ITLOS concludes 58-year-long border dispute in favor of Maldives

International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS), on Friday, concluded the border dispute between Maldives and Mauritius in favor of Maldives marking an end to the 58-year-long dispute.

ITLOS, on Friday, concluded that the conflicting Exclusive Economic Zone (EEC) between both nations will be divided between the two using the equidistance formula. The bigger portion, however, is awarded to the Maldives.

The disagreement between the two nations in dividing the zone via the equidistance formula arises from Mauritius' request to lay measurements from Blenheim Reef which is visible during low tides.

Maldives argued that the Blenheim Reef did not fall within the maritime borders of Mauritius. ITLOS, on Friday, decided against accepting the proposition put forth by Mauritius.

With this decision, Maldives will gain an additional 4,687 square kilometers of maritime area.

Chagos is an archipelago located south of Addu City, closer to Maldivian borders than Mauritian. The area is presently under the control of the British. While the region is not inhabited – it is used by the British for economic purposes.

For decades, Mauritius and the United Kingdom have been in a dispute over ownership of the Chagos, after Mauritius claimed the Chagos archipelago as Mauritian territory when the nation gained independence from the British in 1968.

UK, which had severed the Chagos Islands from Mauritius before independence, claiming it to be a part of British-Indian Ocean Territory in the Indian Ocean, had forcibly deported thousands of inhabitants of Diego Garcia, the largest of the 60 small islands in the archipelago, so that they could lease the island to the United States for a military base.

Mauritius sought to reclaim Chagos from the British after their independence.

Maldives is involved in this dispute as the country's Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) overlaps with that of Chagos.

In 2019, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued an advisory opinion reiterating Mauritius' sovereignty over Chagos. 

The same year, UN General Assembly adopted a resolution based on ICJ's recommendations instructing the UK to hand over Chagos to Mauritius within six months. However, the UK refused to comply.

Mauritius went to ITLOS based on the advisory opinion to delimitate the Maldivian maritime territory.

ITLOS concluded that it is not in a position to determine the entitlement of Mauritius to the continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles in the Northern Chagos Archipelago Region and decided subsequently it will not proceed to delimit the continental shelf between Mauritius and the Maldives beyond 200 nautical miles.

While Maldives has accepted Mauritius’ sovereignty claim over Chagos islands, as informed to Mauritius' Prime Minister via a letter by the Maldivian President, the nation did not change its stand on the maritime border dispute with Mauritius regarding the conflicting EEZ.