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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   25788 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 11, 2025

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The ICJ has a conveniently abbreviated press release that can be found on this page. tl;dr: The UK granted independence to Mauritius in 1968 only after purchasing from Mauritius indefinite ownership of the Chagos Islands and evicting those islands' inhabitants. This was not a proper execution of the UK's duty to decolonize Mauritius. The UK must give the islands back to Mauritius. (Resettlement of the former inhabitants is a separate issue.)

That's true but Mauritius and the Chagos Islands are 1200 km from eachother, they were only in the same French administrative zone together because they're small islands in the Indian Ocean and the British kept the French organization. It makes little sense for Mauritius to have the islands when they never historically controlled them (the Maldives is at least closer and they fished around there) and there's no significant proximity.

That may be your opinion, but the ICJ decided otherwise by a vote of 13 to 1.

In its resolution 2066 (XX) of 16 December 1965, adopted a few weeks after the detachment of the Chagos Archipelago, the General Assembly deemed it appropriate to recall the obligation of the United Kingdom, as the administering Power, to respect the territorial integrity of Mauritius. The Court considers that the obligations arising under international law and reflected in the resolutions adopted by the General Assembly during the process of decolonization of Mauritius require the United Kingdom, as the administering Power, to respect the territorial integrity of that country, including the Chagos Archipelago.

The Court concludes that, as a result of the Chagos Archipelago’s unlawful detachment and its incorporation into a new colony, known as the BIOT, the process of decolonization of Mauritius was not lawfully completed when Mauritius acceded to independence in 1968.

I'm well aware what the ICJ said but courts say silly things all the time. Courts are for legalities, they're very much into this abstract 'who was in what administrative zone when, regardless of whatever else was happening' remit.

Nations and sovereignty are about more than that. This case is perfect proof in point. The US military base there isn't going anywhere and that's the key part of this equation, indeed the only people on the island are those on the base. The British are just paying lots of money to make this legal issue go away so that they wouldn't have the bad PR of ignoring this court (which they are entitled to do as a permanent security council member). America couldn't care less about some international court, they don't recognize its authority at all if they rule against the US, nor does Russia or Israel for that matter.

It's not real law if people can and do ignore it when they feel like it, it's just talk. The ICJ isn't a real court, their opinions don't have much inherent weight and certainly don't in this case, it's only a matter of PR.

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