What is really the basis of Mauritian claim to Chagos, when the islands were colonized by the French from Maldives in the 1790s in the first place, when Mauritius was not even an inhabited island?
the basis is that the French and British administered Chagos from Mauritius during the colonial era, and under the decolonization procedures supervised by the UN, Administering Powers were forbidden to partition those territories previous to their liberation, UN Res 2066 of 1965 expressly asked the UK to not separate Chagos from Mauritius. Since 1810, the utis possidetis principle have been the default principle in respect to the territories of newly independent countries.
It is nonsensical to apply the term "irredentism" to the Argentine claim over the Falkland Islands or the Spanish claim over Gibraltar, much less to the Mauritian claim to the Chagos Islands...
@@martindione386 You've got a contradiction there. If you admit that Argentina never did that, then it is not an irredentist claim, it is legitimate claim. Irredentism by definition is a territorial claim that is based on illegitimate reasons, for example, the ethnic composition of said territory, legally lost historical control, proximity. For example, Morocco claims Ceuta, Melilla and the Plazas de Soberanía from Spain based on the fact that they are in Africa and that it had historical control over them, even though it ceded those territories to Spain by treaty. It is an illegitimate claim with no grounds whatsoever. On the other hand, Argentina claims the Falkland Islands because in law they are an occupied Argentine territory, Argentine holds title over that territory. It was discovered and first claimed by Spain (indirectly), first settled by France, ceded to Spain, inherited by Argentina and usurped by the United Kingdom. There is no debate about this in international law. Considering the Mauritian claim over Chagos or the Spanish claim over Gibraltar as irredentism is equally wrong.
@@martindione386 You're welcome! You should also be careful with the information you find in some websites, for example, Wikipedia (the "encyclopedia that anyone can edit") lists the Argentine and Spanish claims as irredentist, but not the Mauritian claim, and there is no difference among them, those are all British usurpations and, thus, the claims are not irredentist by definition. It is interesting to note that the Spanish claim over Gibraltar is listed with the specific mention of the "Spanish cession of Gibraltar" in Article 10 of the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht. This is demonstrably false: Article 10 of said treaty cedes only the settlement of Gibraltar (the castle) to the United Kingdom and it specifically writes "without any territorial jurisdiction", meaning that the territory of Gibraltar was never ceded by Spain, it is not British, only the settlement is British (like an embassies or a military bases, extraterritoriality). The United Nations supports the Spanish interpretation and agrees that the Spanish territorial integrity should be respected. As for Argentina, Wikipedia only mentions its territorial claims, but it does not justify why they are irredentist, which is not surprising. Needless to say, the United Nations supports the Argentine position on the matter, which is the same position held by the academic community (as far as I have read). Wikipedia also lists the Comorian claim over Mayotte, an island that was retained by France after the process of decolonization of the Comoros (similar to the case of Mauritius with Chagos), and the United Nations periodically asks France to respect the Comorian territorial integrity. Surprisingly it does not mention the Moroccan claim over Ceuta, Melilla and the Plazas de Soberanía, which are part of Spain, even though that is one of the clearest examples. Something is even more clear, Wikipedia can be politically biased as in these cases.
