UK Chagos handover sinks Maldives hopes of reclaiming southern waters

Campaign promise to reverse tribunal judgment became legally impossible.

02 Jun, 7:29 PM

Mohamed Junayd and Ahmed Naish

President Dr Mohamed Muizzu’s promise to recover “lost” Maldivian ocean territory died with a handshake in London.

The United Kingdom’s formal handover of Chagos to Mauritius on May 22 spelled the end of a saga that roiled Maldivian politics ahead of the 2023 presidential election.

Britain’s recognition of Mauritius’s claim settled a long-running sovereignty dispute over the archipelago – home to the US-UK military base on Diego Garcia – and rendered the Muizzu government’s campaign promise to “recover lost territory” legally and diplomatically untenable.

When the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) drew a new maritime boundary between the Maldives and Chagos in April 2023 – dividing the overlapping 200-nautical-mile economic zones – the opposition accused president Ibrahim Mohamed Solih’s administration of “treason” and “selling out” Maldivian territorial waters in an underhanded deal with Mauritius.

After defeating Solih and coming to power in November 2023, Muizzu formed a committee to study the UN tribunal’s judgment. The Attorney General was taking action to “change the ITLOS decision,” the President’s Office said in its first 100-day plan, citing the previous government’s “irresponsible” failure to “use the defence that promoted the most important interests of the country.”

But ITLOS decisions are final and legally binding. States could ask for an interpretation or review based on completely new evidence. However, this is not considered an avenue for appeal.

In his Republic Day address in November, Muizzu repeated the allegation of “forfeiting a large portion from our seas, in broad daylight, against the determined constitutional system, against the constitution, without asking the People’s Majlis.”

His administration was working “day and night” to reclaim the lost territory with a dedicated team of lawyers in addition to a state attorney permanently based at the UN headquarters, he continued.

“And quite recently, when I heard about the British government handing over Chagos to Mauritius, since it is a place to which we very much have a historical connection, the Maldivian government has now sent a letter to the British government,” Muizzu revealed.

The letter noted a historical Maldivian claim to Chagos based on ancient documents and royal decrees, “since it could be seen historically that it could even be viewed as belonging to the Maldives, [which is] more deserving of it than any other country,” he said.

Flimsy claim

Muizzu appeared to be referring to exiled King Hassan IX describing himself – nearly 463 years ago in Cochin – as the “owner of the Maldives islands, the three patanas of Suaadhoo and the seven islands of Pullobay.”

The three patanas were the southernmost atolls of Huvadhoo, Fuvahmulah and Addu. Pullobay most likely referred to the Chagos atoll known in Dhivehi as Foalhavahi, according to local historian Ahmed Najih.

However, Najih questioned the veracity of the sultan’s claim.

“While King Hassan declared his dominion over Foalhavahi in the 16th century, questions arise as to why no record of this area exists in Maldivian ancient records. More questions arise when you consider that the Maldivian territory was called Kela-addu and when Maliku was part of the Maldives, it was described as Maliku-addu,” Najih wrote in 2022.

Maliku is the Dhivehi name for Minicoy in the Lakshadweep islands north of Maldives. Maldivian territory was thus described from the northernmost to the southernmost points, starting from Maliku (before it became part of India) and ending in Addu.

Historians agree that Maldivians knew about the Chagos archipelago, located 310 miles south of Addu. Oral traditions speak of fisherfolk who got stranded at sea and ended up in Foalhavahi.

Nevertheless, the actual location of Foalhavahi remained in question.

“Hoḷḷavai [Foalhavahi], according to Southern Maldivian old men, was a generic name for all the islands and island groups South and Southwest of the Maldives. These included not only the Chagos, but also Seychelles, Mauritius & Reunion and Rodrigues, all of which were uninhabited until as late as the 16th or 17th century,” wrote Spanish historian Xavier Romero Frias.

“According to the island lore it is clear that Maldivians only visited those remote islands by accident and that they by no means endeavored to settle there,” he concluded in his book ‘The Maldivian Islanders.’

Chagos was renamed the British Indian Ocean Territory after the UK separated administration of the islands from its then-colony Mauritius in 1965 and forcibly removed about 2,000 Chagossians.

Chagos discourse

The question of sovereignty over Chagos dominated Maldivian political discourse from the beginning of oral arguments at ITLOS in October 2022 to April 2023 when the court in Hamburg delivered its judgment.

“I will say that a large portion of Maldivian sea territories have been sold off. Those who took the money, must have already taken it. Many believe this now. It is not something which would be done for free,” former president Abdulla Yameen alleged.

“Maldives has lost part of its sea territory, because Maldives relinquished sovereignty over Chagos. I believe what is best for the Maldives is to reject this,” former president Mohamed Nasheed in the wake of the ITLOS judgment.

