[Salon] UK signs £3.4bn deal to cede sovereignty over Chagos Islands

[Chas Freeman <cwfresidence@gmail.com>]

FM: John Whitbeck

The GUARDIAN article at the link transmitted below reports on the final stage of a rare occasion of the UK government's complying with international law after its doing so was, necessarily, "signed off" by the U.S government.

The headline of the article is misleading. To cede sovereignty, one must possess it, and, as the text of the article correctly states, the UK has possessed control, not sovereignty, over the Chagos Islands.

As both the International Court of Justice, in an advisory opinion, and the UN General Assembly, with only five dissenting votes, had held, Mauritius was the rightful sovereign over the Chagos Islands and the UK was an illegal occupying power.

With a new 99-year lease over the American naval/bomber base on Diego Garcia, whose establishment was the reason for the ethnic cleansing of the entire Chagossian population of the islands, the U.S. and UK governments simply saw no continuing need for or benefit from continuing to defy international law and global opinion in this particular instance.

I take this opportunity to recommend again my distinguished recipient David Vine's book Island of Shame.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/22/high-court-judge-blocks-uk-from-concluding-chagos-islands-deal