Yuan Yi Zhu, Shut Your Dirty Mouth Up.

Chagos Islands is own by Mauritius and not British.

On Thursday, the British Government signed a treaty with Mauritius which, if ratified by Parliament, will grant Mauritius the sovereignty over the Chagos Islands, which have belonged to the United Kingdom since 1815. In addition, the UK undertook to pay £101 million a year for the next 99 years, in addition to various payments to Mauritius, for a total bill of billions of pounds.

The deal, which was negotiated in secret without the involvement of the Chagossians who were expelled from the islands, has already been condemned across the political spectrum. The Prime Minister has sought to defend it by arguing that the Anglo-American military base on Diego Garcia would become inoperable if a deal were not concluded, going so far as suggesting that those who are opposed to the deal are siding with Russia and China against Western interests.

This is patent nonsense. As I have detailed in two recent reports for Policy Exchange, there is no prospect of Mauritius being able to interfere with the operation of the base on Diego Garcia. Mauritius has no armed forces and a small coast guard. It is located thousands of kilometres away from Diego Garcia and has no capacity to stop the operation of the base.

The British Government has also raised a second claim, namely that in the aftermath of 2019’s non-binding advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice, Mauritius will be able to obtain a binding decree from an international court forcing the UK to hand over the Chagos Islands, and with no obligation to guarantee the operation of the base.

Again, this is nonsense. International law is built upon the principle of state consent: with vanishingly rare exceptions involving subjects such as genocide, no state is bound by any particular part of international law unless it agrees to be so bound.

This principle naturally extends to international courts: no court has jurisdiction over a case unless the countries involved give their consent to the court. This is why all Mauritius could obtain from the International Court of Justice was a non-binding advisory opinion, since the United Kingdom refuses to allow the ICJ to hear any case between it and another member of the Commonwealth, to which Mauritius belongs.

Conspicuously, even though he was repeatedly asked by journalists on Thursday, Sir Keir was unable to name the court which would have the jurisdiction to require the UK to hand over the Chagos – because there is no such court.

The Defence Secretary came better prepared to Parliament, and told MPs that the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea was “the most proximate” international court or tribunal which could threaten the UK’s sovereignty over the Chagos.

This claim shall however be subject to scrutiny. The ITLOS tribunal, which enforces the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, does not have jurisdiction over disputes over the ownership of land, as its name plainly indicates, and as it has reaffirmed on many occasions since.

Finally, the Government has raised the spectre that, even if no binding legal ruling was made against the UK, third countries may choose to recognise Mauritius’ sovereignty and impede the operation of the base, by for instance making it difficult to fly to Diego Garcia from their territory.

If this argument is accepted, the UK may as well give up all of its overseas bases now. For if the UK’s enjoyment of the use of Diego Garcia can be held up by foreign lawfare instigated by Mauritius, a country of a million people, it has no chance in a confrontation against China or Russia. But to believe this argument would require us to suspend disbelief and accept that third countries would be willing to risk the wrath of the United States for the sake of some non-binding court rulings to which they are not a party.

The Chagos surrender deal cannot be defended on any authoritative legal grounds. Parliament has the right and the duty to stop this act of national humiliation.