Seastead State

at some point in the early 1990is, some obscure radical group sums up enough resources to set up a platform in the middle of international waters, say in the south Atlantic, somewhere half way between Africa and South America, and surrounds it with old cargo ships converted to floating buildings, making a whole floating city state, complete with mariculture facilities, fishery, power station, and defensive armament, in case of pirates, including 12.7 and 14,5 machineguns, such as the KPVT antiaircraft, middle range soviet stile land to sea and land to air missiles, RPGs and enough Kalashnikovs to arm a small regiment, all with extra ammo

the population fluctuates but stays around one hundred inhabitants

the inhabitants write up a constitution, set up a participatory democracy with elements of anarchism, and declare sovereignty, claiming a circle area of 20 nautical miles of territorial waters and airspace, also laying some claims on surrounding seabed

the inhabitants soon start with numerous lucrative activities, many of which would be problematic if not illegal under most national and international law, however they make sure they dont do anything obviously "criminal" such as trafficking drugs, guns or humans

what does the international community do?
who might recognize such a state?

(this is posted in the wrong forum please move to post 1900)
 
Their best bet would be to engage in non-sketchy behavior so as to avoid angering the "real" nations of the world. Recognition is out of the question; their best hope is to be tolerated.

If said group set up shop a little later (after c. 2000), they could support themselves by creating an Internet top-level domain and selling it thru fees and ads, a strategy pursued by such microstates as Niue (.nu), Tokelau (.tk), and Tuvalu (.tv). Since domains are administered by a nonprofit, it would be a matter of convincing the directors that one's floating city warrants its own Web domain. Actually, according to Wikipedia, before 1998 it was administered by one man, Jon Postel. Maybe one of the directors knew him and hatched this scheme before Postel's death.
 
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