Chagos Islanders and International Law

Stephen Allen is a Senior Lecturer in Law at Queen Mary, University of London.

Stephen Allen’s The Chagos Islanders and International Law offers the most detailed treatment to date of the protracted legal struggle of the Chagossians ... Allen is uniquely placed to write on this controversy, having acted as a consultant to the Chagossian (Bancoult) legal team when the Chagos case was first addressed by the English courts.

• Introduction I. Background II. The Chagos Islanders and International Law 1. The Chagossian Litigation in the English Courts I. Introduction II. Background III. UK Public Law IV. Bancoult 1 V. The Chagos Islanders Case VI. Withdrawing the Public Law Right of Abode VII. Bancoult 2: The House of Lords’ Judgment 18A. Constitutional Review and Fundamental Rights B. Rationality C. Legitimate Expectations VIII. International Law Perspectives IX. International Law and National Law 31A. Theoretical Approaches: Dualism and Monism B. International Law and English Law C. The Fitzmaurice Compromise X. Conclusion 2. The Chagos Islanders and the European Convention on Human Rights: Extra-territoriality and the Concept of State Jurisdiction I. Introduction II. State Jurisdiction and Article 1 of the European Convention III. Al-Skeini and the Relationship between Article 1 and Article 56 ECHR IV. The Chagos Islanders v UK Case V. The Governance of British Overseas Territories VI. The Personal and Spatial Modes of State Jurisdiction VII. Dividing and Tailoring Convention Obligations in the Extra-territorial Context VIII. The Normative Foundations of the Convention’s Extra-territorial Application IX. Constituent and Legislative Authority in British Overseas Territories X. Subordinate Legislative Authority XI. The Object and Purpose of Article 63/56 of the European Convention XII. Conclusion 3. Detaching the Chagos Islands from Mauritius: The 1965 Mauritian Constitutional Conference and the Making of the Lancaster House Agreement I. Introduction II. Colonial Acquisition in the Mauritian Context III. British Colonial Withdrawal and the Prospect of a US Military Facility on Diego Garcia IV. The 1965 Mauritian Constitutional Conference and the Lancaster House Agreement V. The Lancaster House Agreement VI. Assessing the Relationship between the Detachment of the Chagos Islands and Mauritian Independence VII. Conclusion 4. The 1965 Lancaster House Agreement and International Law I. Introduction II. The Doctrine and the Development of the Treaty Law III. The Relationship between Coercion and Consent in the Conclusion of Treaties IV. International Legal Personality, Treaty-Making Capacity and the 1965 Lancaster House Agreement 116A. International Legal Personality and Treaty-Making Authority in the Colonial Context B. International Legal Personality and Treaty-Making Authority in the Mauritian Context V. Coercion in the Conclusion of Treaties and Colonial Self-determination VI. Conclusion 5. Detaching the Chagos Islands from Mauritius: The Status of Colonial Self-determination in International Law during the mid-1960s I. Introduction II. Legal Rules, Legal Principles and Legal Rights III. The Rise of the Principle of Self-determination and International Law IV. The Principle of Self-determination in the UN Charter V. Chapter XI and Chapter XII of the UN Charter VI. Holistic Interpretations of the Charter: Article 1 and Chapters XI and XII 144A. Self-determination and the Drafting of the UN Charter B. Self-determination and the Concept of ‘People-hood’ VII. The General Assembly: Chapter XI and the Progressive Development of the Right to Self-determination 148A. The General Assembly and the Supervision of Non-Self-Governing Territories VIII. Non-Self-Governing Territories 152A. The Scope of the Concept of Domestic Jurisdiction B. The Concept of Non-Self-Governing Territories IX. The Colonial Declaration X. General Assembly Resolution 1541(XV)(1960) XI. Charter-based Arguments XII. The Formation of General Customary International Law 170A. State Practice B. Opinio Juris XIII. Self-determination, the Colonial Declaration and Customary International Law XIV. The ICJ and Colonial Self-determination: Formalism versus Teleology XV. The South West Africa Cases: Substantive Law and the Formation of Customary International Law XVI. Fitzmaurice and the Formalist Interpretation of Self-determination XVII. ‘Decolonizing the Court’ XVIII. Conclusion 6. Mauritian Claims of Sovereignty over the Chagos Islands: Mauritian Self-determination I. Introduction II. Colonial Self-determination in the Mauritian Context III. The Principle of Uti Possidetis Juris IV. Uti Possidetis Juris in the Mauritian Context V. The Creation of the British Indian Ocean Territory VI. The Significance of General Assembly Resolution 2066(XX) (1965) 207A. Support for Resolution 2066 from UN Members States in the General Assembly B. The Juridical Facts of the Detachment of the Chagos Islands from Mauritius VII. Sovereignty over the Chagos Islands: The Position of the UK Government VIII. Sovereignty over the Chagos Islands: The Position of the Mauritian Government IX. The Estoppel Argument X. Non-Self-Governing Territories and the Right to Self-determination XI. The Concept of a Non-Self-Governing Territory XII. The Case of West New Guinea 224A. Historical Background B. The Battles in the UN General Assembly (1954–61) C. Dutch Resignation and the 1962 New York Agreement D. The Administrative Argument E. The Sovereignty Argument F. The Ethnic/Cultural Argument XIII. The Mayotte Question XIV. The Significance of West New Guinea and Mayotte for BIOT’s Status XV. The Temporal Limits of Non-Self-Governing Territory Status XVI. Non-Self-Governing Status and the BIOT XVII. Conclusion 7. The Chagos Islanders and International Law I. Introduction II. The Feasibility of Resettling the Outer Chagos Islands III. The BIOT as a Non-Self-Governing Territory IV. Are the Chagos Islanders a ‘People’ for the Purpose of Exercising the Right to Self-determination in International Law? V. Chagossian Perspective on UK Sovereign Authority in respect of the BIOT VI. Chagossian Self-determination and Applicable Human Rights Treaties 262A. International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights B. International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights C. International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination VII. Good Governance in British Overseas Territories VIII. The Salience of Indigenous Rights for the Chagos Islanders 273A. The Concept of Indigeneity in International Law B. The Concept of Indigeneity in the Chagossian Context C. Indigenous Land Rights in the Chagossian Context