International law; Natural law; War (International law)
In a treaty of peace between the Illyrians and Romans, the latter
required that they should not pass beyond the Lissus with more than two
frigates, and those unarmed. In the peace with Antiochus, he was bound
not to sail within the capes of Calycadnius and Sarpedon, except with
ships carrying tribute, ambassadors, or hostages. Now the instances
alluded to do not prove the actual occupancy of the sea, or the right
of navigation. For it may happen that both individuals and nations
may grant as a matter of favour or compact, not only what they have
a competent right to dispose of, but that which is the common right
of all men as well as of themselves. When this happens, we may say
as Ulpian did on a like occasion, where an estate had been sold with
a reservation, that the purchaser should not fish for Tunny to the
prejudice of the seller. He observed that the sea could not be rendered
subject to a service, but still the purchaser and those who succeeded
to his possession, were bound in honour to observe that part of the
contract.
VII. Whenever a river has changed its course, disputes have arisen
between neighboring states to decide whether such an alteration creates
any change in the adjoining territories, and to whom any addition of
land occasioned by that change accrues. Disputes which must be settled
according to the nature and manner of such acquisition. Writers,
who have treated of the division of land, have described it as of
a threefold nature: one kind they name DIVIDED and ASSIGNED land,
which Frontinus the Lawyer calls LIMITED, because it is marked out
by artificial boundaries. By land ASSIGNED, is meant that which has
been appropriated to a whole community, comprehending a certain number
of families; a hundred for instance: from whence it has derived that
name. And those portions are called hundreds. There is another division
called ARCIFINIUM, which is applied when the land is defended against
an enemy by the natural boundaries of rivers or mountains. These lands
Aggenus Urbicus calls OCCUPATORY, being such as have been occupied
either by reason of their being vacant, or by the power of conquest. In
the two first kinds of lands, because their extent and bounds are fixed
and determined, though a river should change its course, it occasions
no change of territory, and what is added by alluvion will belong to
the former occupant.
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