UN court to decide Chagos Islands’ fate

MAURITIUS told the UN’s top court yesterday that the British-ruled Chagos Islands were “integral” to its territory and that the Indian Ocean island chain was handed to London “under duress.”

Hearings opened yesterday before the International Court of Justice in The Hague over the future status of the remote archipelago — home to a strategic joint British-US military base leased from Britain on territory claimed by Mauritius.

“More than 50 years after independence... the process of decolonization of Mauritius remains incomplete,” former Mauritian president Anerood Jugnauth said.

This was “as a result of the unlawful detachment of an integral part of our territory on the eve of our independence,” he told the judges.

The UN General Assembly in June last year adopted a resolution presented by Mauritius and backed by African countries asking the ICJ to offer a legal opinion on the island chain’s fate.

The Chagos archipelago was detached from Mauritius for inclusion in the newly created British Indian Ocean Territory in 1965 shortly before Port Louis’ independence from Britain.

The African Union and 22 countries — including Germany and South Africa and several Asian and Latin American nations — will make statements during the four-day hearing.

They all voted last year whether to ask the ICJ to rule on the matter. The US and Australia will also speak and are expected to support Britain while South Africa and the AU are expected to back Mauritius.

After the hearings, the ICJ will hand down a non-binding “advisory opinion,” but the judges’ ruling may take several months or even years.

An opinion in favor of Mauritius may strengthen Port Louis’ hand in future negotiations or could lay the foundation for an eventual formal claim before the ICJ, which also rules in disputes between countries.