If we revisit the Vennbahn, the question remains open as to the nature
of the bridges carrying the Belgian railway and the depth to which the
Belgian border goes below the railway track bed to the German roads
that pass underneath. The claim is made that there are five exclaves
of Germany on the western side of the Belgian tracks, yet, maps show
conflicting borders and nobody has been able to say if German
sovereignty over the roads passing under the bridges that carry the
tracks is interrupted for the 5 meter width of the railway track bed
passing above and perpendicular to the road. Treaties say that
sovereignty over the rail line rests with Belgium, but doesn't seem to
address how deeply into the earth that sovereignty extends.
In the past, we have seen at least two examples of vertical borders -
one in Steinstuecken after the East Germans ceded a passage for a road
to West Berlin, and another, at Herbesthal, now in Belgium. Prior to
WWII, when Germany had Eupen and Malmedy, the border between Belgium
and Germany was at Herbesthal, where the tracks passed under a neutral
bridge, but there was no neutral area under the bridge through which
the railway tracks passed. I have a photo of this, and I don't fully
understand it, because even "neutral" areas have "titular sovereigns"
who ultimately, upon extinction of the neutrality, would "regain"
sovereignty over the area, such as is the case with the neutral zone
separating Spain from Gibraltar. It is "really" Spain's, and Spain
has, citing it's sovereign rights, many times encroached upon it and
narrowed it to the point where, today (last I saw), it's about a meter
or two wide.
Also, in former East Germany, we must remember that the conquering
western allies established their sovereignty over the air corridors
between West Germany and W. Berlin - and they were tubes - there were
maximum and minimum elevations where the western airspace ended.
There was an instance of a crash of a PanAm flight in East Germany
just outside of W. Berlin, but inside the roughly circular portion of
the corridor that permitted allied planes maneuvering room over the
western part of the city. The allies were not permitted to travel
beyond the area that was the Soviet sector of E. Berlin into E.
Germany proper to aid at the crash site. The East Germans reminded
the allies that the plane, once it descended below the lower altitude
limit of the air corridor, it had entered E. German airspace and had
subsequently landed on E. Germany soil outside of Berlin. They
refused to let western authorities get to the site.
Lastly, let's consider a "bridge in reverse". Who holds the
sovereignty over the "Chunnel" between France and the UK? Are there
uninterupted international waters from the SW - NE ends of the English
channel, or is internationality at the surface of the water
interrupted because the sovereignty for the length of the tunnel tube
extends in the width of the tunnel upwards forever? How come maps of
France and the UK never show their international borders extending
into the channel for the length of the tunnel over which each is
sovereign? Is the area of the Chunnel a condominium?
LN
--- In BoundaryPoint@yahoogroups.com, "acroorca2002" <orc@o...> wrote:
> wonderful
> tho how can i be wrong just to doubt this
> based on the evidence presented til now
> which i believe has consisted entirely of busted rumors
>
> & of course i would love to see any real examples
> in pix &or treaties
> or however else you might bring them to bear
>
> --- In BoundaryPoint@yahoogroups.com, "Karolis B."
> <kbajoraz@y...> wrote:
> >
> > > but other than that single hope
> > > i rather doubt vertical borders or any kind of vertical
> > differentiation
> > > of sovereignty can be pointed to as a present reality
> anywhere in
> > > the world today
> >
> > Here you are wrong Mike. Tho I give 0 credibility to that
> apartment
> > building story and Len's case involves administration, not
> > sovereignty, all Lithuanian border teaties establish that the
> border
> > in water constructions (such as bridges, dams, lake drains
> and stuff)
> > do not follow the border there vertically present, but instead go
> > trough the physical axis (middle) of such constructions. So for
> > example (and there must be a whole bunch of these cases)
> there's a
> > river, somwhere around the middle is the border line. We can
> extend
> > the border line to ground depths and air and it makes the
> > border "wall". However there is a bridge suspended in the air
> and the
> > middle of the bridge doesn't match exactly the borderline
> below, thus
> > causing an iterruption of the border wall. A piece of Lithuanian
> > bridge slammed two meters trough the Russian wall and stuff
> like
> > that. Sadly, it is impossible to be in this disturbed border area
> as
> > it is only INSIDE the bridge. Even if you would try to make a
> hole in
> > the bridge, the hole would then not be a part of the bridge but
> > become air space and follow the normal border. Very weird,
> yes, but
> > this is not referred to in any terms of exceptional conditions or
> > anything, the border treaties simply say that BORDER in water
> > constructions is the axes of such.