Brit, 21, who invented his own country as a teen has now picked up an award at UN headquarters
Daniel Jackson, 21, says the micronation he declared in 2019 has now received a humanitarian award at a UN gala in New York.
A British man who says he founded his own country on a disputed patch of Balkan land has reached an unlikely new milestone. Daniel Jackson, 21, has now accepted a humanitarian award at a gala held at United Nations headquarters in New York, while the project he began as a teenager continues to operate without access to the territory it claims.
Jackson said the idea for the Free Republic of Verdis started when he was 14 and talking it through with friends. They had spotted that, after a border dispute, several small pieces of land beside the Danube were not being claimed by either Croatia or Serbia.
On May 30, 2019, he declared one of those areas, labelled Pocket-3 on the map, to be Verdis. He has since made himself president and built out many of the basics associated with a state, including passports, a flag, laws, a cabinet and a coat of arms.
The latest change is that Verdis was honoured for humanitarian work linked to Ivory Coast at an event in the UN delegates' dining hall in New York. The award was presented by the Institute of Public Policy and Diplomacy Research, and Jackson also gave an acceptance speech. He described the occasion as intense and nerve-wracking, saying he is still getting used to appearing at events with influential people.
A speech slot followed at the UN youth segment
Verdis was also invited to speak at the United Nations General Assembly Youth Mobilisation Segment on October 9. Jackson's Humanitarian Affairs Minister, Jeffrey Li, addressed the room about the micronation's previous work and its future plans.
Jackson said trips to New York have helped open dialogue and create connections, and that having a colleague speak directly at the youth forum was especially useful for contacts around youth involvement and aid.
Why Verdis still says it is operating in exile
Jackson says Verdis covers 0.501 square kilometres, or about 125 acres, which would make it the world's second smallest country behind Vatican City. He says it can only be reached by boat from Osijek, and that attempts to settle there have not succeeded.
He is banned from Croatia and says Croatian authorities have installed cameras along the Verdis coastline to stop access from Serbia. Because of that, he describes Verdis as a government in exile. At the same time, he says there has been progress with Serbian officials and that he has been accepted for Serbian citizenship.
Verdis says it has 400 official citizens, uses English, Croatian and Serbian as its official languages, and uses the euro. It also says it receives more than 1,000 emails a month from people who want citizenship, although Jackson says applications have to stay limited because the land itself is so small. He has also opened embassies in Dover and Novi Sad, and says the project has now become his full-time job.
