''Res extra commercium'' (

lat Lat or LAT may refer to: Places * Lat, Fuman, village in Gilan Province, Iran * Lat, Rasht, village in Gilan Province, Iran * Lat, Mazandaran, village in Iran * Lat-e Disar, village in Mazandaran Province, Iran * Lat, Qazvin, village in I ...

. "a thing outside commerce") is a doctrine originating in

Roman law Roman law is the 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 Ju ...

, holding that certain things may not be the object of private rights, and are therefore insusceptible to being

trade Trade involves the transfer of goods and services from one person or entity to another, often in exchange for money. Economists refer to a system or network that allows trade as a market. An early form of trade, barter, saw the direct excha ...

d. In some contexts, it can refer to areas beyond national borders, such as space and the seabed; "these regions are subject to a common freedom of exploitation without exercising national sovereignty." If one conceives of a world community made up "of sovereign, territorial states ... he implication isthat the space between these states is ''res extra commercium'', a space that, because of its position and function within this community, is disassociated from the full package of rights to possession, exclusion, and alienation that normally may be claimed by holders of property." A recent move by Indian Government (February 2018) to curb the $11 billion tobacco industry's legal right to trade, the government, for the first time, has asked the Supreme Court to classify tobacco as “res extra commercium”. The move is part of the government's effort to tame the tobacco companies looking to challenge tough regulations pertaining to the industry.

References

Legal rules with Latin names International law {{international-law-stub