is ~10 square miles, which doesn’t seem onerous to provide. That’s about 22% the size of San Francisco (~46 sq miles).

Their problem is not where people will sit (likely NZ will oblige) but that they want to retain control over other territorial claims/benefits such as fishing zone, domain, orbital rights et al.

The fact that they want that does not mean that they will receive that; they may well turn out to be one of the many nations in history who lose their claims. We have an international consensus regarding basic human rights and process for refugees which means that they near certainly will get an ability to resettle somewhere, but their fishing rights may well be divided among the surviving neighbouring nations without any compensation to Tuvalu unless those neighbouring nations just choose to grant some.

By the way, what do you mean by "orbital rights"? IMHO according to the Outer Space Treaty you have only the right to the orbits you are currently actively using with your satellites and nothing more.

I was confused and thought that the Kacific satellite was owned by Tuvalu (as the larger country of Tonga has already done for some time, establishing certain property rights in space). But I looked it up and Tuvalu was merely a customer.

Or a small Canadian prairies farm...

Brittany and Galicia are both the result of an explicit land grant to British refugees from the English invasion.

Who granted it to them?

Brittany: IIRC, it was still part of the Roman Empire when Cadwalldr and his followers migrated there.

Galicia: the local king.

??? Brittany and Galicia were the destination for some Briton migrations during the Roman and Anglo-Saxon eras...

Calling the Britons "British" and Anglo-Saxons "English" is confusing... Usually those terms are used for modern Great Britain and modern English.

It would hardly be goodwill -- this would be compensation for emitting enough carbon to cause their country to be drowned.

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