British Indian Ocean Territory: Sovereignty
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what assessment his Department has made of the potential implications for its policies of the International Court of Justice's advisory opinion entitled Legal Consequences of the Separation of the Chagos Archipelago from Mauritius in 1965, published on 25 February 2019.
Answered by Stephen Doughty
The 2019 ICJ Advisory opinion was not the only long-term challenge we faced, and claims that we negotiated this deal solely because of it are simply wrong. Since 2015, 28 international judges and arbitrators have expressed views on the sovereignty of the Chagos archipelago. Not one has expressed support for the UK claim about sovereignty. Without a deal Mauritius would inevitably pursue a legally binding judgment. This lack of legal certainty would have real-world impacts on base operations and create space for our adversaries. Some of those impacts would be on simple but crucial things, such as securing contractors and getting overflight clearances. Our deal with Mauritius ends this legal uncertainty, and secures the future of the critical base on Diego Garcia well into the next century.
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