Lestrian Neutral Zone
The Lestrian Neutral Zone is the region of the continent of Lestria not under the direct control of any civilised state. The area is rich in resources exploited by various different corporations and estates, and was legally constituted – building on several earlier treaties – by the Lestria Directives signed by all of the Great Powers at the Kethpor Congress following the Long War; these directives essentially forbid direct political or military involvement in the zone by any power. In the post-Kethpor world, disputes between different commercial bodies operating in the region are notionally dealt with by the Joint Lestrian Commission headquartered in the independent city of Taikoo (outside the Neutral Zone itself); in practice, however, many disputes are resolved through the use of private armies and the co-option of the primitive local inhabitants. Previous to the establishment of the Neutral Zone, minor conflicts between individual private interests in the region often led to large-scale interventions, triggering serious wars: it was in response to the Kershagabam Incident, which escalated into the first major Messeno-Joriscian clash of the Long War, and the fiasco of the Great Lestrian Banner that the Lestria Directives were eventually formulated. In spite of the Directives, both covert and occasional overt state interventions are a regular feature of the Neutral Zone's politics.
The Neutral Zone notably remains unrecognised by the Tondaku, the largest native Power in Lestria by population and indeed the most populous single country in the world, since it was not party to the Kethpor Accords and views various territories within the Zone as properly constituted states and, in some cases, its own subjects. The Baygil Empire also challenges the constitution of the Zone, though its policy is considerably more inconsistent, oscillating between recognition alongside circumvention (to likewise deal with various polities in the Zone on its own terms) to outright defiance, although in either case it too has a regular military presence in the Zone. The more generally accepted interordinate perspective acknowledges the great diversity of indigenous non-state polities within the Zone, but these cannot in general be considered sovereign, given, variously, the elementary state of their organisation, the fluidity of their frontiers, and their basic dependence on the civilised Powers.