Why, in the course of the 19 th century, did legal scholars come to treat State territory as State property? This essay recounts a history of “title” to territory, as sovereignty became territorial and the State became an owner of territory. The comparison of international law and private law encouraged the treatment of territory as property, and was substantiated through prize law, colonial acquisitions of imperialism, and the analogy between the State and individual, with international leases and eminent domain modeled after property transactions. Recent affirmations of aboriginal title, however, raise the possibility of realignment among sovereignty, territory, and title.
Anderson, S. (2010). Property. In The Oxford History of the Laws of England, Vol. 12, 1820-1914, Private Law (pp. 1-294). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Anghie, A. (2004). Imperialism, Sovereignty, and the Making of International Law. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511614262
Arbitral Award of the President of the United States, Regarding the Dispute between Portugal and the United Kingdom about the Sovereignty over the Island of Bulama … Decision of 21 April 1870. (2007) In United Nations, Reports of International Arbitral Awards, 28, 131-139.
Asch, M. (2002). From Terra Nullius to Affirmation: Reconciling Aboriginal Rights with the Canadian Constitution. Canadian Journal of Law and Society, 17, 23-40. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0829320100007237
Award of the Tribunal of Arbitration … Regarding the Boundary between the Colony of British Guiana and the United States of Venezuela, Decision of 3 October 1899. (2007) In United Nations, Reports of International Arbitral Awards, 28, 331-339.
Becker Lorca, A. (2014). Mestizo International Law: A Global Intellectual History 1842-1933. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139015424
Blomley, N. (2015). The Ties That Blind: Making Fee Simple in the British Columbia Treaty Process. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 40, 168-179. https://doi.org/10.1111/tran.12058
Blomley, N. (2016). The Territory of Property. Progress in Human Geography, 40, 593-609. https://doi.org/10.1177/0309132515596380
Blomley, N. (2019). The Territorialization of Property in Land: Space, Power and Practice. Territory, Politics, Governance, 7, 233-249. https://doi.org/10.1080/21622671.2017.1359107
Bluntschli, J. K. (1895). The Theory of the State (2nd ed., Trans. from 6th German ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Brighenti, A. (2006). On Territory as Relationship and Law as Territory. Canadian Journal of Law and Society, 21, 65-86. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0829320100008954
Brighenti, A. M. (2010). Lines, Barred Lines: Movement, Territory, and the Law. International Journal of Law in Context, 6, 217-227. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1744552310000121
Burlamaqui, J.-J. (2006). The Principles of Natural and Politic Law (Tr. T. Nugent, Ed. P. Korkman). Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund.
Castellino, J., & Allen, S. (2003). Title to Territory in International Law: A Temporal Analysis. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Colonial Office. UK, The National Archives, Kew.
DiStefano, G. (2006). The Conceptualization (Construction) of Territorial Title in the Light of the International Court of Justice Case Law. Leiden Journal of International Law, 19, 1041-1075. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0922156506003748
Elden, S. (2013). The Birth of Territory. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226041285.001.0001
Fiore, P. (1918). International Law Codified and Its Legal Sanction [1889] (Tr. from the 5th Italian ed., by E.M. Borchard). New York: Baker, Voorhis, & Co.
Fitz-Gibbon, D. (2018). Marketable Values: Inventing the Property Market in Modern Britain. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226584478.001.0001
Fitzmaurice, A. (2014). Sovereignty, Property and Empire, 1500-2000. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139924306
Gray, K., & Gray, S. F. (1998). The Idea of Property in Land. In S. Bright, & J. Dewar (Eds.), Land Law: Themes and Perspectives (pp. 16-51). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Grotius, H. (1925). De Juri Belli ac Paci Libri Tres (Tr. Francis W. Kelsey). Oxford: Clarendon; London: Humphrey Milford.
Grotius, H. (2004). The Free Sea (ed. D. Armitage). Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund.
Grotius, H. (2006). Commentary on the Law of Prize and Booty (ed. M.J. van Ittersum). Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund.
Hall, W. E. (1924). A Treatise on International Law [1880] (8th ed.). Oxford: Clarendon.
Honduras Borders (1949). In United Nations, Reports of International Arbitral Awards, 2, 1307-1366.
Huh, S. (2015). Title to Territory in the Post-Colonial Era: Original title and Terra Nullius in the ICJ Judgments on Cases Concerning Ligitan/Sipadan (2002) and Pedra Branca (2008). European Journal of International Law, 26, 709-725. https://doi.org/10.1093/ejil/chv036
Jennings, R. Y. (2017). The Acquisition of Territory in International Law. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Johnston, W. R. (1973). Sovereignty and Protection: A Study of British Jurisdictional Imperialism in the Late Nineteenth Century. Durham: Duke University Press.
Kohen, M. G. (2013). Original Title in the Light of the ICJ Judgment on Sovereignty over Pedra Branca/Pulau Batu Puteh, Middle Rocks and South Ledge. Journal of the History of International Law, 15, 151-171. https://doi.org/10.1163/15718050-12340009
Kohen, M. G. (2017). New Introduction. In R. Y. Jennings, The Acquisition of Territory in International Law (pp. 1-13). Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Kohen, M. G., & Hébié, M. (2013). Territory, Acquisition. In R. Wolfrum (Ed.), Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law. London: Oxford University Press.
