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click to view filmEdward Koiki Mabo (19361992)
Selection from his papers
relevant to native title 1982–1992

National Library of Australia

 

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National Library of Australia
Canberra Australia

Papers of Edward Koiki Mabo 1988–1992

Edward Koiki Mabo (1936–1992) was born on Mer (Murray Island) in the Torres Strait, which lies between Australia and New Guinea. In 1982, he and four other Torres Strait Islanders began legal proceedings to establish their traditional ownership of their land. The five plaintiffs were Eddie Koiki Mabo, Celuia Mapo Salee, James Rice, Sam Passi and his brother Father David Passi. The lawyers who acted for the plaintiffs were Bryan Keon-Cohen, Ron Castan, Greg McIntyre and Barbara Hocking.

The Mabo litigation lasted ten years, from 1982 to 1992. In June 1992, six months after the death of Eddie Mabo, a landmark High Court ruling gave legal recognition to the fact that Indigenous land ownership existed before European settlement, and that in some cases this land tenure was not subsequently extinguished by the Crown.

The ruling refuted that aspect of the legal concept of terra nullius which might have denied the existence of native title. The terra nullius concept was based on the international law principle that an uninhabited country, or a country which did not have a recognised social or political structure, was in effect ‘no one’s land’, and could therefore legitimately be occupied by another power. When James Cook claimed possession of the east coast of Australia for King George III of Great Britain in 1768 he was unaware of the complex social structure of the Indigenous inhabitants.

In July 2001 the Mabo Papers (personal and legal) were recorded in UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register.