The papal bull (public decree from the Pope) Inter Caetera — the “Doctrine of Discovery” — is decreed a year after Christopher Columbus’ rst voyage to America. Made without consulting Indigenous populations nor with any recognition of their rights, it is the means by which Europeans claim legal title to the “new world.”
The Papal Bulls of Discovery are an important piece of a larger idea in international law, called the Discovery Doctrine, which holds that when European nations “discovered” non-European lands, they gained special rights over that land, such as sovereignty and title, regardless of what other peoples live on that land.