Kolla, E. J. (2017). Sovereignty, International Law, and the French Revolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316832240
Lauterpacht, H. (1927). Private Law Sources and Analogies in International Law. London: Longmans, Green, & Co.
Lawrence, T. J. (1895). The Principles of International Law. London: Macmillan & Co.
Locke, J. (1988). Two Treatises of Government (ed. P. Laslett). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511810268
Maine, H. S. (1890). International Law. London: John Murray.
McHugo, J. (1998). How to Prove Title to Territory. Boundary and Territory Briefing, 2, 1-23.
McNeil, K. (2019). Flawed Precedent: The St. Catherine’s Case and Aboriginal Title. Vancouver: UBC Press.
Menon, P. K. (1994). Title to Territory: Traditional Modes of Acquisitions by States. Revue de droit international, de sciences diplomatiques, politiques, et sociales, 72, 1-54.
Nesi, G. (2018). Uti possidetis Doctrine. In R. Wolfrum (Ed.), Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Nuzzo, L. (2017). Territory, Sovereignty and the Construction of the Colonial Space. In M. Koskenniemi, W. Rech, & M. Jiménez Fonseca (Eds.), International Law and Empire: Historical Explorations (pp. 263-292). Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198795575.003.0012
O’Keefe, R. (2011). Legal Title versus Effectivités: Prescription and the Promise and Problems of Private Law Analogies. International Community Law Review, 13, 147-188. https://doi.org/10.1163/187197311X555223
Oppenheim, L. (1920). International Law: A Treatise (3rd ed.) London: Longmans, Green & Co.
Painter, J. (2010). Rethinking Territory. Antipode, 42, 1090-1118. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8330.2010.00795.x
Phillimore, R. (1857). Commentaries upon International Law. Philadelphia, PA: T. & J.W. Johnson & Co.
Pufendorf, S. (2005). Of the Law of Nature and Nations (tr. M. Carew, 4th ed.). London: J. Walthoe, et al., 1729; repr. Clark, NJ: Lawbook Exchange.
Pufendorf, S. (2006). Two Books of the Elements of Universal Jurisprudence (ed. T. Behme). Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund.
Ratner, S. R. (1996). Drawing a Better Line: Uti Possidetis and the Borders of New States. American Journal of International Law, 90, 590-624. https://doi.org/10.2307/2203988
Reynolds, H. (1996). Aboriginal Sovereignty. St. Leonards: Allen & Unwin.
Servant-Le Priol, C. (2015). L’Acquisition du titre territorial: La notion de terra nullius chez Francisco de Vitoria, Emer de Vattel, et Lassa Oppenheim. In Claire Crépet Daigremont (Ed.), Grandes pages du droit international, Vol. 1, Les sujets (pp. 43-65). Paris: Pedone.
Sharma, S. P. (1997). Territorial Acquisition, Disputes, and International Law. The Hague: Nijhoff.
Shaw, M. N. (2005). Introduction: The International Law of Territory: An Overview. In M. N. Shaw (Ed.), Title to Territory (pp. 11-35). Aldershot: Dartmouth Ashgate.
Shaw, M. N. (2006). The Acquisition of Title in Nineteenth Century Africa: Some Thoughts. In P.-M. Dupuy et al. (Eds.), Völkerrecht als Weltordnung: Festschrift für Christian Tomuschat (pp. 1029-1049). Kehl: Engel Verlag.
Slatterly, B. (2007). The Metamorphosis of Aboriginal Title. Canadian Bar Review, 85, 255-286.
Starke, J. G. (1965-66). The Acquisition of Title to Territory by Newly Emerged States. British Year Book of International Law, 41, 411-416.
Strauss, M. J. (2015). Territorial Leasing in Diplomacy and International Law. Leiden: Brill Nijhoff. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004293625
Twiss, T. (1884). The Law of Nations Considered as Independent Communities (2nd ed.). Oxford: Clarendon.
Van der Linden, M. (2014). The Acquisition of Africa (1870-1914): The Nature of 19th-Century International Law. Oisterwijk: Wolf Legal Pub.
Vattel, E. de. (2008). The Law of Nations (ed. B. Kapossy and R. Whatmore). Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund.
Verzijl, J. H. W. (1970). International Law in Historical Perspective, Vol. 3, State Territory. Leiden: Sijthoff.
Vitoria, F. de. (1991). On the American Indians (De Indis). In A. Pagden, & J. Lawrance (Eds.), Political Writings (pp. 231-292). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511840944.012
Westlake, J. (1894). Chapters on the Principles of International Law. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Wheaton, H. (1815). A Digest of the Law of Maritime Captures and Prizes. New York: R. M’Dermut & D.D. Arden.
Wheaton, H. (1936). Elements of International Law (ed. G.G. Wilson, from the 1866 ed. of R.H. Dana, Jr.). Oxford: Clarendon; London: Humphrey Milford.