Palestine and the Chagos Islands: ICJ cases highlight legal similarities
Deep in the Indian Ocean are a group of some 60 islands that serve as Britain’s main strategic asset and the last remains of its imperial possessions in the region.
The Mauritian government has long argued that the Chagos Islands bear significant comparison to Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories thousands of miles away.
Their position was given new relevance after it emerged last week that Britain's Labour government has decided to cede the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, in exchange for Mauritius allowing American troops to remain there on a long lease.
The islands are home to a strategically important US military base which puts some of its bomber aircraft within range of the Middle East.
But Britain's decision to relinquish the islands has sparked outrage amongst opposition Conservative MPs.
The move is a response to an International Court of Justice (ICJ) advisory opinion which ruled in 2019 that the British occupation of the Chagos Islands is illegal, and that the territory must be ceded to Mauritius.
According to The Telegraph on Monday, American officials pushed Britain towards the deal, fearing that Mauritius would successfully apply for a binding ruling from the ICJ to take control of the islands.
Washington's position stands in contrast to its opposition to the ICJ advisory opinion that Israel is illegally occupying Palestinian territory.
The executive director of Democracy for the Arab World Now (Dawn), Sarah Leah Whitson, told Middle East Eye: “International law is clear, and the International Court of Justice has been clear: illegal occupations and annexations must end.
“While the UK has finally submitted to the law and given up its occupation of the Chagos Islands, Israel continues to occupy Palestinian territories, despite the clear orders of the court to evacuate and remove its settlers and forces from them.”
In 1968, when Mauritius gained its independence from Britain, the latter retained possession of the Chagos Islands.
This was because it had struck a deal with the United States in 1966 to lease Washington the largest island, Diego Garcia, as a military base.
In return, the Americans secretly agreed to give Britain a $14m discount on Polaris nuclear missiles.
A Britain government memo in 1966 stated that Britain’s goal "was to get some rocks which will remain ours; there will be no indigenous population except seagulls".
Between 1968 and 1973, the British government forcibly expelled the entire population of the territory - between 1,500 and 2,000 people - so that the largest island, Diego Garcia, could be leased to the US.
Like the Palestinians expelled during the Nakba in 1948, the islanders have never been allowed to return to their homes.
Human Rights Watch has described the mass expulsion as a “crime against humanity”.
Meanwhile Diego Garcia, the largest of the islands in the Chagos Archipelago, has been a shadowy military base, hosting around 5,000 American military personnel and dozens of ships and aircraft.
It has been crucial to the US-led so-called "war on terror" and the US military used the island to launch attacks on Afghanistan after 9/11, and on Iraq during the 2003 invasion.
In 2008 a TIME Magazine investigation revealed that the island was being used as an interrogation site for suspected Al Qaeda members.
US naval ships docked there were used to torture detainees, human rights group Reprieve has alleged.
To this day, British police cars drive around the island - but on the right hand side of the road, as in America. Street names are overtly nationalistic and include Britannia Way and Churchill Road.
But a new chapter in the history of the Chagos Islands was opened in 2019.
That year the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued an advisory opinion that Britain “has an obligation to end its administration of the Chagos Archipelago as rapidly as possible”.
While Britain claimed Mauritius had never held sovereignty over the territory, the world court rejected this argument.
Instead, the ICJ determined that Britain had illegally detached the Chagos Islands from Mauritius before the latter’s independence.
Although the opinion was non-binding, it led to the UN General Assembly adopting a resolution less than three months later demanding that Britain comply with the court’s order.
The vote passed 116 in favour, with only six against.
Notably, Israel backed Britain’s position and voted against the resolution. At that point, the UN considered Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories to be illegal.
The next blow for Britain’s position came in 2021, when the UN’s special international maritime court in Hamburg affirmed the ICJ’s advisory opinion and comprehensively rejected the UK's sovereignty of the islands.
In response, Mauritius urged Britain to end its “unlawful occupation”.
