Chagos Marine Protected Area: Arbitral Tribunal Rejects UK's Declaration

摘要

In its final award with regard to the matter entitled Chagos Marine Protected Area Arbitration (Mauritius v. United Kingdom), the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in The Hague found that, in light of Mauritius's fishing rights in the waters surrounding the Chagos Archipelago in the Indian Ocean (coupled with the fact that when the UK is legally obligated to return the area to Mauritius in future, this mandates a level of involvement by Mauritius in any decision regarding the area), the UK had, inproposing to designate the archipelago as a marine protected area (MPA), failed to give due regard to Mauritius's rights. A minority partially dissenting position would have gone a step further, addressing Mauritius's claim that the UK was not the "coastal State" under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), and finding that "the Tribunal should have exercised that jurisdiction to hold that the United Kingdom's detachment of the Chagos Archipelago from the colony of Mauritius in 1965 was contrary to the principles of decolonization and self-determination".The attorneys on the case included some of the most respected members of the international environmental law community. The tribunal, too, consisted of highly esteemed jurists.This article provides a brief overview of the factual case and its outcome, followed by a more detailed analytical overview of its legal conclusions and impacts with regard to UNCLOS jurisdictional issues and the future of the UNCLOS adjudicative processes.