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Abstract: The non-European, non-Christian world was colonized under international law that is called today the Doctrine of Discovery. This international law of colonialism was developed in the fifteenth century by Portugal, Spain, and the Catholic Church. It was thereafter adopted and adapted by England, France, and Holland in their colonial and commercial activities around the world. Under this international law, European countries claimed superior rights over Indigenous Nations and Peoples. When European explorers planted crosses and raised flags on newly discovered lands, they were making legal and religious claims of ownership, sovereignty, and conquest over the Indigenous Nations, and their lands and assets. These claims were justified on racial, ethnocentric, and religious ideas about the alleged superiority of Christian nations. This conference paper examines the application of the Doctrine around the world, and its comparative law analysis demonstrates the genocidal and pernicious effects the Doctrine created. The author identifies ten elements that comprise the Doctrine of Discovery and that demonstrate how Euro-Americans used international law to colonize Indigenous Nations. Needless to say, Euro-American domination, exploitation, and colonization seriously injured the human, property, sovereign, and self-determination rights of Indigenous Nations and Peoples, and still seriously affects them today. This conference paper sets out some initial steps that Indigenous, and non-Indigenous, peoples and nations can pursue to begin to unravel and even perhaps to destroy the international law of colonialism - the Doctrine of Discovery.
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