Episode 3 of 3
Adoption of Uti Possidetis
- When
- 13 January 1750
- Where
- Madrid
- Part of
- Treaty of Madrid
The treaty adopted the Roman law principle of uti possidetis to legitimize current territorial holdings.
Based on the principle that 'who owns by fact owns by right,' the treaty stated that each party must stay with what it now holds. It defined boundaries by the sources and courses of notable rivers and mountains, authorizing Portugal to retain lands it had occupied at the expense of the Spanish Empire.
Sources
- Treaty of Madrid (13 January 1750) Wikipedia, revision of 2026-08-05
Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.