Sovereignty, property, and islands: legal meditations on parts of the American empire

Abstract

The study of the legal status of some territories of the United States of America, specifically the islands (unincorporated/organized and unincorporated/unorganized, according to American political terminology), allows us to understand certain legal philosophical issues, such as the limits of sovereignty, the nature of private property or the idea of «no man’s land» (terra nullius), as well as the considerations that the world leading power makes between its interests and the principles of International Law. The taxonomy of this article also raises the possibility of the existence of an «Imperial Law» as a set of public law rules that classify and prioritize territories. This would overcome economistic interpretations that equate «imperialism» to «empire», enabling to relate the legal field to others, such as politics, the military or the geostrategic.