The U.K. has agreed to hand sovereignty of the Chagos Islands, an archipelago in the Indian Ocean, over to Mauritius. The islands had been separated from Mauritius to make way for a U.K.-U.S. military base several years before Mauritius gained independence from the U.K. in 1968. The agreement will allow for thousands of Chagossians, who were forcibly displaced by the U.K. in the 1960s and 1970s, to return to the islands, although the U.K. will retain sovereignty over Diego Garcia, the island where the airbase is situated. (The Guardian)
Our Take
The deal announced today is important symbolically as well as geopolitically. At a time when the movement calling for postcolonial justice is gaining momentum across the globe, and in particular the Global South, the Chagos Islands—considered the U.K.’s last African colony—are a reminder that some parts of the world are not even postcolonial. It also signals that there are pathways, through international law and pressure, to achieve the movement’s goals.
But the issue of sovereignty over the Chagos Islands has also carried important diplomatic implications. In 2019, the International Court of Justice ruled that the U.K. had unlawfully carved out the Chagos Islands from Mauritius in the 1960s and that its continued administration of the islands was a wrongful act, issuing an advisory opinion that the U.K. was under an obligation to surrender control of the islands.