Postliminium

I. A right which arises from a return in limen, that is, to the borders of one's country, — a term derived from the Roman law, and extensively used in public law.

In the civil law. The return or restoration of a person or thing to a former estate or right; a fiction applied in the case of a person taken prisoner, and returned from captivity, by which he was supposed never to have been abroad, and was on this ground restored to his former rights.

Reprisal; recovery; recapture; postliminy. The restoration or return of a person or thing to a former right, estate, or condition; a fiction of the civil law by which persons or things captured by the enemy, on coming again into the power of the nation to which they formerly belonged, are restored to their former state. The principle is recognized by the law of nations, but is not applied to movable property, unless the recapture is immediate. A merchant vessel captured at sea, during war, by an enemy ship, becomes the (qualified) property of her captors, by the law of prize. If, however, before the captors succeed in taking her in for adjudication, she is recaptured by a ship of the nation to which she belongs, she does not become prize to the recapturing ship, but, under the doctrine of postliminy, the title of her original owners revives, and she must be surrendered to them. Jus postliminii is a right to restitution after a recapture, as applied in maritime law, — a use of the phrase which is derived from the Roman jus postliminii, which restored the citizen of Rome who had been made a slave to his threshold, i.e. to his franchise. The term is therefore metaphorically used in our admiralty courts to signify a resumption of an original inherent right to a recaptured British ship in the legal owners. But the phrase is also frequently used with an analogous meaning in other branches of the law. Brown. Postliminium fingit eum qui captus est in civitate semper fuisse. Postliminy supposes that he who was taken prisoner had always been in the state. See Postliminium.

is that right in virtue of which persons and things taken by the enemy are restored to their former state, when coming again under the power of the nation to which they belong. Vatt. Lib. 3, c. 14, s. 204; Chit. Law of Nat. 93 to 104; Lee on Captures, ch. 5; Mart. Law of Nat. 305; 2 Wooddes. p- 441, s. 34; 1 Rob. Rep. 134; 3 Rob. Rep. 236; Ib. 97; 2 Burr. 683; 10 Mod. 79; 6 Rob. R. 45; 2 Rob. Rep. 77; 1 Rob. Rep. 49; 1 Kent, Com. 108. The jus postliminé was a fiction of the Roman law. Inst. 1, 12,5. It is a right recognized by the law of nations, and contributes essentially to mitigate the calamities of war. When, therefore, property taken by the enemy is either recaptured or rescued from him, by the fellow subjects or allies of the original owner, it does not become the property of the recaptor or rescuer, as if it had been a new prize, but it is restored to the original owner by right of postliminy, upon certain terms.