Due to a legal technicality, the tiny village of Berwick upon Tweed has been at war with Russia for the past 160 years. As this didn’t escalate into open conflict during the Cold War it’s unlikely to do so now, but it makes an interesting example of a legal anachronism and begs the question, should we always follow the letter of the law?
Located just a few miles from the Scottish border, Berwick is the northernmost town in England and its residents have historically had to endure an identity crisis over their nationality. The local football team plays in the Scottish League, and football fans are not alone in their confusion. Reigning monarchs have also struggled with the issue. When Queen Victoria made her official declaration of war against Russia in 1853, she signed herself as “Victoria, Queen of Great Britain, Ireland, Berwick-upon-Tweed and all British Dominions”. When the Treaty of Paris ended the Crimean War three years later England’s northernmost town was not mentioned, leaving it in a stand-off with a nation whose population of 142 million people would have a slight edge in any clash with Berwick’s dauntless 12,000.
In 1966 the Soviet Union admirably offered their enemies an olive branch, sending an official delegation to meet the Mayor of Berwick. Accepting the hand of friendship Mayor Robert Knox famously reassured them: “please tell the Russian people that they can sleep peacefully in their beds.” But he had no official authority to end the conflict, and no record of the meeting exists. The conflict drags on, with no official end in sight.
Many legal loopholes are familiar to EVS Translations clients, but few are as outlandish as the Wisconsin law which allows infant children to drink all the alcohol they want provided it is served to them by a parent. The state’s law allows any parent to order an alcoholic drink and then give it to their child. This right is revoked when the child reaches 18 years of age and the parent ceases to be their legal guardian. So a Wisconsin mother or father can legally get their three year old child drunk in public, but can’t buy a drink for their eighteen year old.
Kenneth Robinson, an opportunistic Texan, may well have drunk a toast to his own ingenuity when his exploitation of a legal loophole secured him a $300,000 home at a cost of just $16. Robinson discovered that a squatter who occupies an abandoned property gains exclusive negotiating rights with that property’s original owner. The original owner of his chosen house was a mortgage company that had gone out of business. With no one to dispute his right, Robinson filed a claim at a cost of $16 and introduced himself to his affluent neighbours in exclusive Flower Mound, having secured the rights to his new home at a 99.99466666% discount.
With so many regional and national legal systems often conflicting and contradicting each other, it’s hardly surprising that loopholes exist which can cause amusement or bewilderment.
EVS Translations exists to serve our partners in this sector, helping them work their way through the minefield and deliver the service their clients need, in any language. Our thoughts are with them, and also with the people of Berwick upon Tweed as they batten down the hatches and enter their seventeenth decade of war. They might console themselves with the news that theirs is not the longest conflict on record for a British territory. When the navy of King Charles retreated to port off the coast of Cornwall during the English Civil War, the Netherlands sided with Oliver Cromwell’s Roundheads and declared war on the Isles of Scilly. From this declaration in 1651 the tiny island group remained at war with the Dutch for 335 years, until the Chairman of the Isles of Scilly Council wrote to the Dutch Embassy in 1986 and finally signed a Peace Treaty with their visiting Ambassador. So the message to Russia and Berwick upon Tweed is clear. Keep your war going until 2189 and you’ll make it into the record books!
