Romulan and klingon laws never applied? Really? And where did you get that - aside from your wishful thinking leading to hand-waving?
Please read more carefully. I said the Klingon and Romulan laws *were* never applied. The klingons and romulans never went to 'their' planet and kicked out the intruders. Probably never even bothered to check if there was anyone there.
The baku trespassed on a romulan planet - meaning romulan law was applicable.
Then the planet became klingon - klingon law applied.
Then the planet became a federation planet - meaning federation law applied.
Klingon and Romulan law were never applied, and the Federation can hardly apply someone else's laws that it doesn't actually agree with 300 years after the fact. And the Baku claim to the planet is still stronger than the Federation's.
Now - about these laws:
Adverse possession is a law mostly applicable in modern liberal democracies.
Throughout human history, the majority of societies were oligarchic. Do you actually think the nobles allowed the peasants to acquire their land simply by occupying it? Good luck with that.
Do you actually think klingon and romulan laws allow trespassers to acquire romulan and klingon territory by trespassing on it? lol
Of course, the romulans and Klingons never found the baku, in order to conquer them, turning them into imperial subjects. So much for the baku not hiding (them hiding was even established in the movie - see below).
Why are you comparing the Federation to medieval nobles and Klingon and Romulan laws? That's the whole point of this discussion: the Federation is supposed to be better than those institutions. Ie, to not 'legalize' kidnapping and conquest as legitimate means of territorial transfer.
Now you're walking the path of the legalisms, I see.
First - that planet was NOT ownerless when the baku came to it. It was a romulan planet, then a klingon planet.
It was a Romulan planet only because the Romulans said, 'Hey, we claim that area of space'. There isn't a single instance of Romulan tech anywhere near it, so what did they ever do with it?
It's every bit as legal a claim as the plots of 'moon land' that people have been selling for the past few decades.
Second - the baku actively tried to hide in the briar patch. NOT public possession by any standard.
Even if the baku would not have actively tried to hide, they would NOT have exercised public possession if they didn't exercise even minimal diligence in making their claim known - as in, a beacon announcing their presence, or seeing if there are alien (romulan/klingon/federation) patrols in the area and contacting them; or contacting any ship they see in the area, exploring a little in order to ascertain the status of the planet, etc.
The planet exists in the Briar Patch. 'Hiding' by choosing to live in an area that just isn't heavily trafficked is barely hiding at all. If any of the three empires had actually sent any patrols anywhere near the planet they supposedly owned, they would have easily seen the Baku settlement, right out in the open without any kind of cloaking device. Clearly there were no patrols to contact - which again raises the question how the baku were even supposed to know the planet had been 'claimed' at all. Or are colonists everywhere now automatically required to set up beacons telling the world they're colonizing this place? In complete disregard for their philosophical beliefs re advanced technology, no less?
A policy like this would never fly in the Federation. If anything it should be the claimant empires who aren't actually using the space they claim that are required to post notices that this area of space already belongs to someone.
Which makes me wonder, even in today's world, how many people are ever actually convincted for trespassing on completely undeveloped land when the owner hasn't posted some sort of notice that that land is private property? I doubt very many. So the Baku probably weren't even trespassing even when they did first arrive on the planet.
NO public possession (no useful possession - this includes several more conditions) = NO adverse possession.
Clearly public possession. And exactly what conditions of useful possession would they not meet? They came to a completely empty planet and built an entire thriving settlement.
For example - Cestus III; the federation not enforcing a claim to that world would result in its strategic position seriously compromised, in possible millions/billions of federation citizens dead or conquered in the future. In these conditions, enforcing a claim to Cestus III IS the right thing to do.
According to who? Cestus III was just another colony. There's nothing strategic about it. Unless you're saying letting the Gorn win would just encourage them to attack later. But that clearly isn't a typical Federation concern (see the Cardassian demilitarized zone and the maquis).
The powers in the trekverse - klingons, romulans, dominion, tholians, borg, etc, etc - make soviet russia or 'the hermit kingdom' look very tame. Some of them make nazi germany, the mongol hordes or 'insert the nastiest historical empire you can think of' look very tame.
You think that, in that universe, not using real-politik at least some of the times (such as, when the future of billions is in the balance) will somehow turn your nation into a beacon of security and prosperity, as opposed to causing suffering and death for your people? lol.
You can theorize all you want about real politik in the Federation, but the canon facts of the Federation itself don't agree with you. Why would the Federation take a hard line on such a relatively unimportant race like the Gorn, when they constantly bend over backwards to act righteously towards real agressors like the Klingons and the Cardassians?
Of course, with the baku affair, the federaiton has BOTH the legal right and the muscle to enforce that right. And the moral high ground.
I don't believe they have any legal right, and they sure as hell don't have any moral high ground. Even if they did have a legal right, the law itself has limits. There are such things as eviction notices and appeals courts. Kidnapping an entire population in secret is blatantly detestable.
The baku were hiding in the briar patch from the universe, essentially (see their backstory from the movie, etc). In 'enterprise', the augments briefly contemplated hiding in the briar patch, as well - as the name indicated, it's a pretty good hiding place.
So they were 'hiding' by just living out in the open in an area that simply happened to be a bit off the beaten path. Or, in other words, not actually hiding at all.
The federation is different from the klingons, romulans, etc because they don't go around conquering species, having an orwellian state complete with political police, etc etc.
That does NOT mean that 600 baku trespassing on an uninhabited federation planet can claim it as their own.
Much like cardassians, klingons or romulans trespassing on federation worlds can't claim them as their own. The federation might cede planets to them in certain conditions, rather than fight a war, though (which is about real-politik, not the laws in place).
The Baku didn't commit a single act of trespassing in the entire life of the Federation. They *were already there* before the Federation even existed.
In general:
Planets within federation space with indigenous conscious species are not federation planets.
Uninhabited planets - AKA with no indigenous conscious species - within federation space ARE federation planets.
Do you actually have any canon to support this, or is it simply your own assumption based on your ideas of real politik?
Regardless, I do have to point out that 'uninhabited' means 'uninhabited' - not 'no indigenous peoples'. You yourself pointed out that several alien races have been known to 'seed' people around the universe - and yet, none of those planets, which are clearly without 'indigenous' peoples, are ever treated as Federation property.
Much like uninhabited planets within romulan or klingon space are romulan/klingon planets. Trespassers don't change this fact - even when they've been around for a while, hiding.
Again, 'trespassing' is a false charge against the Baku, since their claim to the planet predates that of the Federation by centuries, and the Federation's claim is based solely on having bought out someone else's claim which itself was never enforced, whereas the Baku actually live there and use the planet.
Mars is in a solar system occupied by an indigenous conscious species - meaning, it belongs to this species.
If Alpha Centaui belonged to aliens and we settled it then YES, they have the legal right to evict us if they 'feel like it'.
And if the eviction of 600 human colonists from Alpha Centauri would help BILLIONS, then YES, they most definitely have the moral right to evict us from there.
No, they absolutely do not have any legal right when their claim is based solely on random self-aggrandizement that has never been exercised. And they do not have any moral right to use force against a non-agressor, no matter how many people they believe it will help.
The answer to this question is obvious. So much so, I'm surprised you even asked.
What usually happens when a state/group/etc doesn't recognise the sovereignty of another state over a territory?
And has the power to enforce this position? War. Open any history book for examples.
What about when it doesn't have the power to enforce its position? Police action.
And again, you're trying to turn the Federation into exactly what it is canonically stated *not* to be, just to make your argument make sense.
