Wednesday, October 3, 2018

How Do You Solve A Problem Like Baarle-Hertog/Baarle-Nassau?

Blockchain!

So there I was, reflecting upon the brilliance of Chancellor of the Exchequer Hammond's solution to the conundrum posed by the Ireland/Northern Ireland Border in re Brexit:
“There is technology becoming available (...) I don’t claim to be an expert on it but the most obvious technology is blockchain,” Hammond said when asked about how the government could achieve smooth trade after Brexit....
as described by McCrum & Kelly LLP when it occured to me that, should the centripetal force upon the EU that is Germany weaken, and the pieces begin to fly apart, what about the border between Belgium and The Netherlands?

https://www.kickassfacts.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/BaarleHertogBaarleNassauABorderThroughYourFrontDoor.jpg

Here's Brilliant Maps with a graphic depiction of the potential problem:

The Border Between Belgium & The Netherlands at Baarle-Hertog/Baarle-Nassau 

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3c/Baarle-Nassau_-_Baarle-Hertog-en.svg/1700px-Baarle-Nassau_-_Baarle-Hertog-en.svg.png

And the discussion:
The map above shows the incredibly strange and complex border between Belgium and the Netherlands at Baarle-Hertog (Belgium) / Baarle-Nassau (Netherlands).

Baarle-Hertog is a Flemish municipality in the Belgian province of Antwerp and has a population of 2,663.
Baarle-Nassau is a municipality in the Dutch province of North Brabant and has a population of 6,626.
Baarle-Hertog consists of 26 separate parcels of land, including 22 exclaves in the Netherlands and 3 more on the border. There are also 7 Dutch exclaves within the Belgian exclaves.

The border developed as a result of various medieval treaties, agreements, land-swaps and sales between the Lords of Breda and the Dukes of Brabant and was only finalised with the 1843 Treaty of Maastricht, 13 years after Belgium declared independence from the Netherlands....MORE
So the question is WTF pardon me, the question is, can blockchain work its magic here as well?

Or do those two of the three Benelux states go the route of India and Bangladesh who, even when confronted with a bit of India within Bangladesh that contained a Bangladeshi enclave which in turn surrounded an Indian enclave, when confronted with that mess decided in 2015 it would be harder to explain the actual workings of blockchain than to swap territory and people in a third, second, and first order enclave.

And I thought Nagorno-Karabakh was complicated.