The principle of postliminium, as a part of
public international law
International law (also known as public international law and the law of nations) is the set of rules, norms, and standards generally recognized as binding between states. It establishes normative guidelines and a common conceptual framework for ...
, is a specific version of the maxim ''
ex injuria jus non oritur'', providing for the invalidity of all illegitimate acts that an occupant may have performed on a given territory after its recapture by the legitimate sovereign. Therefore, if the occupant has appropriated and sold public or private property that may not legitimately be appropriated by a military occupant, the original owner may reclaim that property without payment of compensation. It derives from the ''ius postliminii'', of
Roman law
Roman law is the law, legal system of ancient Rome, including the legal developments spanning over a thousand years of jurisprudence, from the Twelve Tables (c. 449 BC), to the ''Corpus Juris Civilis'' (AD 529) ordered by Eastern Roman emperor J ...
. The codification of large areas of international law have made postliminium to a great extent superfluous though. It may either be seen as a historical concept, or a term generally describing the consequences to legal acts of an occupant after the termination of occupation.
[Woltag, J.-C.,'Postliminium' in Wolfrum, R. (ed) Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law (Oxford University Press 2009) para. 1]
References
Further reading
Woltag, J.-C., 'Postliminium' in Wolfrum, R. (ed) Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law (Oxford University Press 2009). *
External links
*Grotius, ''
On the Law of War and Peace''
the Right of Postliminium
International law
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