In May 2015, Vít Jedlička and his translator Sven Sambunjak were shortly detained by Croatian police after making an attempt to cross the border. Jedlička spent one night in jail and then was convicted and ordered to pay a penalty for illegal crossing of the Croatian border but appealed the verdict. He claimed that there were at least three Liberland citizens inside the area, who came from Switzerland.
Later that month, Vít Jedlička was detained again. Initially, reporters were able to enter the area with Jedlička but subsequently they were also denied entry, including journalists from the Serbian public broadcast service Radio Television of Vojvodina, and from the Bosnian newspaper "Dnevni Avaz".
The people arrested were from many countries, including Ireland, Germany, Denmark, and the US. Croatian police have continued arresting people, including those who entered the area by boat via the international waterway. One of them, a Danish activist Ulrik Grøssel Haagensen, was placed in house arrest for 5 days before being sentenced to 15 days of prison, triggering some protests in Denmark.
In May 2016, several appeals court decisions from Croatia were published. The court upheld the rulings that crossing into Liberland from Croatia is illegal, but found the convictions for entering Liberland from Serbia were not correct. The court said that the lower court committed "a fundamental breach of misdemeanor proceedings" and "essential procedural violations". It further ruled that "the facts were incorrectly and incompletely established [by the prosecutor] which could lead to misapplication of substantive law". A retrial was ordered in 6 of the 7 appeals. The lower court is required to determine the location of the border and the border crossing, but has not done this yet. Since that time, visitors have come the area in boats, but have not permanently settled the area.
Croatia and Serbia dismissed Jedlička's claims as not important, although the two countries reacted in different ways. On 24 April 2015, the Serbian Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that while they consider the affair a trivial matter, the "new state" does not infringe upon the Serbian border, which they say is the Danube River. Croatia, which blocks people from accessing Liberland, has stated that after international arbitration, it should be awarded to Croatia or Serbia, not to a third party.
An article in the Chicago Journal of International Law, the law review of the University of Chicago Law School, examined Liberland's claim to statehood in light of the criteria laid out by the Montevideo Convention. According to the author, "Croatia’s insistence that Liberland is part of Serbia could constitute a renunciation of Croatia’s legal rights to Liberland. Conversely, if the territory that Liberland claims as its own is Serbian, the Serbian government’s renunciation of its title to that land could also be a quitclaim that would transform the legal status of the land to "terra nullius". In both instances, the territory would belong to the first entity —in this case Liberland— to claim it.”
Legal experts in Serbia and Croatia have asked if, under international law, Jedlička has the right to claim the area, which is currently the subject of a dispute between the two nations but claimed by neither one. Journalists have been uncertain as to how serious Jedlička is about his claims, with some calling it a publicity stunt.
On 20 May 2015 Petr Mach, the leader of the Party of Free Citizens, expressed support for the creation of a state based on ideas of freedom, adding that the Party of Free Citizens wants the Czech Republic to become a similarly free country.
Goran Vojković, professor of law and columnist from the Croatian news portal "Index.hr", described Liberland as a "circus which threatens Croatian territory", and argued that there was a risk that Croatia's claim to control land on the other side of the Danube may be weakened by the attention that the Liberland project has drawn to the border dispute.
In 2016, an article in Stratfor summarized the initiative as follows: "Liberland is a curious case because, in principle, none of the actors that could claim control over it seems interested in doing so. But this will probably remain a curiosity with negligible consequences at the international level. For the rest of the world's disputed territories, violence and diplomacy will remain the main tools to claim ownership.
According to its web page, Liberland is currently looking for those who have respect for other people and respect the opinions of others, regardless of their race, ethnicity, orientation, or religion, have respect for private ownership which is untouchable, and have not been punished for serious criminal offences. Liberland received 200,000 applications in a week. In the beginning of May 2015, Liberland accepted around thirty citizens. An event was supposed to take place in the claimed territory, but Croatian border police stopped the group from entering it from the Croatian side. As of October 2017, Liberland has awarded citizenship to between 300 and 400 people, to persons who have "helped move the country forward" or earned at least 5000 Merits. On February 16, 2018, former Congressman Ron Paul was presented with a Liberland passport and citizenship certificate by Jedlička and his cabinet.
Liberland also presents an Order of Merit award called the "First Class Order of Merit" to persons who have contributed to the development of Liberland or to the ideas of freedom. Recipients have included publisher Steve Forbes, economist Mark Skousen, Croatian Member of Parliament Ivan Pernar, and others.
The Liberland constitution has been drafted and revised several times. The draft consists of four chapters. It includes a Bill of Rights and regulates the public administration, the political institutions, the legislative power, and the judicial power.
There has been no diplomatic recognition of Liberland by any member of the United Nations. However, Liberland has established relations with Somaliland, a self-declared state that proclaimed its independence from Somalia in 1991. Liberland and Somaliland signed a Memorandum of Understanding in September 2017 promising to establish closer relations and cooperate in the areas of technology, energy and banking.
Liberland President Jedlička and members of Liberland's provisional government make regular goodwill visits around the world to make the case for Liberland and to promote diplomatic and commercial ties to the project. In 2017, Jedlička met with U.S. Senators Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Ben Sasse and the Democratic Shadow Senator from Washington, D.C. Paul Strauss as well as several other elected representatives in the United States. In February 2018, Jedlička and his U.S. team went to Washington, D.C. to meet with Senator Bob Corker, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee as well as Senator Lamar Alexander.
Liberland has also established relations with the region of Savoie (Savoy), an independent and self-governed territory from the 11th century until 1860, when it was annexed to France. Today, Savosian people are a minority in their own territory and their claims are not taken into account by the government of France. Liberland has also begun dialogue with the region of Brittany (Bretagne), among others.
On 5th December 2018, UK Libertarian MEP Bill Etheridge and Paul Brothwood hosted an event for Liberland in the European Parliament to discuss its future.
Since 2015, several minor freedom parties expressed support for the creation of Liberland. They are the Capitalist Party in Norway, the Libertarian Party (Spain), The Swiss Independence Party up! (Unabhängigkeitspartei), the Liberal Democratic Party (Turkey) (LDP) the Libertarian Party of Canada, the Libertarian Party (United States) and the UK Libertarian Party.
A few micronations have expressed support for the idea of Liberland.
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As of August 22, 2013