30-Nov-2019: Chagos Islands dispute

Mauritius called the UK an “illegal colonial occupier”, after it ignored a UN mandated deadline to return the Chagos Islands, a small archipelago in the Indian Ocean, to Mauritius. The United Nations had given UK six months to process the transfer, a move the UK and the US have bitterly resisted.

Mauritius has argued that the Chagos Islands has been a part of its territory since at least the 18th century, till the United Kingdom broke the archipelago away from Mauritius in 1965 and the islands of Aldabra, Farquhar, and Desroches from the Seychelles in the region to form the British Indian Ocean Territory. In June 1976, after the Seychelles gained independence from the United Kingdom, the islands of Aldabra, Farquhar, and Desroches were returned by the UK.

The UK declared these islands as an overseas territory in November 1965. After Mauritius gained independence from the UK in 1968, the United Kingdom refused to return the Chagos Islands to Mauritius claiming in petitions submitted to the Permanent Court of Arbitration that the island was required to “accommodate the United States’ desire to use certain islands in the Indian Ocean for defence purposes”. The largest island on the Chagos Islands archipelago, Diego Garcia, is where the US and the UK operate a large military base and was also used as a US military base for the US-led attacks against Afghanistan and Iraq in the 2000s. After the September 11, 2001 attacks, the military facility was also used as a CIA interrogation site.

After independence, Mauritius had proposed an exchange allowing the UK to let the US use the Chagos Islands for defence purposes till those needs ceased, in exchange for increasing the quota of sugar imports into the US, a move that would contribute to Mauritius’ economy. The UK rejected the proposal stating that the US could not be involved in any treaty despite using the islands themselves.

In addition to claiming the islands as its territory, the UK in conjunction with the US embarked on a six-year long forced depopulation of the Chagos Islands. To accommodate the military base where UK and US military personnel live and work, native inhabitants of the land were forcefully removed and subsequent denials were issued by the UK claiming that the displaced people did not belong to the Chagos Islands.

For decades there was no litigation concerning the violation of human rights and sovereignty in the Chagos Islands. However, in 2015, Mauritius initiated legal proceedings in these matters against the United Kingdom in the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague in the Netherlands. The UK made several attempts to resist Mauritius’ attempts to take the matter to international court by claiming that the issue was a bilateral matter.

In a scathing rebuke of the UK, the Permanent Court of Arbitration ruled in 2015 that the “United Kingdom failed to give due regard to Mauritius’ rights” and declared that “the United Kingdom had breached its obligations under the (United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea).” The ruling also called out the UK for deliberately creating a marine protected area in the waters surrounding Chagos Islands in 2010. In leaked diplomatic cables by WikiLeaks, pertaining to the US Embassy in London, it was revealed that the UK and the US had intentionally created the “marine protected area” around the Chagos Islands to prevent the original inhabitants of Chagos Island from being able to return.

According to the ruling, judges at the Permanent Court of Arbitration found that “there was evidence that the United Kingdom had ulterior motives in declaring the MPA (Marine Protected Area)” and “found that the United Kingdom violated the standard of good faith”. The court found that the Marine Protected Area created by the UK in connivance with the US was illegal and that “British and American defence interests were put above Mauritius’s rights”.

In June 2017, at the UN General Assembly, 94 countries voted in support of Mauritius’ resolution to seek an advisory opinion on the legal status of the Chagos Islands from the International Court of Justice in The Hague. The US and the UK were among the 15 countries that voted against the resolution. The vote came as a blow for the UK and the US because 65 countries abstained from voting, including many EU countries, on whom the duo may have been banking on for support.

The view of some observers was that the result of the vote was a signal that the UN was unlikely to support continued colonisation of territories or colonial legacies of which occupiers were unwilling to divest control.

In February 2019, the UN’s highest court of justice, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), ordered the UK to return the Chagos Islands to Mauritius “as rapidly as possible”. Mauritius had submitted before the court that it had been coerced into giving the islands to the UK as part of colonial occupation of the country, a move, it stated, that was in breach of UN resolution 1514 that was passed in 1960, which specifically banned the breakup of colonies before independence. The UK argued that the ICJ did not have any jurisdiction to hear the case at all. Of the 14 judges overseeing the ruling, the only judge to dissent was an American.

After the ICJ ruling, the United Kingdom Foreign Office said that the ICJ ruling was “an advisory opinion, not a judgment” and claimed that “the defence facilities on the British Indian Ocean Territory help to protect people here in Britain and around the world from terrorist threats, organised crime and piracy.”

