Politics and Government
Bouvetøya is one of three dependencies of Norway. Unlike Peter I Island and Queen Maud Land, which are subject to the Antarctic Treaty System, Bouvetøya is not disputed. The dependency status entails that the island is not part of the Kingdom of Norway, but is still under Norwegian sovereignty. Specifically, this implies that the island can be ceded without violating the first article of the Constitution of Norway. Norwegian administration of the island is handled by the Polar Affairs Department of the Ministry of Justice and the Police, located in Oslo.
The annexation of the island is regulated by the Dependency Act of 24 March 1933. It establishes that Norwegian criminal law, private law and procedural law applies to the island, in addition to other laws that explicitly state they are valid on the island. It further establishes that all land belongs to the state, and prohibits the storage and detonation of nuclear products. Bouvet Island has been designated with the ISO 3166-2 code BV and was subsequently awarded the country code top-level domain .bv on 21 August 1997. The domain is managed by Norid but is not in use. The exclusive economic zone surrounding the island covers an area of 441,163 square kilometers (170,334 sq mi).
Read more about this topic: Bouvet Island
Famous quotes containing the words politics and, politics and/or government:
“The rage for road building is beneficent for America, where vast distance is so main a consideration in our domestic politics and trade, inasmuch as the great political promise of the invention is to hold the Union staunch, whose days already seem numbered by the mere inconvenience of transporting representatives, judges and officers across such tedious distances of land and water.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“In politics people throw themselves, as on a sickbed, from one side to the other in the belief they will lie more comfortably.”
—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)
“I would not give half a guinea to live under one form of government rather than another. It is of no moment to the happiness of an individual.”
—Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)