Chagos Court Ruling: What Happens Next for Mauritius?

A court based in the British Indian Ocean Territory has upheld eviction notices against four Chagossian residents living on Ile du Coin, one of the islands in the Chagos archipelago. The ruling, handed down on 12 November by the BIOT Court of Appeal, overturned an earlier decision by the BIOT Supreme Court that had blocked the evictions. The appeal court found that a lower court cannot strike down a provision of British constitutional law.

The British Indian Ocean Territory, known as BIOT, is the administrative name Britain uses for the Chagos Islands. Mauritius regards the archipelago as its own sovereign territory, and an in-principle agreement reached in 2024 between the Mauritian and British governments was intended to formally transfer sovereignty to Mauritius. That political process remains ongoing.

The four individuals at the centre of this case are Chagossians, descendants of the community that was forcibly displaced from the islands by Britain between 1968 and 1973 to make way for the US military base on Diego Garcia. Some Chagossians have since sought to return to the outer islands, including Ile du Coin, as part of a broader campaign to reclaim their homeland.

Critically, legal analysts and Mauritian officials have been quick to clarify what this ruling does and does not mean. The BIOT Court of Appeal was ruling on a narrow procedural question: whether the BIOT Supreme Court had the authority to override a British constitutional provision. It was not ruling on the question of who ultimately owns the Chagos Islands. The court explicitly stated that its judgment does not affect the sovereignty negotiations between Mauritius and the United Kingdom.

The sovereignty agreement, which was announced in principle in October 2024 after years of negotiations, would see Britain acknowledge Mauritian sovereignty over the Chagos Islands in exchange for a long-term lease allowing the Diego Garcia military base to continue operating. The deal has faced political headwinds in London, and its final ratification remains uncertain under the current British government.

What this means: For ordinary Mauritians and the Chagossian community, this court ruling is legally significant but politically limited in scope. The eviction notices against the four residents on Ile du Coin may now proceed under BIOT law, but that law itself is contested. If and when Mauritius formally assumes sovereignty over the islands, the entire legal framework governing residence and administration would change. Until that sovereignty transfer is completed and ratified, British courts and British constitutional law continue to apply in the territory, which is exactly what this ruling confirms. The case underscores how urgently the broader political agreement needs to be finalised, since the legal limbo creates situations like this one, where Chagossians attempting to return to their ancestral islands face eviction under a jurisdiction that Mauritius does not recognise as legitimate.

Mauritius has consistently maintained that the Chagos Islands were illegally excised from its territory before independence in 1968, a position affirmed by a 2019 International Court of Justice advisory opinion and a subsequent United Nations General Assembly resolution calling on Britain to end its administration of the islands.

Source: Le Defi Media