Ashmore and Cartier Islands

• Commonwealth of Australia legislation about the territory
• The laws of the Northern Territory, which apply there
• Australian rules on the environment, fisheries and border control

• No courts sit on the islands, because nobody lives there
• Matters are heard in the courts of the Northern Territory and the federal courts
• Appeals reach the High Court of Australia

There is no local legal profession. Australian lawyers handle the few cases that arise.

• Almost all of its law concerns fishing, quarantine and protection of nature.
• Visitors need permission to land.
• It is a territory with no permanent population and a full legal framework.

Australia, Heard Island and McDonald Islands, Indonesia, Norfolk Island, New Zealand

The University of Ottawa’s JuriGlobe database lists Ashmore and Cartier Islands as: Common law. It names the systems in order of importance. This territory is shown with the classification of the state it belongs to.

The map colours a country by the first-named system, and shows both civil-law and common-law countries as “mixed”. It is a simplification, and real systems are rarely pure.

Antigua and Barbuda, Australia, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Canada, Cook Islands, Dominica, Fiji, Ghana, Grenada, India, Ireland, Jamaica.

• JuriGlobe: world legal systems (University of Ottawa)

Sources last reviewed: October 2026.