President Yaroslav Mar revealed today the Montediszamble Convention on Freedom of Expression, Civility and Copyright Protection in Micronationalism: a joint effort of the world’s largest micronations to safeguard civil liberties, encourage civil discourse and honor copyright laws in the micronational community.
The convention, which consists of a declaration and an agreement, touches some of the unfortunate practices that exist in the micronational community: shunning and publicly shaming micronationalists for holding different political or religious beliefs or for personal disagreements, engaging in foul language and copying the work of other micronations without their permission. The signers of the convention agree to not engage in such behavior and to not facilitate nor endorse it when coming from non-signatories. The draft of the convention was written by Yaroslav Mar and finalized by Dr. Eric Lis, Emperor of the Aerican Empire.
Other than Lostisland and Aerica, the convention’s original signers include the Empire of Austenasia, the Commonwealth of Dracul, the Grand Duchy of Flandrensis, the Karno-Ruthenian and Occidian Empires, the Royal Republic of Ladonia, the Empire of Pavlov, the Republic of Užupis and the Grand Duchy of Westarctica. Other nations may accede to the convention by submitting a Notice of Accession through the convention’s website: the first nation to do so was the French-speaking Principality of Bérémagne.
Announcing the convention in Micronations and Royal Houses Facebook group, Yaroslav Mar said that “our [the signers’] responsibility as leaders of the micronational community to establish a set of standards for micronational behavior, and this is what the convention does. By signing it, we’re sending a clear message: the largest micronations of the world condemn the practice of shunning, shaming and bullying micronationalists on official websites or other venues over political or religious differences, believe that resorting to personal insults is childish and unprofessional, and do not condone copyright violation”.
The name of the Montediszamble Convention comes from Montediszamble, Lostisland’s name for the dormant Hunter Island volcano and the proposed name for the Lostislandic capital, which, in turn, was given after the semi-legendary founder of Lostisland Rolf Diszamble.