Terra nullius

Terra nullius is territory treated in law as belonging to no state or recognized sovereign. Historically, the concept was used to justify acquisition through occupation, including colonial claims to inhabited lands.

Roman law: The legal system developed in ancient Rome and later adapted across many jurisdictions. Roman ideas about property and occupation helped supply concepts later used in European territorial law.
Native title: A form of Indigenous land right recognized under Australian law through traditional laws and customs. Mabo replaced terra nullius with recognition of surviving Indigenous interests in land.
Cession: The transfer of territory from one state to another by agreement. Unlike terra nullius, cession presupposes a prior sovereign capable of transferring territory.
Indigenous sovereignty: The inherent authority of Indigenous peoples to govern themselves and their lands. Terra nullius denied or discounted this authority when legitimizing colonial claims.
Discovery doctrine: A legal principle that gave European Christian states claims to lands they encountered outside Europe. It often operated alongside terra nullius to frame colonial acquisition as lawful.
Aboriginal land rights in Australia: Legal and political claims by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to land and its resources. These claims contest dispossession justified through terra nullius.
Conquest: The acquisition of territory by force, historically treated by some legal systems as a basis for sovereignty. It claims land through defeating an existing power rather than finding it unowned.
Colonialism: A system in which a power establishes control over another people and territory for settlement or exploitation. Terra nullius provided legal language for territorial expansion within colonial projects.
European colonization of Australia: The British invasion, settlement, and governance of the Australian continent beginning in 1788. British authorities treated the continent as unowned despite its Indigenous nations.
Indigenous land rights: Rights of Indigenous peoples to own, use, govern, or maintain relationships with their lands and territories. They address the continuing consequences of treating inhabited lands as unowned.

Linked from 27 pages