More than a year ago, the UK agreed to grant Mauritius sovereignty over the Chagos Archipelago, which Britain has governed as the British Indian Ocean Territory since 1965. But the treaty to transfer sovereignty has hit choppy waters. The deal has stalled in the UK parliament and Mauritius has now threatened legal action against the UK over the delay.
For years, successive UK governments played the interests of the Chagossians off against those of Mauritius, to deflect potential threats to its control of the Chagos Islands. But just as that strategy has run out of road, the international legal order is under extreme pressure.
Last month, the US president, Donald Trump, declared that the UK was “making a big mistake” in relinquishing the Chagos Islands, one of which, Diego Garcia, hosts a US-UK military base. This appears to have been prompted by Keir Starmer’s reluctance to let the US use Diego Garcia for preemptive strikes against Iran. Starmer later changed his position, with the caveat that any strikes should be defensive. How that distinction is to be monitored, however, is debatable.