The UN had given the UK six months to return the Chagos Islands to Mauritius. After the UK missed the deadline to do so, Mauritius called the UK an “illegal colonial occupier”. The African Union also issued its own rebuke against the UK and demanded that the nation put an end to its “continued colonial administration”.

The UK is slowly finding itself more diplomatically isolated after its failures at the UN General Assembly concerning Chagos Islands. The shambles that is Brexit has also alienated the UK to a certain degree in terms of its relations with other EU members. For now, the UK might possibly be searching for reassurance in the fact that the ICJ ruling is not binding and no immediate sanctions or adverse actions will be taken against it.

The next step at the UN General Assembly in 2020 would be the question of resettlement of and potential compensation for the displaced Chagos Islanders who faced homelessness, poverty and associated hardships after being forcefully removed from their homeland by the UK and the US.

25-Feb-2019: UK should give up Chagos Islands

In a major diplomatic victory for Mauritius, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that the United Kingdom (UK) should end its control of the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean "as rapidly as possible".

Court is of opinion that the UK is under obligation to bring to an end its administration of Chagos Archipelago as rapidly as possible and that all member states are under obligation to cooperate with UN to complete decolonization of Mauritius.

By a majority of 13 to one, the UN's top court stated that the process of decolonization of Mauritius was not "lawfully completed". It is to be noted that the ICJ's advisory opinion, delivered here, is not legally binding.

In its submission to the ICJ last year, Mauritius contended that it was forced to give up the control of the Chagos Islands, located over 3,000 km off the east coast of Africa, by the UK in 1965, in exchange for independence, which it gained in 1968.

The move was in violation of UN resolution 1514, passed in 1960, which specifically banned the breakup of colonies before independence.

The UK government considers the archipelago as a British overseas territory and deported the entire population, before inviting the US to build a strategic military airbase on Diego Garcia, one of the largest islands of the archipelago. Over 1,500 islanders were forced to vacate the area and never allowed to return.

Mauritius challenged UK's claim on the Chagos Archipelago, saying that more than 50 years after the country got its independence from the British, and the process of decolonisation had remained incomplete as a part of it is still under its control.

Mauritius had approached the UN where a resolution was adopted to seek ICJ's opinion in the matter. The ICJ has been seeking opinion from 22 countries and the African Union on this issue. India has been supporting Mauritius in its battle for sovereignty at the international fora.

Backing Mauritius in its legal battle for Chagos Islands, India told the ICJ in last September that historical facts and legal aspects confirmed that sovereignty of the Chagos Archipelago has been with Mauritius.

Presenting India's position in the Oral Proceedings before the ICJ on the Request for an Advisory Opinion by the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in the matter concerning "The Legal Consequences of the Separation of the Chagos Archipelago from Mauritius in 1965," India's Ambassador in The Netherlands, Venu Rajamony, said the historical survey of facts concerning colonization and the process of decolonisation indicates that the Chagos Archipelago throughout the pre and post-colonial era has been part of the Mauritian territory. These islands came under the colonial administration of the UK as part of Mauritian territory.

The understanding reached in November 1965 between Mauritius and the UK for the retention of Chagos by the UK for defence purposes and return thereof to Mauritius when no longer needed for defence purposes, is also in itself evidence that Mauritius has been and continues to be the sovereign nation for the Chagos Archipelago.

The legal aspects should root themselves in the historical facts, behaviour of the nations concerned, and the consideration of the issue by relevant administrative and judicial institutions.

6-Nov-2019: Nepal objects to Kalapani's inclusion as part of India in new Indian maps

The Nepal government made it clear that Kalapani area situated in the country's far-West lies within the Nepalese boundary, days after India issued new political maps showing the region as part of its territory.

India has released fresh maps of the newly created Union Territories (UTs) of Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh and the map of India depicting these UTs. In the maps, Pakistan-occupied Kashmir is part of the newly created Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir, while Gilgit-Baltistan is in the Union Territory of Ladakh.

The Nepal government said Kalapani area is being included in the new Indian map. The Nepal government is clear that the Kalapani area lies within Nepalese territory.

Background: Under the treaty of Sugauli signed between Nepal and the British East India Company in 1816, the Kali River was located as Nepal's western boundary with India. It, however, made no mention of a ridgeline and subsequent maps of the areas drawn by British surveyors showed the source of the Kali river at different places. This discrepancy has led to the boundary disputes between India and Nepal, with each country producing maps including the territory in their own area to support their claims. The exact size of the Kalapani territory also varies in different sources.