A nation’s military and geo-strategic interests cannot, under international law, prevail over the sovereign rights of other states. Despite widespread international condemnation, state sovereignty, self-determination, and decolonization are fundamental legal principles the UK should honor as it refuses to hand back control of the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean.
Indeed, Britain’s expressed policy that it will protect its interests at any cost, even at the expense of international law and fundamental human rights, has unwelcome echoes of colonialism and discrimination that should have no place in the 21st century.
On May 22, a UN General Assembly resolution calling for Mauritius’s complete decolonization by ending the UK’s administration over the islands was voted for by 116 nations. Only six – the US, Hungary, Israel, Australia, the Maldives, and the UK – voted against it, with 56 abstaining.
The UK had exercised control and authority over the Chagos islands, including Diego Garcia, now the site of a key US/UK military base – since 1965 when it separated them from Mauritius, named the British Indian Ocean Territory, and evicted their 1,500 inhabitants. The UN resolution indicates that the international community believes this controversial takeover should now be undone. And yet, the UK’s permanent representative to the UN, Karen Pierce, maintained after the vote that “the United Kingdom does not doubt our sovereignty over British Indian Ocean Territory.”The strategic military significance of the Chagos Archipelago arose out of the Cold War when the US sought, through an agreement with the UK government in 1966, to establish a presence in the Indian Ocean. Today, it is often used for counter-terrorist operations, which has caused controversy.
The law
Several legal points must be raised in response to the UK’s selective application of international law, including the principle of self-determination of peoples and the prohibition of forcible displacement, which is today punished as a crime against humanity. First, the UK maintains that:
In this important part of the world, the joint United Kingdom and United States defense facility on British Indian Ocean Territory plays a vital role in keeping our allies and friends, including Mauritius, in the region beyond safe and secure.
However, the UK overlooks that it has received no authorization or mandate under international law to act as the world’s guardian of peace and security. Rather, such primary responsibility is entrusted to the UN Security Council through Article 24 of the United Nations Charter, of which the UK was the main architect.
Significantly, the principle of state equality, which dictates that all states are equal and no state is more equal than another, also prevents any form from acting like an “international policeman.” While there is no doubt that states, individually and collectively, must respond effectively to the serious threat of international terrorism, this must be done by international law.
Second, the UK insists that the International Court of Justice (ICJ) exceeded its jurisdiction when it ruled in February 2019 that the General Assembly should provide an advisory opinion on the issue. The UK argued that the court breached the principle of state consent by doing so, as the dispute between Mauritius and the UK over the Chagos Islands is bilateral.
But the ICJ overwhelmingly concluded that this did not circumvent the UK’s consent, as the issue brought before it was not confined to a bilateral territorial dispute. Instead, it found that the case fell within the General Assembly’s power under the UN Charter to oversee the fulfillment of self-determination in the colonial context.