Colonisation at the Poles: A Story of Ineffective Occupation
Abstract This paper examines the legal concept of occupation of territory and its historic application to the Polar regions, to disclose the fallacies at the heart of the colonial projects at both Poles. It also considers how the increasing recognition of non-use value disrupts positivist accounts o...
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crbrillap:10.1163/22116427_013010006 2023-05-15T14:05:57+02:00 Colonisation at the Poles: A Story of Ineffective Occupation Johnstone, Rachael Lorna 2022 http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/22116427_013010006 https://brill.com/view/journals/yplo/13/1/article-p93_5.xml https://brill.com/downloadpdf/journals/yplo/13/1/article-p93_5.xml unknown Brill The Yearbook of Polar Law Online volume 13, issue 1, page 93-124 ISSN 2211-6427 General Medicine journal-article 2022 crbrillap https://doi.org/10.1163/22116427_013010006 2022-12-11T12:45:43Z Abstract This paper examines the legal concept of occupation of territory and its historic application to the Polar regions, to disclose the fallacies at the heart of the colonial projects at both Poles. It also considers how the increasing recognition of non-use value disrupts positivist accounts of occupation. The colonisation of populated lands was justified by European theories of property that insisted that effective occupation required both a psychological and a physical element. The psychological element of occupation requires the sovereign to engage in a legal fiction that it controls the land and exercises dominion over it but this conceit is not shared by Arctic Indigenous Peoples. The physical element of occupation according to the positivist account requires an owner or sovereign to transform the land in some physical manner. The self-serving European legal theories construed the Indigenous relationship with land as a non-relationship and declared it retrospectively terra nullius . According to their own laws, the colonisers declared their own sovereign authority over Indigenous territories, notwithstanding the existing civilisations. However, in the Polar regions, the colonisers themselves did very little in the way of physical occupation or transformation of the vast majority of the lands that they claimed. Colonisers demonstrated occupation through the naming of places, mapping, taking resources, building basic structures for shelter, and applying laws over their own people. But Indigenous Peoples had long been doing all those things in the Arctic. 20th century courts accepted that in territories remote from the colonising claimant with little or no population, the degree of physical occupation and exercise of jurisdiction could be very limited. However, they refused to consider the much longer and more extensive use and management by Indigenous Peoples. In the Antarctic, the territorial claims of the seven claimant states do not pivot on any real physical occupation or transformation of the land ... Article in Journal/Newspaper Antarc* Antarctic Arctic Yearbook of Polar Law Brill (via Crossref) Antarctic Arctic Pivot ENVELOPE(-30.239,-30.239,-80.667,-80.667) The Antarctic The Yearbook of Polar Law Online 13 1 93 124 |
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General Medicine |
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General Medicine Johnstone, Rachael Lorna Colonisation at the Poles: A Story of Ineffective Occupation |
topic_facet |
General Medicine |
description |
Abstract This paper examines the legal concept of occupation of territory and its historic application to the Polar regions, to disclose the fallacies at the heart of the colonial projects at both Poles. It also considers how the increasing recognition of non-use value disrupts positivist accounts of occupation. The colonisation of populated lands was justified by European theories of property that insisted that effective occupation required both a psychological and a physical element. The psychological element of occupation requires the sovereign to engage in a legal fiction that it controls the land and exercises dominion over it but this conceit is not shared by Arctic Indigenous Peoples. The physical element of occupation according to the positivist account requires an owner or sovereign to transform the land in some physical manner. The self-serving European legal theories construed the Indigenous relationship with land as a non-relationship and declared it retrospectively terra nullius . According to their own laws, the colonisers declared their own sovereign authority over Indigenous territories, notwithstanding the existing civilisations. However, in the Polar regions, the colonisers themselves did very little in the way of physical occupation or transformation of the vast majority of the lands that they claimed. Colonisers demonstrated occupation through the naming of places, mapping, taking resources, building basic structures for shelter, and applying laws over their own people. But Indigenous Peoples had long been doing all those things in the Arctic. 20th century courts accepted that in territories remote from the colonising claimant with little or no population, the degree of physical occupation and exercise of jurisdiction could be very limited. However, they refused to consider the much longer and more extensive use and management by Indigenous Peoples. In the Antarctic, the territorial claims of the seven claimant states do not pivot on any real physical occupation or transformation of the land ... |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Johnstone, Rachael Lorna |
author_facet |
Johnstone, Rachael Lorna |
author_sort |
Johnstone, Rachael Lorna |
title |
Colonisation at the Poles: A Story of Ineffective Occupation |
title_short |
Colonisation at the Poles: A Story of Ineffective Occupation |
title_full |
Colonisation at the Poles: A Story of Ineffective Occupation |
title_fullStr |
Colonisation at the Poles: A Story of Ineffective Occupation |
title_full_unstemmed |
Colonisation at the Poles: A Story of Ineffective Occupation |
title_sort |
colonisation at the poles: a story of ineffective occupation |
publisher |
Brill |
publishDate |
2022 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/22116427_013010006 https://brill.com/view/journals/yplo/13/1/article-p93_5.xml https://brill.com/downloadpdf/journals/yplo/13/1/article-p93_5.xml |
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ENVELOPE(-30.239,-30.239,-80.667,-80.667) |
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Antarctic Arctic Pivot The Antarctic |
geographic_facet |
Antarctic Arctic Pivot The Antarctic |
genre |
Antarc* Antarctic Arctic Yearbook of Polar Law |
genre_facet |
Antarc* Antarctic Arctic Yearbook of Polar Law |
op_source |
The Yearbook of Polar Law Online volume 13, issue 1, page 93-124 ISSN 2211-6427 |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1163/22116427_013010006 |
container_title |
The Yearbook of Polar Law Online |
container_volume |
13 |
container_issue |
1 |
container_start_page |
93 |
op_container_end_page |
124 |
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1766277736543813632 |