“We want to assure the United Kingdom and the United States of America that the exercise of effective control by Mauritius over the Chagos Archipelago would not, in any way, pose any threat to the military base.”

It is unknown how long the International Court of Justice will take to render its opinion on the matter, or how it will rule. Speaking on behalf of Mauritius, Anerood Jugnauth, a former prime minister, accused Britain of illegally retaining control of the Chagos Islands when it agreed to the independence of Mauritius, calling it “an unlawful excision.”

As for the military base, Mr. Jugnauth, currently the defense minister, took pains to say that Mauritius had no problem with it operating on Diego Garcia. Mauritius supported by 94 nations in move to consult The Hague over colonial hold of Indian Ocean territory by British

The UK has suffered a humiliating defeat at the United Nations general assembly in a vote over decolonisation and its residual hold over disputed territory in the Indian Ocean. The dispute, he said, should be left as a bilateral issue for the UK and Mauritius to deal with through direct negotiations, and that the Chagos Islands were still needed for security purposes. Photograph: Reuters

Urging delegates at the UN general assembly to oppose the resolution, the UK permanent representative, Matthew Rycroft, warned: “This could set a precedent that many of you in this hall could come to regret.” He added that “the resolution for an advisory opinion is an attempt by the government of Mauritius to circumvent the principle” – referring to the principle that a state could only be involved at the ICJ through its own consent.
In a vote at the United Nations General Assembly, 94 states support a Mauritius-sponsored resolution to seek an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice on the legal status of the disputed Chagos Archipelago.