Scope
In English common law, for example, forest laws and game laws have specified which animals are res nullius and when they become someone's property. Wild animals are regarded as res nullius, and as not being the subject of private property until reduced into possession by being killed or captured. A bird in the hand is owned; a bird in the bush is not. Even bees do not become property until hived.
Res nullius also has an application in public international law, more specifically called terra nullius, whereby a nation may assert control of an unclaimed territory and gain control when one of its citizens (often an exploratory and/or military expedition) enters the territory.
This terra nullius principle justified colonisation of much of the world, as exemplified in the competition for influence within Africa by the European powers (see Scramble for Africa). It is the concept that even though there may be indigenous peoples residing in newly discovered land, it is the right of the more civilised to take the land and put it to good use.
Read more about this topic: Res Nullius
Famous quotes containing the word scope:
“The scope of modern government in what it can and ought to accomplish for its people has been widened far beyond the principles laid down by the old “laissez faire” school of political rights, and the widening has met popular approval.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“In the works of man, everything is as poor as its author; vision is confined, means are limited, scope is restricted, movements are labored, and results are humdrum.”
—Joseph De Maistre (1753–1821)
“For it is not the bare words but the scope of the writer that gives the true light, by which any writing is to be interpreted; and they that insist upon single texts, without considering the main design, can derive no thing from them clearly.”
—Thomas Hobbes (1579–1688)