Conservative Prime Minister Liz Truss then opened the door on new negotiations by meeting her Mauritian counterpart Pravind Jugnauth to discuss the issue.
In November 2022, Foreign Secretary James Cleverly told parliament that the two countries would begin “negotiations on the exercise of sovereignty” over the islands.
It was only in October 2024, under the recently elected Labour government, that Britain agreed to give up the territory.
While former Tory Prime Minister Boris Johnson accused Labour of “political correctness”, Foreign Secretary David Lammy insisted the decision was taken because the UK’s position had become “legally untenable”.
Lammy's reasoning suggested that Labour’s decision was a response to the ICJ’s advisory opinion.
This past July, the ICJ issued another advisory opinion - this time on the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories.
It found that Israel's decades-long occupation of the Palestinian territories was "unlawful" and must end.
During the ICJ proceedings, Mauritius told the court that the Israeli occupation presents similarities to its dispute with Britain over the Chagos Islands.
Mauritius referred to the 2019 ICJ ruling on the islands, arguing that if the ICJ deemed Israel’s occupation unlawful, Israel would similarly be obligated to end its occupation.
Jagdish Dharamchand Koonjul, the permanent representative of Mauritius to the UN, told the ICJ that the 2019 judgement made a “significant, immediate, and irreversible impact” on the country’s negotiations with Britain.
He said Mauritius was “confident” that the ICJ's advisory opinions against Israel “can likewise make a significant, immediate, and irreversible impact with respect to the right of Palestinian people to self-determination”.
Meanwhile, the US and Britain argued that the ICJ should not tell Israel to withdraw from the occupied Palestinian territories.
The British government has not set out how it will respond to the ICJ’s non-statutory ruling on the Israeli occupation.
A foreign office spokesperson told MEE in response to the ruling that Lammy was clear "that the UK is strongly opposed to the expansion of illegal settlements and rising settler violence".
But the ICJ ruled that all settlements are illegal and must be removed. Despite this, Britain has not done anything to suggest it will take action accordingly.
Zaki Sarraf, legal officer at the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP) told MEE: “The UK stressed that this agreement [with Mauritius] is demonstrative of a commitment to the rule of law and will address wrongs of the past - but that commitment doesn't seem to extend to Palestinians.
“One of the orders set out in the ICJ’s July advisory opinion called for states to not render aid or assistance in maintaining Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine.
“And yet, the UK’s flow of lethal arms to Israel has continued unabated. Will it take five years before this ICJ decision, too, is respected?
“The rights of Palestinians must be protected through concerted action and the application of the law. Deference to Israel must end; the UK's 'commitment' to international law must be applied consistently.”
Returning the Chagos Islands to Mauritius could make it possible for Chagossians to finally be able to return to their homes, although hundreds who were expelled are now dead.
However, this depends on whether Mauritius puts resettlement plans in place - and on the nature of those plans.
Some Chagossians are furious with the Labour government’s decision - opposing the islands being given to Mauritius and fearing they could lose their British passports.
They gathered near parliament on Monday to demonstrate against not having been given a say in negotiations over the future of the Islands.
") rgba(220, 220, 220, 0.5); top: -15px; left: 0px;">The foreign office told the BBC that the interests of the Chagossian community had been "an important part of the negotiations".
But this has been heavily disputed.
Steeve Bancal, a trainee social worker from Sussex, told the broadcaster that he hoped to return to the islands with his 74-year-old mother.
But he criticised the negotiations, saying they happened "behind closed doors".
"None of us were told what was happening. It's unfair on us," he said.
"It's our heritage - we should have had one or two people in the room.”
Meanwhile in the case of the Palestinians, although the ICJ's decision in July was advisory, many legal experts have described it as a striking and historic initiative that requires taking several legal steps.
One of these steps, they say, are to allow the return of Palestinians who were displaced by Israel when it began its occupation in 1967.
Whether this will happen remains to be seen.