this is my country

The Western Sahara CaseThe International Court of Justice has also specifically rejected the notion


that lands inhabited by nomadic peoples may be acquired on the basis
of occupation as terra nullius. In the Mabo decision, Justice Brennan
quoted from the 1975 majority judgment of the International Court of

Justice in its Advisory Opinion on Western Sahara. The International Court said:

'"Occupation" being legally an original means of peaceably acquiring sovereignty 


over territory otherwise than by cession or succession, it was a cardinal condition
of a valid 'occupation' that the territory should be terra nullius - a territory
belonging to no-one - at the time of the act alleged to constitute the "occupation"
... . In the view of the Court, therefore, a determination that Western Sahara was a
"terra nullius" at the time of colonisation by Spain would be possible only if it 
were established that at that time the territory belonged to no-one in the sense that
it was then open to acquisition through the legal process of "occupation".... 
Whatever differences of opinion there may have been among jurists, the State practice 
of the relevant period indicates that territories inhabited by tribes or people
having a social or political organisation were not regarded as terra nullius.' 
Keywords: Africa, Brennan, Justice Gerard, International Court of Justice, occupation
, terra nullius, Western Sahara case, 1975