Accession - Definition - Law Dictionary Home Dictionary Definition accession

Definition :

Accession [fr. accedo, Lat.], addition, arriving at, the commencement of a sovereign's reign; also the absolute or conditional acceptance by a nation of a treaty already concluded between other countries. The accession of a sovereign takes place immediately upon the death of the preceding monarch. See BILL OF RIGHTS.

Accession, means property by. The doctrine of property arising from accession is grounded on the right of occupancy, and derived from the Roman Law; thus if any given corporeal substance receive an accession, either by natural or artificial means, as by the growth of vegetables, the pregnancy of animals, the embroidering of cloth, or the conversion of wood or metal into utensils, the original owner of the thing was entitled by his right of possession to the property of it under its improved state; but if the thing itself by such operation was changed into a different species, as by making wine, oil, or bread out of another's grapes, olives, or wheat (specificatio, Lat.), it belonged to the operator, who only made a satisfaction to the former proprietor for the materials so converted. The brood of tame and domestic animals belongs to the owner of the dam or mother, the English law agreeing with the civil, that partus sequitur ventrem (the offspring follows the mother); and in accordance with the Roman Law principle, siequam meam equus tuus pragnantem fecerit non est tuum sed meum quod natum est (if your horse gets my mare with foal, the foal is not your property, but mine). Bracton, l. 2, c. 2, s. 3; Puff, De Jur. Nat. et G. l. 4, c. 7. The rule of the Roman Law was expressed thus: Accessio cedit principali. Commentators have used the word accessio not only for the increase itself, but also for the mode in which the increase becomes one's property, Sand. Justin.; Dig. 34, l. 2, c. 19, s. 13. See ADJUNCTIO.

The process by which a nation becomes a party to a treaty that has already been agreed on by other nation, (International Law)