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UK will give sovereignty of Chagos Islands to Mauritius

bbc.co.uk

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Re: UK will give sovereignty of Chagos Islands to Mauritius

#31

Post by avinash »

throw0101d wrote: post #23
avinash wrote: post #17

I'm a citizen of the Republic of Mauritius and, when this news was announced today, there was a general sense of relief. Mauritius has been fighting for its sovereignty over the Chagos Archipelago (with Diego Garcia being the largest island) for 56 years. Today, the Chagos Archipelago is part of Mauritius again and a treaty will (hopefully) soon be signed between the UK and Mauritius. From there, Mauritius will sign…

> From there, Mauritius will sign a lease agreement of 99 years with the USA so that the military base there can continue to operate. Seems to be a lease with the UK (which then 'sub-leases' to the US?): * https://www.reuters.com/world/britain-agrees-chagos-island-s... Curious to know if there will be extension provisions: people think 99 years is a long time (which isn't wrong), but Hong Kong went back to China afte…

Possibly. The treaty has not been signed yet.

Things will become clearer in the coming weeks.

Re: UK will give sovereignty of Chagos Islands to Mauritius

#32

Post by toyg »

bpodgursky wrote: post #30
toyg wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like to see your sources on this. I expect it's a bit simpler than that: anti-colonial policies resonate deeply with African voters, and are very uncontroversial.

African voters, to the extent that they have any vote at all [1], have vastly more important things to care about than a tiny island in the Indian ocean. I would in fact bet a lot of money that vastly fewer than 1% of African voters, in any country, know about the Chagos Islands at all. [1] Mostly, not https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_in_Africa#/media/Fil...

Yeah but when $dictator shows up on tv and talks about figthing $bloodyColonialists at the UN, it's uncontroversial (regardless of the issue being fought) and takes time from talking about his embezzlement/corruption/etc.

Meanwhile, behind the scenes, they can go cap in hand to $bloodyColonialists and ask "do you want me to shut up? Give me $something".

This requires no shadowy influence from this or that supposed Great Power.

Re: UK will give sovereignty of Chagos Islands to Mauritius

#33

Post by hermitcrab »

pbiggar wrote: post #5

> The remaining British overseas territories are: Anguilla, Bermuda, British Antarctic Territory, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Falkland Islands, Gibraltar, Montserrat, Pitcairn, Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, Turks and Caicos Islands. There are also two sovereign base areas on Cyprus under British jurisdiction. Good note at the end

And quite a few of those in shady financial dealings. Happily hiding and laundering money for various kleptocrats. It has been noted that, just as the Roman Empire didn't really disappear - it became a church, the British Empire didn't really disappear - it became a bank.

The British government likes to make various noises about cleaning this up, but there are too many businesses in the City of London making money off the system for there to be much chance of that happening.

Re: UK will give sovereignty of Chagos Islands to Mauritius

#35

Post by Maxatar »

matthewmorgan wrote: post #24
jplrssn wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UN General Assembly and various UN courts have ruled that the UK had no sovereignty over the Chagos Islands in the first place. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-55848126

Irrelevant.

Maybe to you, but not to the UK government.

Re: UK will give sovereignty of Chagos Islands to Mauritius

#36

Post by rich_sasha »

matthewmorgan wrote: post #9

Some countries have constitutions that forbid giving up any parts of its territory, but apparently our government can hand over sovereignty without even a vote in parliament

Without going into the sentiment of this, I suppose Chaos Islands are not part of the United Kingdom but rather an overseas territory, so more like "property", to put it bluntly. I guess the government can just give away a building it owns, and this is more analogous than giving away "territory". And there is no current indigenous population there either.

But yeah, Jersey is also an overseas territory, can the government just give that away?

Re: UK will give sovereignty of Chagos Islands to Mauritius

#37

Post by lolinder »

exdsq wrote: post #13
rafram wrote: post #3

The British Indian Ocean Territory is probably better known in the tech world for its top-level domain: .io.

Which is owned by a hedge fund, and thankfully not part of this deal (so it's not at risk!)

TLD "owners" own TLDs in much the same way that we own domains, and it's very possible that ICANN phases out the .io domain when the British Indian Ocean Territory ceases to exist. From what we gathered in the other thread it somewhat depends on what ISO decides to do with its codes.

At a minimum I expect that control over the .io domain will go to Mauritius and they'll be able to reassign it as desired (since they never contracted with the hedge fund). But the typical path for a code when its country goes defunct is to get phased out.

Re: UK will give sovereignty of Chagos Islands to Mauritius

#38

Post by rich_sasha »

hermitcrab wrote: post #33
pbiggar wrote: post #5

> The remaining British overseas territories are: Anguilla, Bermuda, British Antarctic Territory, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Falkland Islands, Gibraltar, Montserrat, Pitcairn, Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, Turks and Caicos Islands. There are also two sovereign base areas on Cyprus under British jurisdiction. Good note at the end

And quite a few of those in shady financial dealings. Happily hiding and laundering money for various kleptocrats. It has been noted that, just as the Roman Empire didn't really disappear - it became a church, the British Empire didn't really disappear - it became a bank. The British government likes to make various noises about cleaning this up, but there are too many businesses in the City of London making money of…

> the Roman Empire didn't really disappear - it became a church, the British Empire didn't really disappear - it became a bank.

Great quip!

Re: UK will give sovereignty of Chagos Islands to Mauritius

#39

Post by threemux »

matthewmorgan wrote: post #9

Some countries have constitutions that forbid giving up any parts of its territory, but apparently our government can hand over sovereignty without even a vote in parliament

I'm assuming all this is contingent on a treaty vote in Parliament? I'm not familiar with how it works in the UK

Re: UK will give sovereignty of Chagos Islands to Mauritius

#40

Post by Maxatar »

threemux wrote: post #39
matthewmorgan wrote: post #9

Some countries have constitutions that forbid giving up any parts of its territory, but apparently our government can hand over sovereignty without even a vote in parliament

I'm assuming all this is contingent on a treaty vote in Parliament? I'm not familiar with how it works in the UK

Yes, of course Parliament will need to vote on this, but the Prime Minister of the UK has approved it and unlike in the US., in the UK votes are predominantly along party lines so it will pass.
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