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:
“Each man must have his “I;” it is more necessary to him than bread; and if he does not find scope for it within the existing institutions he will be likely to make trouble.”
—Charles Horton Cooley (1864–1929)
“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)
“A country survives its legislation. That truth should not comfort the conservative nor depress the radical. For it means that public policy can enlarge its scope and increase its audacity, can try big experiments without trembling too much over the result. This nation could enter upon the most radical experiments and could afford to fail in them.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)