The cynical sale (lease) of this distant archipelago by UK government to USA for a military outpost required uninhabited islands- so those who lived there had to go! By fair means or foul… He does this in the context of his own journey of discovery about postwar human rights that led him, for example, to be a critical voice in the investigations of the unsafe legal basis for the invasion of Iraq. The origin of those convictions, as he sets them out, lay in the brutal knowledge that two of his great-grandmothers, both widows, had been deported from Vienna to die in Theresienstadt and Treblinka during the Holocaust. I came away buzzing and reassured that we still have in this century a wide ranging community fascinated not just by famous authors (I’ve rarely seen so many concentrated in one place) but by challenging ideas and questions.

I have never been attracted to international law and war crimes tribunals due to both the above truisms. Those guilty of “Crimes against humanity” are only the military personnel of the country that lost a war and never the victorious military personnel. Victims are only victims, from a Western European perspective, if they are white. Powerful countries, the previous “winners,” only atone for their sins if it is politically and militarily convenient. These are all, unfortunately, major points in Philippe Sands’ book, The Last Colony: A Tale of Exile, Justice, and Courage, chronicling the legal arguments of Chogossian refugees who were forcibly relocated from an archipelago in the middle of the Indian Ocean to make way for a military base that has been leased by the British to the U.S.A. since the early 70’s. This base contains much of the U.S.A.’s early response capabilities to any conflict in the Middle East. Pre-positioned ships are always ready for a war and a mere few days from potential hotspots. Call the forced relocation what it is: A move by two powerful countries, Britain and the U.S.A., who had both ostensibly renounced colonialism, to continue behaving like colonialists in spite of numerous decisions in international courts which, over the last decades, gradually favor the rights of indigenous peoples. In his latest book, The Last Colony, Philippe Sands charts the long battle between Britain and Mauritius for sovereignty over Chagos, leading to the ICJ’s 2019 decision the detachment of Chagos was not based on the free and genuine expression of the people concerned.In its advisory opinion, the ICJ stated that the Chagos archipelago had been wrongfully detached from Mauritius at the time of its independence and suggested that the UK should transfer sovereignty over the islands to Mauritius as soon as possible. The case hinged on the issue of self-determination, a principle established at the UN, including through UN General Assembly Resolution 1514, adopted in 1960, which called for an end to colonial rule. As decolonisation progressed globally, this resolution – non-binding but gaining customary international law status in the absence of persistent objection – was taken to imply that territory should not be detached from colonies at the point of independence without the agreement of the populations concerned. This was to allow fulfilment of the principle of self-determination. Sands sets out the case presented by him and others on behalf of Mauritius. In doing so, he writes about the ideas and legal principles relating to self-determination and decolonisation. He does not, however, balance this with a proper discussion of sovereignty, the fundamental doctrine in both international law and international politics. That core concept is about the exercise of absolute rights over a polity. Under the doctrine, a state rightfully exercising sovereignty cannot be told – or advised – what to do (though, in practice, politics inevitably shapes this). The Last Colony is not his first work to champion investigations of 21st century government law-breaking. It follows others involving the US military prison on Guantánamo Bay; the secret collusion between Bush and Blair over the Iraq War; and the trial of former Chilean President Augusto Pinochet. He believes British justice secretary Dominic Raab’s efforts to bring in a British Bill will fail because many Conservative parliamentarians are “appalled” by his proposals, but says it is “not a time for complacency”. The strand in the right wing of the Conservative party that imagines there is still “this thing called the British empire” has to be “firmly resisted”.

The judgement in 2019 at the International Court of Justice gave the “advice” that the evacuation of islanders in the late 1960’s was an illegal act. Consequences of this judgement continue as the current Conservative government in the Uk, (one running divergence is the distinction between ‘advice’ and ‘law’, binding and non-binding). The author notes that the book was shaped from a series of lectures he gave on the topic at the Hague Academy of International Law. As such, The Last Colony was much more dry and academic in tone than I had expected from the description. Though Sands does his best to explain the thorny issues of international law that surrounded the case, it was hard at times to fully understand how everything being discussed linked together and with the case.As Plilippe Sands cites - A civilization that plays fast and loose with it's principles is a dying civilization. Now involved on behalf of Mauritius in the negotiations with Britain over Chagos, Sands is “cautiously optimistic that justice will finally be done”. That could see the US military base on Diego Garcia being protected under a long-term arrangement under Mauritian sovereignty, the Chagossians being able to go home if they want to and, in light of plans for a marine protection area, “a proper effort to protect the environment of that extraordinary place”. Few people will know anything about the story of the Chagos Islands and the terrible wrong perpetuated upon its people by the British Government. This is deliberate, because the history of Chagos and how the Chagossians have been treated by Britain is a shameful stain on this country. The case at the heart of the book is one referred to the court by the UN at the behest of the Mauritian government (with Sands acting in the referral and the case before the court) basically claiming that the Chagos archipelago was illegally partitioned from Mauritius immediately prior to the latter being granted its independence by the UK – and further that the Chagos (which was set up by the British as a new colony – the British Indian Ocean Territory as part of a decision to grant the US a cold war and later war-on-terror base on Diego Garcia) Islanders were illegally deported when in 1973 they were forced to leave the Island and explicitly forbidden to return). Despite her short tenure as UK Prime Minister, Liz Truss set about following up on the cause of the Chagossians. James Cleverly, the Foreign Secretary is making certain pronouncements on the Chagos Islands, and some changes to the existing status quo between Mauritius and Britain appear to be underway, and ongoing.

Sometimes in tears, sometimes angry, Elysé told the court: “Nobody would like to be uprooted from the island where he was born, to be uprooted like animals. And it is heartbreaking. And I maintain justice must be done… I must return to the island where I was born…” The brutal expulsion of the Chagos Islanders wasn’t a wholesale massacre but it was a staged, cruel process which attracted little attention. UK has defied international law -and common humanity.The judges faced a landmark decision: Would they rule that Britain illegally detached Chagos from Mauritius? Would Liseby Elyse sway the judges and open the door, allowing her and her fellow Chagossians to return home—or would they remain exiled forever?