Sovereignty and Security in the Indian Ocean - Why the UK should not cede the Chagos Islands to

• The Government should make a statement in the House of Commons affirming the long-standing position that the UK enjoys sovereignty over the BIOT and that the Government does not accept that the ICJ’s advisory opinion, or resolutions of the General Assembly, requires the UK to cede the Islands to Mauritius. [...] • 2021: the Special Chamber of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea rules that the 2019 ICJ opinion had settled the sovereignty of the Chagos Islands, despite the fact that the ICJ opinion was explicitly not legally binding. [...] Nor does the record of discussions between the UK and the Government of Mauritius between September and November 1965 give any support to the notion that the threat of a referendum on independence was an element in the agreement of the Council of Ministers to the excision. [...] Although the Mauritian government has since the early 1980s more or less consistently maintained that the agreement to detach the Chagos was obtained under duress and therefore invalid, it has adopted the curious position that only the part of the agreement relating to the relinquishment of the Chagos to the United Kingdom are invalid, while the other parts 27. [...] policyexchange.org.uk | 27 Sovereignty and Security in the Indian Ocean the Chagos Islands… the decision of the elected representatives of the Mauritian colonial government to agree to the detachment of the Chagos Islands from Mauritius in return for Mauritian independence, which was embodied in the 1965 Lancaster House Agreement; continuing British patronage in the.