🔗 Terra Nullius

🔗 International relations 🔗 Australia 🔗 Law 🔗 Latin 🔗 Australia/Indigenous peoples of Australia 🔗 Australia/Australian law

Terra nullius (, plural terrae nullius) is a Latin expression meaning "nobody's land". It was a principle sometimes used in international law to justify claims that territory may be acquired by a state's occupation of it. It denotes land that has never been a part of a sovereign nation-state, such as Bir Tawil, or for which all claim to sovereign ownership has been relinquished, such as the territory east of the Oder–Neisse line that used to belong to Germany under Prussia.