In 1942, during World War II, HM Fort Roughs was constructed by the United Kingdom as one of the Maunsell Forts, primarily for defence against German mine-laying aircraft that might be targeting the estuaries that were part of vital shipping lanes. It comprised a floating pontoon base with a superstructure of two hollow towers joined by a deck upon which other structures could be added. The fort was towed to a position above the Rough Sands sandbar, where its base was intentionally flooded to allow it to sink to its final resting place on the sandbar. The location chosen was in international waters, approximately six miles from the coast of Suffolk, outside the then three-mile territorial water claim of the United Kingdom.
The facility (called Roughs Tower or HM Fort Roughs) was occupied by 150300 Royal Navy personnel throughout World War II; not until well after the war, in 1956, were the last full-time personnel taken off HM Fort Roughs.
Occupation by Roy Bates and the establishment of Sealand
The Principality of SealandOn September 2, 1967, the fort (with a habitable area of 550 square metre (5920 sq ft))[citation needed] was occupied by Major Paddy Roy Bates, a British subject and pirate radio broadcaster, who ejected a competing group of pirate broadcasters. Bates intended to broadcast his pirate radio station Radio Essex from the platform.
In 1968, the Royal Navy entered what Bates claimed to be his territorial waters in order to service a navigational buoy near the platform. Michael Bates (son of Paddy Roy Bates) tried to scare the workmen off by firing warning shots from the former fort. As Bates was a British subject at the time, he was summoned to court in England following the incident. The court ruled that as the platform (which Bates was now calling "Sealand") was outside British jurisdiction, being beyond the then three-mile limit of the country's waters, the case could not proceed.
In 1975, Bates introduced a constitution for Sealand, followed by a flag, a national anthem, a currency and passports.
Forcible takeover
In 1978, while Bates was away, the Prime Minister of Sealand, Professor Alexander G. Achenbach, and several German and Dutch citizens, staged a forcible takeover of Roughs Tower, holding Bates' son Michael captive, before releasing him several days later in the Netherlands. Bates thereupon enlisted armed assistance and, in a helicopter assault, retook the fortress. He then held the invaders captive, claiming them as prisoners of war. Most participants in the invasion were repatriated at the cessation of the "war", but Achenbach, a German lawyer who held a Sealand passport, was charged with treason against Sealand, and was held unless he paid DM 75,000 (more than US$ 35,000). The governments of the Netherlands and Germany petitioned the British government for his release, but the United Kingdom disavowed all responsibility, citing the 1968 court decision. Germany then sent a diplomat from its London embassy to Roughs Tower to negotiate for Achenbach's release. Roy Bates relented after several weeks of negotiations and subsequently claimed that the diplomat's visit constituted de facto recognition of Sealand by Germany.
Following his repatriation, Achenbach established a "government in exile" in Germany, in opposition to Roy Bates, assuming the name "Chairman of the Privy Council". He handed the position to Johannes Seiger in 1989 due to illness. Seiger continues to claim via his website that he is Sealand's legitimate ruling authority.
1990s
In an incident in 1990, the Royal Maritime Auxiliary vessel Golden Eye was fired upon from Sealand in defense of their claim to the waters surrounding Roughs Tower to the extent of twelve nautical miles.
Due to the massive quantity of illegal passports in circulation (estimated at 150,000), in 1997 the Bates family revoked all Sealand passports, including those that they themselves had issued in the previous thirty years.
2000s
Sealand several months after the fire.On the afternoon of 23 June 2006, the top platform of the Roughs Tower caught fire due to an electrical failure. An RAF rescue helicopter transferred one person to Ipswich hospital, directly from the tower. The Harwich lifeboat stood by the Roughs Tower until a local fire tug extinguished the fire. All damages were repaired by November 2006.
In 2007, Sealand was offered for sale through Spanish estate company InmoNaranja. However, because a principality cannot technically be sold, Sealand's current owners plan to transfer "custodianship". The asking price is between £65,000,000 and £504,000,000 (750 m, according to the BBC . Sealand also holds the Guinness World Record for "the smallest area to lay claim to nation status".Plans for an online casino have been announced.
Legal status of Sealand
Main article: Legal status of Sealand
Map of Sealand and the United Kingdom, with territorial water claims of 3 NM and 12 NM shown.The claim that Sealand is an independent sovereign state is based on the following contentions:
That when Paddy Roy Bates and his associates occupied Roughs Tower/HM Fort Roughs in 1967, it was located in international waters, outside the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom and all other sovereign states, thus constituting terra nullius which could be settled and claimed by a new State. (This is the basis of the claim for de jure legitimacy).
That interactions by the UK and the German Governments and the occupants of Sealand/Roughs Tower constitute de facto recognition of the territory's sovereignty. However, the concerned States deny this proposition.
That a 1968 decision of an English court, in which it was held that Roughs Tower was in international waters and thus outside the jurisdiction of the domestic courts, is a further de facto recognition of Sealand's sovereignty.
In international law, the two most common schools of thought for the creation of statehood are the constitutive and declaratory theories of state creation. The constitutive theory was the standard nineteenth century model of statehood, and the declaratory theory was developed in the twentieth century to address shortcomings of the constitutive theory. In the constitutive theory, a state exists exclusively via recognition by other states. The theory splits on whether this recognition requires "diplomatic recognition" or merely "recognition of existence". No other state grants Sealand official recognition, but it has been argued by Bates that negotiations carried out by Germany constituted "recognition of existence". In the declaratory theory of statehood, an entity becomes a state as soon as it meets the minimal criteria for statehood. Recognition by other states is purely "declaratory".
Arguments against sovereignty include that Sealand is not a real island, and does not count as a territory.
Sealand as a statelike entity
Prince Roy and Princess Joan Bates claimed Sealand as their own in 1967.Irrespective of its legal status, Sealand is managed by the Bates family as though it were a recognised sovereign entity, and they are its hereditary royal rulers.
Roy Bates styles himself "Prince Roy" and his wife "Princess Joan". Their son is known as "His Royal Highness Prince Michael" and has been referred to as the "Prince Regent" by the Bates family since 1999. In this role he apparently serves as Sealand's acting "Head of State" and also its "Head of Government".At a micronations conference hosted by the University of Sunderland in 2004, Sealand was represented by Michael Bates's son James, who was referred to as "Prince Royal James".
The Bates' are all believed to retain UK citizenship, and the family has not been in permanent residence on the Roughs Tower facility since 1999.[citation needed] The facility is now occupied by one or more caretakers representing Michael Bates, who himself lives in Essex, England.
