Reflections on the United Kingdom’s assertion of sovereignty over the Chagos Archipelago in the wake of the Chagos Advisory Opinion

This chapter considers the United Kingdom’s assertion of sovereignty over the Chagos Archipelago in the wake of the Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice in Legal Consequences of the Separation of the Chagos Archipelago from Mauritius in 1965. It will be argued in this chapter that the United Kingdom’s assertion to sovereignty is tenuous, as it rests on weak foundations, which are increasingly undermined by the colonial context in which the then colony of Mauritius agreed to the detachment of the Chagos Archipelago. The United Kingdom’s sovereignty over the Chagos Archipelago is contested by Mauritius (and by the majority of countries that have given their support to the campaign to force the return of the territory). The Republic of Mauritius had first challenged the United Kingdom’s sovereignty at the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1980, some twelve years after gaining its independence. The Court’s Advisory Opinion is a landmark in terms of how sovereignty over the Chagos Archipelago must now be approached.