Occupancy
idea · 2 works · 2 mentions · 4 anchored passages
Occupatio · occupancy
in the texts
Ancient Law
The Roman legal doctrine of acquiring ownerless property by taking possession of it, discussed as a supposed origin of private property.
It will be necessary for us to attend to one only among these “natural modes of acquisition,” Occupatio or Occupancy.
I have said that the Roman principle of Occupancy has determined the tenor of that chapter of International Law which is concerned with Capture in War.
To all who pursue the inquiries which are the subject of this volume, Occupancy is pre-eminently interesting on the score of the service it has been made to perform for speculative jurisprudence, in furnishing a supposed explanation of the origin of private property.
The Rights of War and Peace
The legal act of taking possession, treated as the essential mechanism for converting unowned things into property.
because occupancy can never subsist, but in things that can be confined to certain permanent bounds.
Yet any places that have been taken possession of in the name of a sovereign, or of a whole people, though not portioned out amongst individuals, are not to be considered as waste lands, but as the property of the first occupier, whether it be the King, or a whole people.