Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what assessment his Department has made of the benefit of using multilateral forums to resolve disagreements with the Government of Mauritius about the Chagos Islands.
The UK is clear about its sovereignty of the Chagos Archipelago, which it administers as the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT), and strongly rejects Mauritius' claim that the Territory is part of Mauritius. This is a bilateral issue and we are committed to resolving it through bilateral discussions. We are disappointed that the UN General Assembly has referred this bilateral issue to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for an Advisory Opinion. This is an inappropriate use of the ICJ Advisory Opinion mechanism and sets an unwelcome precedent for other bilateral issues. We will robustly defend our position at the ICJ.