The UN’s 193 member states voted overwhelmingly to ask Britain to hand over control of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius “as rapidly as possible.”
A total of 116 countries voted in favour, while six voted against – including Britain, the U.S., Australia and Israel.
There were 56 abstentions, including several European countries.
The archipelago was separated from Mauritius in 1965 and is ruled from London as a British Indian Ocean Territory, with the main island, Diego Garcia, leased to the U.S. as a military airbase.
The draft resolution demands that Britain “withdraw its colonial administration” of the islands within six months, to allow Mauritius to complete “decolonisation” of its territory as quickly as possible.
It endorses an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued in February, which stated that Britain must end its decades-long rule of the archipelago, as it violates the people’s right to self-determination and the territorial integrity of Mauritius.
Britain does not plan to follow the advisory opinion or the General Assembly resolution, neither of which are legally binding.
It also considers the situation a bilateral dispute which should not be addressed by the UN.
London argues that the archipelago has never been part of Mauritius, and that the island nation’s claim to sovereignty over it is therefore invalid.
But Mauritian Prime Minister Pravind Jugnauth said the islands are an integral part of the country’s territory and pointed out that Mauritius was a colony of Britain with no decision-making powers when the separation took place.
Jugnauth said adopting the resolution sends a “clear signal to the world that colonialism can no longer be tolerated,” in remarks ahead of the vote in New York.
Britain’s UN ambassador Karen Pierce said afterwards that London was not going to give the islands to Mauritius unless they were no longer needed for defence purposes, and if Britain negotiated an agreement with Mauritius to cede them.
Since 1966, Britain has been leasing Diego Garcia, the main island of the archipelago, to the U.S., which has an important military base there.
Diego Garcia’s approximately 1,500 inhabitants were forced to leave the island after the U.S. established the base there in the early 1970s.
The huge loss in the UN General Assembly vote came in spite of efforts by Britain and the U.S. to lobby other nations for support by sending out letters to the UN member states.
The ICJ was asked by the UN General Assembly in 2017 to examine whether the separation of the Chagos Islands from the then-British colony of Mauritius was lawful.
The judges declared that the territorial integrity of Mauritius had been violated and that its decolonisation had not been complete.
