영토취득, 무력사용, 그리고 debellatio원칙의 적용

Territorial Acquisition, Use of Force, and the Application of the Principle of debellatio

The doctrine of debellatio has received little attention in academic literature, especially over the last fifty years, in which virtually nothing has been written. This is understandable in light of the prohibition of the use of force and the reluctance of the international community to recognize acquisitions of territory by conquest occurring after 1945. One of the older doctrines that is being revitalized, however, is debellatio, a Roman legal principle used to describe the extinction of a legal personality in international law as a result of the use of force. For states or groups of individuals who are struggling to reclaim territory that they assert was once theirs, the doctrine of debellatio may be an important consideration. As this paper will illustrate, in certain situations, where the acquisition of territory was achieved following a military defeat, the application of the principle of debellatio can have far reaching consequences.