Category: Imperialism and colonialism

Perhaps the best place to start for a blogpost or any other writing is a sense of puzzlement. A thing does not immediately make sense, and so you find out more and try to work it out.

The news about the Chagos Islands provided such a puzzle.

Why did the United Kingdom this month decide – if that is the correct word – to transfer sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius?

Over at Prospect is an attempt at answering this question. Please click here and read the post.

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That this has been a long-lasting dispute is not, by itself, a reason for it to be resolved. Disputes can last a very long time and may never be resolved.

And that the United Kingdom was on the backfoot both legally and diplomatically also, by itself, did not explain the move.

The United Kingdom – if it was able – would have carried on playing for time.

So what happened?

Well it looks like the matter was taken out of the hands of the United Kingdom – even though it is nominally the sovereign power.

The explanation which best fitted the available evidence was that the United States and Mauritius did a deal and then told the United Kingdom that it had to be announced.

What prompted this explanation was something said in the House of Commons debate by the Speaker – which seemed more significant than anything said by minister or backbenchers (emphasis added):

This indicated that this excuse had been given to him by the Foreign Office – either by the minister himself or by a civil servant.

And although, of course, there are upcoming presidential and congressional elections in the United States, there happened to be a general election coming up in Mauritius.

Taking this evidence along with the (very) warm, detailed statement from the United States indicated that both Mauritius and the Unites States were well prepared for this news, even if the United Kingdom was not:

The lack of preparatory media briefing (and leaking) by the United Kingdom government also then made sense. Usually there would be attempts to frame such upcoming news, especially if it looked bad for the United Kingdom.

And because the United States were (so) happy with the news, this rather took the wind out of the sails of those who have been warning that transferring sovereignty would be against American interests or undermine the strategically important base on Diego Garcia.

Warnings such as this one from Johnson in 2023:

An article which, if you read carefully, shows that the former foreign secretary (and prime minister) had an inkling that such a direct deal was in the offing (emphasis added):

The problem is that the highlighted admission rather undermines the alarmism of the article’s title. The Americans were relaxed about a direct deal as long as they retained a long lease for their base.

And it seems the Johnson article correctly describes that the Mauritians and the Americans indeed cut out the “middleman” – and that is the role to which the United Kingdom was reduced, even though we were (nominally) the sovereign power.

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A look at the relevant public domain materials also shows how weak the United Kingdom’s position was becoming.

A little-known 2015 arbitration ruling was devastating in its detail:

(Legal geeks may appreciate how that tribunal deals with estoppel in paragraphs 434 to 448.)

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It was also striking how support for the United Kingdom fell away once the International Court of Justice delivered its 2019 “advisory” opinion.

In 2017, the United Kingdom had a plausible-sounding nod-along objection to the court taking on this case.

But once the court handed down its opinion, it seemed that plausible objection fell away. Support vanished.

Even most commonwealth members, as well as other former colonial powers and/or European Union member states, could not bring themselves to vote with the United Kingdom.

The United Kingdom had been shown to the UN assembly to be in breach of its general decolonisation obligations: and so this was not just another bilateral territorial dispute.

And so the United Kingdom’s position was legally and diplomatically weak: so weak that, at a time of the choosing of Mauritius and the United States, a supposedly sovereign power had to announce during recess it was ceding sovereignty.

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