Maldives takes on UK in high seas legal drama
30 Sep 2010, 6:23 PM
The Maldives government looks set to lock horns with the UK Foreign Office over the Maldives’ long-running claim to 160,000 square kilometres of British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT).
The Maldives wants an extension of its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) which impedes on a 200 nautical mile EEZ that the UK claims extends from the island of Diego Garcia.
The island is presently occupied by a US naval base, under an agreement in 1966 whereby the UK received favours including a US$14 million discount on submarine-launched Polaris missiles in exchange for use of the island until 2016. The base is now among the largest US naval bases outside the country, and has reportedly been used as a stop-off point for the CIA’s highly-controversial ‘extraordinary rendition’ flights to Morocco and Guantanamo Bay.
More recently, the UK has declared the Chagos Archipelago in the BIOT a marine reserve – an area larger than France – theoretically making it the world’s largest marine protected area (MPA). Funds to manage the MPA for the next five years have been provided by Swiss-Italian billionaire Ernesto Bertarelli.
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