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20. Ibid at 320.
21. Ibid.
22. As quoted in ibid at 321.
23. As quoted in ibid.
24. Ibid at 322.
25. Western Sahara, Advisory Opinion, ICJ Reports,
1975, at 39, as cited in Fitzmaurice, Sovereignty,
supra note 8 at 322. See especially references to
Scott’s two papers at footnote 65 in Fitzmaurice,
“Genealogy”, supra note 3.
26. Sir Ernest Scott, “Taking Possession of Australia - The
Doctrine of ‘Terra Nullius’ (No-Man’s Land)” (1940)
XXVI: Part 1 Royal Austl Historical Society, J & Proc
1 at 1, 3–4 emphasis added.
27. Coe v Commonwealth, 1979 HCA 68. All paragraph
numbers references are to the AustLII version
of the decision, online: <www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin
/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/HCA/1979/68.html>.
Each judge’s decision restarts at paragraph 1 in
AustLII, so I have also referred to the judge’s name.
28. Ibid at para 1 (Gibbs J)
29. Ibid at para 21 (Gibbs J).
30. Mabo, supra note 4 at para 34.
31. Ibid at paras 33–36.
32. Ibid at para 29.
33. Ibid at paras 39, 42.
34. Ibid at para 62.
35. Ibid at paras 30–32 (Brennan J), 6 (Dawson J).
36. Ibid at para 62.
37. Mabo, supra note 4; David Ritter, “The ‘Rejection of
Terra Nullius’ in Mabo: A Critical Analysis” (1996)
18 Sydney L Rev 5 at 5 Ritter, “Rejection”.
38. Mabo, supra note 4 at para 18 (Toohey J).
39. Henry Reynolds, The Law of the Land (Ringwood,
Victoria: Penguin, 1987).
40. David Ritter, “Tilting at Doctrine in a Changing
World: The Three Editions of Henry Reynolds’ The
Law of the Land” (2008) 32:3 J Austl Studies 393 at
394 Ritter, “Tilting”. Ritter makes this statement,
quoting from Reynolds’s own book, Why Weren’t
We Told?: A Personal Search for the Truth About Our
History (Viking: Melbourne, 1999) at 191.
41. Reynolds, supra note 39 at 12.
42. Ibid at 173–74.
43. See e.g. Ritter, “Rejection”, supra note 37; Ritter,
“Tilting”, supra note 40; Bain Attwood, “The Law of
the Land or the Law of the Land?: History, Law and
Narrative in a Settler Society” (2004) 2 History Compass
1; Andrew Fitzmaurice, “The Great Australian
History Wars” (15 March 2006), online: The University
of Sydney <sydney.edu.au/news/84.html?news
storyid=948>.
44. Fitzmaurice, “Genealogy”, supra note 3 at 1. See
also the sources Fitzmaurice cites in “Genealogy” at
footnote 2; Benton & Straumann, supra note 6; Pagden,
supra note 8 at 138; Ritter, “Rejection”, supra
note 37; Attwood, supra note 43; Michael Connor,
The Invention of Terra Nullius: Historical and Legal
Fictions on the Foundation of Australia (Sydney:
Macleay Press, 2005); Edward Cavanagh, “Possession
and Dispossession in Corporate New France,
1600-1663: Debunking a ‘Juridical History’ and
Revisiting Terra Nullius” (2014) 32:1 L & Hist Rev 97;
Shane Chalmers, “Terra Nullius? Temporal Legal Pluralism
in an Australian Colony” (2020) 29:4 Soc &
Leg Stud 463 at 483, n 1.
45. Fitzmaurice, “Genealogy”, supra note 3 at 1. See
also Fitzmaurice, Sovereignty, supra note 8 at 330
(concluding that, in Mabo, “terra nullius was thus
used as shorthand for occupation, and sometimes
even for conquest”).
46. Attwood, supra note 43 at 9.
47. Ritter, “Rejection”, supra note 37 at 6.
48. Chalmers, supra note 44 at 483, n 1.
49. Again, there is a vast scholarship on this topic. Readers
should consider this section as only an introduction.
50. Ritter, “Rejection”, supra note 37 at 8. In Mabo, the
judges make extensive reference to Blackstone’s use
of the term “desert uninhabited” land. However, Ritter
is correct that Blackstone, as well, made reference
to “desert and uncultivated” land. See Blackstone,
Commentaries on the Laws of England, 18th ed
(1823), Book 2, Ch 1, at 7 and Introduction, Section
4, at 107.
51. Ritter, “Rejection”, supra note 37 at 8–9, citing from
Cooper v Stuart (1889), 14 App Cas 286 at 292.
52. Mabo, supra note 4 at paras 33–34.
53. Ibid at paras 36–39. For a discussion of this “backward
peoples” justification, see Daniel Lavery, “No
Decorous Veil: The Continuing Reliance on an
Enlarged Terra Nullius Notion in Mabo No 2”
(2019) 43:1 Melbourne UL Rev 233.
54. Milirrpum v Nabalco Pty Ltd (1970), 17 FLR 141 at
266.
55. Ibid at 267–68.
56. Ibid at 273.
57. Ibid at 245.
58. Mabo, supra note 4 at para 26.
59. Ibid at paras 51, 54 emphasis added.
60. Since Mabo, however, legal academics have suggested
that the “settled” colony designation did not
necessarily dictate the colonial recognition or disregard
of Indigenous land rights: Ritter, “Rejection”,
supra note 37 at 9; Paul G McHugh, “Aboriginal
Title Within and Across Disciplinary Boundaries—
Anthropologists, Historians, and Political Philosophers”
in Paul G McHugh, ed, Aboriginal Title: The
Modern Jurisprudence of Tribal Land Rights (Oxford
University Press, 2011) 241 at 286. See also Paul G
McHugh, “The Common-Law Status of Colonies and
Aboriginal ‘Rights’: How Lawyers and Historians
Treat the Past” (1998) 61 Sask L Rev 393 at 402–03
(arguing that “the distinction in types of colonies
was never regarded as having any bearing on the
status or rights of the Indigenous peoples of the
colony (whatever those might be) but was a response
to the situation of the Crown’s non-native subjects”).
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