{"id":398357,"date":"2019-03-07T01:45:23","date_gmt":"2019-03-07T00:45:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/britain-rejects-international-court-of-justice-order-to-return-chagos-islands-to-mauritius\/"},"modified":"2019-03-07T01:45:23","modified_gmt":"2019-03-07T00:45:23","slug":"britain-rejects-international-court-of-justice-order-to-return-chagos-islands-to-mauritius","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/britain-rejects-international-court-of-justice-order-to-return-chagos-islands-to-mauritius\/","title":{"rendered":"Britain rejects International Court of Justice order to return Chagos Islands to Mauritius"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"content\">\n<h3 class=\"nomargin\">\u00a0<\/h3>\n<h2>Britain rejects International Court of Justice order to return Chagos Islands to Mauritius<\/h2>\n<h5>\n<p>    By<br \/>\n    Jean Shaoul<br \/>\n    <br \/>6 March 2019<\/p>\n<\/h5>\n<p>The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has ordered Britain to hand back the Chagos Islands, including Diego Garcia, to Mauritius \u201cas rapidly as possible.\u201d This follows its landmark ruling that the UK\u2019s occupation of the Chagos Islands was unlawful.<\/p>\n<p>The court held that the process of decolonization of Mauritius \u201cwas not lawfully completed\u201d in 1968 and that \u201call Member States\u201d had an obligation to cooperate with the United Nations \u201cto complete the decolonization of Mauritius.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The decision by an overwhelming majority of 13 to 1, with only the US voting against, follows the UN General Assembly\u2019s decision in 2017 to refer the legal status of the Chagos Islands to the ICJ, the UN\u2019s highest court.<\/p>\n<p>The Chagos Islands make up the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT), located halfway between Tanzania and Indonesia. Diego Garcia, the largest island, is the site of one of the largest US airbases with some 4,000 US troops as well as British troops stationed there. The implication of the ICJ\u2019s ruling is that the UK\u2019s leasing of Diego Garcia to the US is illegal.<\/p>\n<p>The ICJ\u2019s ruling will be discussed at the UN general assembly, which has already voiced its opposition to Britain\u2019s position by referring the issue to the ICJ in 2017.<\/p>\n<p>The ICJ\u2019s ruling has no binding status. The British government, determined to hold onto its colonial possessions, has rejected both the ICJ\u2019s order and its unanimous ruling that it has jurisdiction because it relates to a UN process of decolonization, not a dispute between two states.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking in Parliament, Foreign Office Minister Alan Duncan accused the UN General Assembly of a \u201cmisuse of powers\u201d and&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.wsws.org\/en\/articles\/2019\/03\/06\/chag-m06.html\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0 Britain rejects International Court of Justice order to return Chagos Islands to Mauritius By Jean Shaoul 6 March 2019 The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has ordered Britain to hand back the Chagos Islands, including Diego Garcia, to Mauritius \u201cas rapidly as possible.\u201d This follows its landmark ruling that the UK\u2019s occupation of the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2526,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-398357","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2526"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=398357"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398357\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=398357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=398357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=398357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}