This video was made possible by Dashlane. Never lose a password by signing up with Dashlane
for free at dashlane.com/HAI. Welcome to Scotland! But wait, where's the Irn-Bru, the kilts,
the Greggs, the vegan sausage rolls, the deep fried Mars bars, the beautiful vistas, the
cone hats, the drunkards, the loud American tourists, the five annual days of sun, the
sticky nightclub floors, the endless seagulls--oh wait, here are the seagulls. This must really be Scotland. You see, the reason this is Scotland is because
of the UK's never ending quest to claim tiny, terrible rocks in the middle of the ocean. Now, this rock, called Rockall, is further
away from Edinburgh, Scotland’s capital, than Edinburgh is from London, the UK’s
capital. In fact, Rockall is closer to Tórshavn, the
capital of the Faroe Islands, than it is to Edinburgh. It’s nowhere near Scotland, so why does
the UK so desperately want it to be part of their country? Money. Now, the UK has plenty of tiny, terrible islands
off the coast of Scotland like Sula Sgeir, St Kilda, the Flannan Isles, and more. Almost universally, Scotland’s tiny, terrible
islands are uninhabited aside from a few temporary military and conservation personnel. Now, the UK had good motivation for annexing
Rockall, the most isolated of the tiny, terrible islands, back in the 50’s. In the many centuries of flip flop between
liking and disliking whatever country currently existed here, this was a period when the UK
didn’t like them—the Soviets. The UK had a missile testing range here, in
the Outer Hebrides, and they didn’t want the Soviets setting up on Rockall and spying
on them which they could possibly legally do since Rockall wasn’t definitively claimed
by anyone. Because of that, the immortal Queen Elizabeth
ordered the Royal Navy to sail out to Rockall, plant a flag, place a plaque, and claim it
which they officially did at 10:16 AM on September 18, 1955 marking the last ever expansion of
the British Empire. Now, here’s the thing. Nobody really currently actively disputes
that the rock is British. They got to it first, they claimed it, it’s
theirs. This water, on the other hand, is some controversial
water. You see, back in 1982, after 14 years of negotiations,
a bunch of selfless world leaders gathered in Montego Bay, Jamaica to plot their signatures
down on this—the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. This is one of the most consequential UN treaties
to have ever been signed because it effectively decided, definitively, how this whole area,
the 71% of the world that is ocean, works politically. This treaty has been signed by almost every
nation in the world. Now, just take a moment to guess what single
large, developed nation decided they were special enough to not participate in this
treaty? Yeah, it’s the US. While the US effectively follows most of the
rules of this treaty, it has not signed it since, according to arguments against, it
would subject the US to dumb things like, “environmental standards” and “sharing.” One big part of the treaty, though, was the
establishment of the concept of, “exclusive economic zones.” Typically, the zone within 200 nautical miles,
230 miles, 370 kilometers, or 3.9125 x 10-11 light years of a country’s coast is a country’s
EEZ. This area is not part of a country, they don’t
have sovereignty over it, but they do have exclusive rights to all natural resources,
including fish and oil, within it. The UK, with its proclivity for claiming tiny,
terrible islands has a pretty large and geographically varied EEZ in the Indian, Atlantic, and Pacific
oceans. Rockall, here, could hypothetically have an
exclusive economic zone of this but of course there’s the Republic of Ireland here and
the Faroe Islands, which are an autonomous country of Denmark, here. While it’s determined on a case-by-case
basis, how it normally works when two country’s EEZ’s overlap is each point just goes to
the nearest country so that puts Rockall’s EEZ as this and so in 1977 that’s what the
United Kingdom claimed. Buuuuut, if we go to part 8, article 121 of
the treaty, we can find their definition of what an island is as, “a naturally formed
area of land, surrounded by water, which is above water at high tide,” and that an island
isn’t a rock, “which cannot sustain human habitation or economic life of their own,”
and artificial islands don’t count (cough, China.) Fashionably late, The United Kingdom signed
this treaty in 1997. Rockall, surprisingly given it literally has,
“rock” in its name, has no flat land, no vegetation, it’d be impossible for anyone
to live there permanently without support from shore. Therefore, after years of asserting that Rockall
was, in fact, an island and therefore that their EEZ was this, the United Kingdom voluntarily
reclassified it as a rock as therefore reset their EEZ as this. It’s fine though. The UK are experts at losing territory. Nowadays, the quest for this area of ocean
goes on. According to the same treaty, countries are
allowed to submit claims for their EEZ’s to extend further than 200 nautical miles
if the continental shelf extends further based off a whole host of insanely complicated definitions
and qualifications so in 2009 the UK submitted this document outlining how they believed
they fulfilled these insanely complicated definitions and qualifications. To this Iceland and Denmark submitted documents
to the UN that said, in the most formal and cordial way possible, “bugger off mate”
and, “you’re wrong.” As of now, the area between the Irish, British,
Danish, and Icelandic EEZ’s is nobody’s as it shall remain for some uncertain amount
of time. Losing almost a whole world’s worth of territory
has got to be rough, but what’s even worse is losing a password. While Dashlane can’t help prevent the dismantling
of your empire, it can help you keep your passwords. Dashlane helps you create super secure, nearly
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Is this Wendover's second channel?
That was pretty interesting, and I liked his sense of humor.
The transition into the sponsor ad was extremely sneak and caught me off guard.
...Doesn't the UK want the island to be habitable?
"Forrow Islands"
FFS.......
Anyone else catch the hunter2 reference at the end for the sponsor?
I really wish he'd use a proper projection when showing a map of a small portion of the world.
Hey don't diss St Kilda