Foalhavahi, called Peros Banhos by Europeans, was recorded in most Maldivian maps drawn after 1500: “Maldivian captains count the Maldives territory with Foalhavahi. There is much evidence of to say that it is an island of the Maldives,” he .

Chagossians – descendants of slaves and workers who were brought over after a French colony was established in the 18th century – never lived on Foalhavalhi, according to Nasheed. “Even if Diego Garcia and some other atolls come under Mauritius sovereign power at a time when the British state leaves islands in the Chagos ridge, Maldivians are most deserving of sovereign power over Foalhavahi,” he .

“Treason”

The opposition’s allegations of the Solih administration “deliberately forfeiting” territorial waters stemmed from a reversal of the Maldives’ decades-long neutral stance in the sovereignty dispute between the UK and Mauritius. Successive governments maintained the stand that borders could not be determined until the sovereignty dispute was resolved.

When the International Court of Justice ruled that continuing British occupation was illegal in February 2019, the UN General Assembly endorsed the advisory opinion with 116 countries calling on Britain to cede Chagos to Mauritius within six months.

The the non-binding resolution on the grounds that it could undermine a 2010 bid to establish the outer limits of the continental shelf between the Maldives and Chagos, which extends beyond the country’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of 200 nautical miles from the coast. The claim drew a formal protest from Mauritius in 2011 over an encroachment on the Chagos zone.

Bolstered by the ICJ opinion in 2019, Mauritius asked ITLOS to delimit the maritime boundary in the overlapping EEZs.

In his opening statement in October 2022, Attorney General Ibrahim Riffath declared that the Maldives had of the next General Assembly resolution on the return of Chagos to Mauritius. Solih had relayed the decision to the Mauritius prime minister in August 2022, Riffath revealed, expressing hope that Mauritius would withdraw its 2011 protest.

The government insisted that “support to Mauritius’ claim on sovereignty over Chagos” was unrelated to the tribunal case concerning the southern EEZ, “whose boundaries have never been, up until the present moment, determined by the Law of Sea Convention,” and dismissed the opposition’s allegations about the president violating a constitutional requirement to seek parliamentary approval for territorial changes.

The requirement applies to territorial boundaries of 12 miles from the coastline whereas demarcating EEZ boundaries was “well within the mandate of government”.

The government also welcomed Mauritius’s intention to establish a Marine Protected Area surrounding the Chagos archipelago, which would address concerns over tuna stocks that could be threatened by industrial fishing.

But recognition of Mauritius’s sovereignty was tantamount to forfeiting Maldivian territory, decried lawmakers, and, many of whom questioned the timing and wisdom of backing the opponent’s claim in an adversarial legal proceeding.

Echoing former president Yameen's allegations of bribery, former attorney general Dr Mohamed Munavvar alleged that India must have dictated the U-turn in favour of its close ally Mauritius. It was part of a grand strategy to gain the power to block shipping lanes in the Indian Ocean, he speculated.

But the question of whether the neighbouring state is the UK or Mauritius was settled when the tribunal rejected objections raised by the Maldives, which challenged ITLOS jurisdiction to proceed to border delimitation despite the unresolved sovereignty dispute, University of Toronto Professor Payam Akhavan – senior counsel of the Maldives legal team – in November 2022.

The president’s decision to vote in favour of the ICJ opinion at the General Assembly was “the natural consequence” of the tribunal’s binding judgment that Mauritius should be considered the rightful owner of Chagos “for the purposes of drawing a maritime boundary,” Akhavan explained.

Akhavan suggested that the president was “simply giving effect to the position which exists now”. Despite negotiations with both the UK and Mauritius, the lack of clarity in the past precluded a boundary agreement such as the ones signed with India and Sri Lanka in the 1970s.

A Maldives would also be “a non-starter” because of the ICJ judgment, Professor Akhavan told reporters at the time.

Sovereignty for Mauritius despite the much larger distance to Chagos than the Maldives was a legacy of arbitrarily drawn colonial boundaries, he observed.

