Terra nullius

He could see the injustice the indigenous people were facing. He was very passionate about this issue and wanted the Aboriginal people to be recognised for their land rights. He was particularly fighting for the land rights of the Merriam people which are a group of people in the Torre Strait Islands who share the same beliefs and language and is where Eddie Mabo grew up. The existing law at the time of Eddie Mabos beginning campaign was based on the principal of terra nullius meaning empty land. Meaning that Australia was officially considered an empty land prior to European Settlement. This meant for the Aboriginals that they had no property rights even though they were living on this land for thousands of years, according to Australia law they did not own their…

The legal concept of terra nullius is a Latin expression deriving from Roman law, meaning "nobody's land". It is used in law to define a region which has not been subject to the sovereignty of any state, or any previous sovereign has relinquished power. Sovereignty over territory which is considered a terra nullius may usually be acquired through colonisation. However, historians also to use the term to showcase a set of opinions prevalent in colonial administrators. While the concept is not…

When the British decided to migrate to Australia they had a precise idea that no one had taken ownership on the land that they had settled on and therefore declared the land Terra Nullius which means that the land did not belong to anyone. But in fact it did and there were already people who had claimed ownership of the land and were already living and breeding, through there own culture and ways on the estate, they were the aboriginal people. One of the major issues regarding Terra Nullius came…

When Australia was first founded, the constitution for the commonwealth was drafted in the spirit of “Terra Nullius”. The Latin term “Terra Nullius” translates to ‘land that belongs to no-one’ , meaning that the British settlers who came to Australia acted as if the Aboriginal people were not even there. These settlers fought and took the land from the Indigenous people of Australia. The idea and myth of terra nullius has had a large impact on Australian identity. Mainly it was to instill a…

In both ancient and modern narratives, recognition scenes have proven to be some of the most emotionally charged moments in a story. Choephori is no exception, as siblings Electra and Orestes’ recognition of each other after a long separation and multiple familial tragedies stirs up a strong emotional reaction in the audience. This popular narrative device has persisted over time, and is still present in modern fiction. The Spanish film La Piel que Habito closes with a powerful recognition…

In Testaments Betrayed Milan Kundera describes a situation during the Prague Spring where someone’s private life is intermixed with their public life. This person was Jan Prochazka, who was a major figure during the Prague Spring. Prochazka commonly had conversations with a opposition figure, Professor Vaclav Cemy and their conversations were recorded and broadcasted throughout several radio stations. Milan Kundera depicts this as a horrid act and explains how people, no matter who they are, act…

Mystery, insecurities, and the feeling of loneliness. These two short stories include the two points of loss of identity and loss of innocence, with the slight combination of the three traits listed above, all five examples are consistent throughout these two short stories. Loss of innocence and mental alienation, the feeling of being alone in the short story “The Road out of Eden”, is how both examples come together to form the theme alienation. They’re able to tell us how the main character…

another. Australia, with its Aboriginal heritage and the past of being a part of Britain and is now labelled as multicultural, may have suffered from an identity crisis. Hence, by examining the myth of Terra Nullius and the Indigenous’ continuing struggles for land right recognition, this…

The Mabo Decision was the result of Eddie Koiki Mabo 's efforts to campaign for Aboriginal civil and land rights, a response to the discrimination Aboriginal communities have been subjected to in their own land, beginning from the arrival of the First Fleet and continuing to the present day despite numerous efforts. Prior to Mabo, the policies of Terra Nullius and Crown Land were seen as an unfair violation, and no representatives from the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community decided…

English colonisation of Australia was problematic due to the British lack of acknowledgement of indigenous people’s proprietorship of the land for thousands of years. When English settlers colonised Australia, their actions suggested the land was terra nullius; a legal doctrine claiming land to be ‘occupied by no one’ (Bailey, 1997). Under this principle the British government colonised Australia establishing British sovereignty and imposing their laws to govern the land under the Crown…