In a reply to my question about German cemetary in the Vatican, Andrew
replied:

"There are no enclaves/exclaves within the Vatican or
Vatican exclaves/enclaves outside of the Vatican. The Vatican has
extraterritorial on several buildings in Rome, but extraterritorial
is just an administrative/juristically matter not a sovereignty one."

I'm not so sure I agree with that, especially with respect to the
exclaves of the Vatican. The question of what is or is not an
international level exclave does turn on the sovereignty issue PLUS
whether or not one can legitimately draw an international boundary
around.

Sovereignty has four aspects:

a. Sovereign rights of the state "occupying" the land (not in the
sense of military occupation, but in the sense of a daily operational
presence),

b. the exclusion of sovereign rights of the surrounding party
witin the occupied area,

c. the degree to which the occupying party allows application of
the "trappings of sovereignty" of the surrounding state to operate
inside the occupied area, and

d. "titular sovereignty". (If I give up my sovereignty in the
area, does it revert to you without my having a choice in the matter?
If so, you have "titular sovereignty"). See the Canal Zone treaty
between the US and Panama for such a situation.

With respect to the Vatican and "c.", we must be careful. Just because
the Vatican, for example, might apply Italian postal rates to its
mail, for example, and just because the Italian post office may come
into the Vatican to pick up and deliver, doesn't mean Italians have
gained sovereign right to run postal operations in the Vatican - or
that Italy has a titular right to operate the postal system in the
Vatican IF the Vatican were to discontinue its operation - it only
means that the Vatican, in exercize of its sovereign right allowed the
Italians to "meddle" to a certain degree in the operation of postal
services inside the Vatican. That the Vatican might use Italian
money, means it allowed it within it's jurisdiction, or agreed by
treaty (as a sovereign treaty power) to let the Italian banknotes and
coins circulate. It could have kept the Vatican Lira in place, issued
it's own Vatican lira banknotes and coins and not accepted the Euro,
for instance.

So, how does this relate to the Vatican exclaves? Take the Vatican
radio transmitter. It's on a plot of land outside the grounds on
which St. Peters Basilica sits. Can you draw an international border
around the Vatican? Yes. Can you draw an international border around
the plot on which the transmitter sits? I think so. Woudl it be an
invasion of Vatican territory if Italian police stormed the
transmitter site to shut it down? I think so. Do the Italians have
any sovereign right to say what the Vatican will do with it's
transmitter? I don't think so - only to the extent that the Vatican
stipulated in the treaty or agreement about the site, that it wants,
would like or would permit the Italians to exercise some suthority
inside the place to free the Vatican from having to duplicate the
effort or pay to provide some service itself that the Italians already
have in place and could perhaps do more efficiently. In such
situations, the Italians would be acting as agents of the Vatican,
helping the Vatican administer its sovereign rights in an agreed upon
way. In other words, the Vatican can tell the Italians to stay out of
the transmitter site, even IF it had a treaty. That would be an
abrogation, but the Vatican has the right of a sovereign to abrogate a
treaty over the site.

How about Castelgondolfo? The Pope's residence. I have a hard time
thinking that the grounds of Castelgondolfo are really Italian, and
that the Pope does not enjoy sanctuary there and that Italian rule is
not totally excluded. His kitchen and bathroom might get water from
Italy; that's a business arrangement - but I doubt whether Italian
regulations on the size and makeup of pipes that carry the water is
something that the Pope has to pay any mind to. I draw a border
around Castelgondolfo, too.

The other buildings in Rome? I don't know enough about how they are
regulated in the treaty to say what I'd do about them - treat them as
exclaves or like embassies. What if one burned down? Would the
Italians say "oops! Can't go there."

Regards

Len Nadybal