• India supports Mauritius’ claim on Chagos islands under UK control.
• It is  a  part of  hearing from  representatives  of  22  countries  and  the African  Union  (AU)  in  a dispute over the contentious Chagos island between Mauritius and the United Kingdom (UK).
• The four-day International Court of Justice hearing of ICJ began on dealing dispute between Mauritius and the UK over the atolls located at the strategic Indian Ocean.
• The ICJ was asked by the UN General Assembly to give its advisory opinion on whether UK’s continuing possession of Chagos was in violation of international law. The General Assembly had agreed  through  a  resolution  on  June  22,  2017  to  refer  two  questions  to  the  UN’s  main judicial organ to give their advisory opinion. India was one of the 94 countries that voted in favour of the resolution.

Background:

• The dispute dates back to 1965 when Mauritius attained freedom but UK decided to keep the the Chagos Islands which according to Mauritius was in violation of 1960 UN resolution 1514, which specifically banned the breakup of colonies before independence.
• The UN in December 1965 asked the UK to complete the decolonisation of Mauritius and report the same to the General Assembly.
• UK is legally bound by a ruling of the The Arbitral Tribunal, constituted in 2015, to return the archipelago to Mauritius. The UK has consistently maintained that it has no doubt about the Mauritian claim to sovereignty in the islands but will cede the archipelago to Mauritius when it is no longer required for defence purposes.
• In June 2017 at the United Nations General Assembly, India supported the draft resolution on the same matter in favour of Mauritius.
• Legal aspects should root themselves in the historical facts, behaviour of the nations concerned, and the consideration of the issue by relevant administrative and judicial institutions.
• The analysis of historical facts and consideration of the legal aspects confirm that sovereignty of the Chagos archipelago has been and continues to be with Mauritius.

India’s Stand:

• India is  going  to  stick  to  its  earlier  stand  and  stand  by  Mauritius  in  this  fight  against  UK’s colonial history and the rights of exiled islanders to return.
• As the disputed Chagos islands, which is home to Diego Garcia the key military base of the UK and  the  US  in  the  Indian  Ocean,  saying  that  the  process  of  its  decolonisation  remains incomplete as long as the atolls continue to be under UK’s control.
• As India,  as  a  country  that  has  gone  through  the  throes  of  decolonisation,  since  its  own independence in 1947, has always been in the forefront of the struggle against colonialism and apartheid.
• The existence  of  foreign  bases  and  the  military  presence  of  non-littoral  states  in  the  Indian Ocean has been a matter of grave concern for India.
• Great Power military presence has a naturally deleterious impact on the security environment of the  countries  of  the  region  as  it  introduces  new  tensions  and  conflicts  and  accentuates existing ones, thereby threatening peace and stability in our neighbourhood and in the world in general.
• But there had been a debate within the Indian government over taking the step of presenting a legal argument,  especially  since  New  Delhi  did  not  want  the  US  to  move  out  of  the  Indian Ocean and leave a vacuum for the Chinese to fill in.