Delimitation of the maritime borders between the Chagos and the Maldives

Decisive moment for Mauritius and the Maldives this Friday. Indeed, the decision of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea will be known. Judgment will be delivered by Judge Jin-Hyun Paik of South Korea at the seat of the court in Hamburg, Germany. This judgment will be delivered against a backdrop of controversy given the allegations made by the opposition in the Maldives against President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih. The latter is accused of having pocketed 500 million dollars from Port-Louis to change his position.

The pleadings were held last October. The Mauritian delegation was led by the Permanent Representative of Mauritius to the United Nations, Jagdish Koonjul. King'sCounsel Philippe Sands was also there.

This was an opportunity for the Mauritian side to unveil the results of a scientific study conducted last February at BleinheimReef. As a reminder, scientists, as well as representatives of the Chagossian community, had traveled to the archipelago on a yacht chartered by the Mauritian government.

The Maldives took issue with the way Mauritius conducted a technical survey in the region. “Mauritius has studied a lot of things, but not the location of the four base points,” said Payam Akhavan, a member of the Maldives legal team, referring to the locations from which Mauritius would like the demarcation lines to be drawn.

As a reminder, Mauritius and the Maldives are fighting over an area of 37,000 square miles in the Indian Ocean. Both countries claim these fish-rich waters as their own economic zones.

It should also be recalled that in an advisory opinion issued in 2019, the International Court of Justice, the highest court of the United Nations, ruled that the British occupation of the islands was illegal and that the Chagos Islands were legitimately part of the Republic of Mauritius. Except that the United Kingdom has so far refused to respect the decision of the international court of justice. However, discussions are currently underway between London and Port Louis on this subject.