Timeline:

1814-1968 - UK controls Chagos as part of Mauritius colonial administration

1965 - UK separates Chagos administration from Mauritius to create British Indian Ocean Territory

1966 - UK leases Diego Garcia to US for 50 years (in exchange for $14m discount on Polaris missile systems)

1968 - Mauritius gains independence without Chagos archipelago

Late 1960s-early 1970s - UK forcibly removes 1,500-2,000 Chagossians to make way for US military base on Diego Garcia

1970s - Maldives signs maritime boundary agreements with India and Sri Lanka

1982 - Maldives becomes signatory to UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS)

1992 - Maldives and UK reach technical-level agreement using equidistant rule for maritime boundary; draft agreement finalised but never signed

1996 - Maldives passes Maritime Zones Act declaring 200-nautical-mile EEZ from archipelagic baselines; deposits coordinates with UN

2000 - Maldives ratifies UNCLOS

2004 - Maldivian EEZ map published by Marine Research Center reflects 1992 draft boundary with UK

2009 - Mauritius submits preliminary information to UN Commission on Limits of Continental Shelf, claiming 200 nautical mile EEZ around Chagos

July 2010 - Maldives submits claim for extended continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles, including overlapping Chagos territory (prepared by committee chaired by Dr Mohamed Munavvar)

October 2010 - Maldives agrees to amend submission to account for Mauritius EEZ around Chagos

2011

March - No addendum filed by Maldives; Mauritius officially protests overlap

President Nasheed visits Mauritius; both countries agree on diplomatic solution for overlapping continental shelf areas

No follow-up development occurs from diplomatic agreement

2017 - UN General Assembly seeks opinion from International Court of Justice on Chagos; Maldives does not file intervention under Yameen administration

February 2019 - ICJ rules UK's continued occupation of Chagos illegal, violates international law

May 2019 - UN General Assembly adopts resolution calling for complete decolonisation of Mauritius by returning Chagos

Vote: 116 countries support; Maldives votes against (along with UK, US, Australia, Israel, Hungary)

Maldives rationale: Resolution could prejudge implications of 2010 continental shelf submission

UN diplomat Thilmeeza Hussain clarifies Maldives supports decolonisation but has technical concerns

2019 - Mauritius files case at International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea over maritime boundary delimitation

2022

Mauritius submits extended continental shelf claim around Chagos to UN Commission

August 2022 - President Solih privately informs Mauritius PM of decision to support sovereignty claim

October 20, 2022 - As ITLOS hears oral arguments in Hamburg, Attorney General Ibrahim Riffath publicly announces Maldives will vote in favor of next UN resolution supporting Mauritius sovereignty

October 2022 - Political firestorm erupts in Maldives

April 28, 2023 - ITLOS delivers judgment:

Technical dispute: Blenheim Reef basepoint issue resolved in Maldives' favour

Final allocation: Maldives receives 47,232 sq km; Mauritius receives 45,331 sq km

Ratio: 1:0.960 in favour of Maldives

Rejected: Mauritius claim to continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles (additional 22,298 sq km)

Historic first: International court resolves maritime boundary dispute between two archipelagic states

Technical aspects:

Blenheim Reef dispute: Technical disagreement over whether semi-submerged reef could be used as basepoint for EEZ calculation

Equidistance principle: Standard method for dividing overlapping EEZs by calculating midpoint

Five percent disagreement: Parties agreed on 95 percent of 92,000 sq km overlapping area

April 28, 2023

Government celebrates: Professor Payam Akhavan calls it "great victory for Maldives"

Opposition fury: Social media laments "loss of 44,000 square km"

Rally staged: Opposition coalition holds 'Chagos rally' in Malé

Impeachment threats: Leaders vow to impeach and imprison President Solih

Military coup calls: Acting leader Abdul Raheem Abdulla calls on police and military to topple government

Late night press conference: President Solih holds cabinet meeting and media briefing

Solih's defense: "Prior to boundary determination, Maldives only controlled 12 nautical miles. Now we have 200 miles."

Fisheries benefit: Coast guard can now pursue illegal fishing vessels beyond 12 nautical miles

Foreign Minister Shahid: "No Maldivian government has ever claimed sovereignty over Chagos"

2023 - Chagos becomes campaign issue:

Opposition platform: Promise to appeal ITLOS judgment and recover "lost territory"

Historical claims revived: Nasheed promotes 16th century King Hassan IX letter

Legal challenges: Former attorneys general Dr Munavvar and Aishath Azima Shukoor hold joint press conference alleging government "deliberately forfeited" territorial waters

November 2023 - Muizzu assumes office after defeating Solih

Campaign promise: Action within first 100 days to reverse ITLOS decision

Committee formed: Study group established to examine UN tribunal judgment

AG office action: President's Office announces efforts to "change the ITLOS decision"

October 3, 2024 - UK announces agreement to transfer Chagos sovereignty to Mauritius under 99-year lease arrangement for Diego Garcia base

May 22, 2025: UK formally hands over Chagos sovereignty to Mauritius after overcoming last-minute legal challenges

Financial terms: UK pays Mauritius £101 million annually (£3.4 billion over 99 years)

This is part of the Maldives Independent’s timeline series, looking back at the stories we missed during our five-year hiatus from January 2020 to January 2025.

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