Diego Garcia might be returned to the Chagos Islanders

Chagos Islands dispute: court to rule on UK sovereignty claim
Success of case could lead to return of hundreds of exiled islanders who were forced to leave archipelago



Britain's sovereignty over the Chagos Islands and America's lease for the Diego Garcia military base could be thrown into doubt by an international court hearing due to open in Istanbul on Tuesday.

The case is considered of such importance that the attorney general, Dominic Grieve QC – the UK government's most senior law officer – will appear to defend Britain's declaration of a marine reserve around the archipelago.

The challenge by Mauritius to the legality of the marine protected area announced by the then foreign secretary, David Miliband, in April 2010, will be heard behind closed doors by the permanent court of arbitration (PCA), a United Nations-backed tribunal that resolves disagreements between states. Its rulings are binding.

Mauritius, which launched its legal challenge three years ago, believes its success could lead to the unravelling of Britain's colonial-era claim and the eventual return of hundreds of exiled islanders who have been forced to leave the archipelago. Many now live in Britain.

The PCA is based at The Hague, in the Netherlands, but its judicial proceedings are often held in neutral, international venues. Turkey is host for the latest round of the dispute. The hearing is expected to last several weeks although Grieve will only present the UK's opening arguments.

Teams of prominent British and American lawyers have also been hired by the UK and Mauritius. Among the UK counsel are Sir Michael Wood, a former Foreign Office adviser; Mauritius has recruited Prof James Crawford, Prof Philippe Sands QC and Elizabeth Wilmshurst, a Foreign Office lawyer who resigned on the eve of the invasion of Iraq.

The hearing will be held in secret with none of the proceedings open to the public. At some point it is hoped the documents may be made public, including internal Foreign Office documents relating to key decisions from 1965 to April 2010.

The Mauritian prime minister, Navinchandra Ramgoolam, has claimed that the decision to establish a 1,411,550-sq-km (545,000-sq-mile) marine reserve was carried out in defiance of assurances given to him at the time by the then UK prime minister, Gordon Brown, in 2009.

A Foreign Office cable released by WikiLeaks recorded the assertion by one official that "establishing a marine park would, in effect, put paid to resettlement claims of the archipelago's former residents", who were described as "Man Fridays".

In a statement to the UN's general assembly last summer, Ramgoolam said: "The dismemberment of part of our territory, the Chagos archipelago – prior to independence – by the then colonial power, the United Kingdom, in clear breach of international law, leaves the process of decolonisation not only of Mauritius but of Africa, incomplete."

He added: "I am confident that the UK and the US would want to be on the right side of history. States which look to the law and to the rules of the comity of nations for the resolution of disputes should not be frustrated by the lack of avenues under international law for settlement of these disputes."

In 1965, three years before Mauritius attained independence, the UK decided to "detach" the Chagos Islands from the rest of its then Indian Ocean colony. The Mauritian government, supported by every country in Africa, claims this was in breach of UN general assembly resolution 1514, passed in 1960, which specifically banned the breakup of colonies prior to independence.

The Chagos archipelago was subsequently declared to be part of the British Indian Ocean Territory (Biot) from which, in 1971, the 1,500 islanders were deported. The largest island, Diego Garcia, was then leased to the US as an airbase. The lease is due to be renegotiated later this year.

Claims that Diego Garcia was used as a secret "black site" detention centre during CIA rendition operations after 2001 resurfaced this month after Abdel-Hakim Belhaj – a rebel military commander and opponent of Muammar Gaddafi arrested in Malaysia and forcibly returned to Libya with his then pregnant wife – reported that he had been held there. The Foreign Office has disputed the claim.

The PCA case is being fought within the arcane legal territory of the United Nations convention on the law of the sea (Unclos), an area in which the UK could be at disadvantage. While Mauritius and the Seychelles have put in mutually agreed claims for large tracts of the nearby seabed, the UK has not put in any proposals to the UN commission on the limits of the continental shelf in respect of Biot and has now run out of time to do so.

The UK is hoping to persuade the five arbitrators to rule that they do not have jurisdiction over the dispute, but an earlier effort to get that argument decided before dealing with the substantive claim was rejected by the tribunal last year.

A Foreign Office spokesman said: "The rules of procedure established for the purposes of these proceedings provide that any evidence submitted alongside the pleadings of either party is confidential. Therefore, the UK is not in a position to comment on matters which are before the tribunal."

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/21/chagos-islands-diego-garcia-base-court-ruling

Well, after the terrible way they were evicted, I hope they get it back.

Then what are they going to do with the aircraft they have hidden away there   

Yep, the islanders deserve nothing less than being given back their homeland. And they can also post pictures of the MH370 for us all to have a look at

Irn Bru wrote:Yep, the islanders deserve nothing less than being given back their homeland. And they can also post pictures of the MH370 for us all to have a look at

All joking aside, what they had done to them was despicable and left them in penury on Mauritius. A complete disgrace. Some of the young girls turned to prostitution just to have enough money to eat.

Been reading up on the story again, I really, really hope they get it back. Justice might prevail, just for once.