What Is Wrong With The Treaty

Our concerns are not abstract; they are concrete, legal and human. The treaty contains several features that are incompatible with our rights and with the vision of justice that many in the international community believe the ICJ advisory opinion and the UN General Assembly called for..

1. Our right to return to Diego Garcia is denied.

2. Even on other islands, the UK keeps a practical veto.

3. We were excluded from decisions on our land.

4. Very little money is offered and no full reparation.

5. The treaty contradicts the spirit of decolonisation and self‑determination.

The Treaty says Mauritius is “free” to implement a programme of resettlement on islands other than Diego Garcia, but it does not create a duty to do so, nor a timetable, nor an enforceable right of return for Chagossians. On top of this, the detailed provisions make the “long‑term, secure and effective operation” of the military base the overriding test for any development in the archipelago.

Before any significant project can go ahead on the islands, it must pass through a security review process in which the UK has a decisive voice. Final decisions are taken in a joint body that only acts by consensus – meaning that if the UK does not agree, nothing moves. In addition, the UK can require that even activities Mauritius has not defined as “development” be subjected to the same review.

The result is a built‑in system that allows the UK to block or delay exactly the kind of infrastructure and community projects that would be needed to make resettlement real.

We know from bitter experience how security and conservation arguments have been used in the past to keep us out. Embedding a similar logic into a 99‑year treaty creates a structural risk that, even with Mauritius’ best intentions, our return may remain on paper only.

Under international law, Indigenous peoples and other communities with strong ties to a territory have the right to participate in decisions that affect their lands, resources and remedies. This includes being consulted in good faith and being able to give or withhold free, prior and informed consent. For a people that has been forcibly removed, this right does not disappear; if anything, it becomes more important when questions of return and reparation are on the table.

Yet the 2025 treaty was negotiated and concluded entirely between States, with input from a third State whose base occupies our land, and without any formal role for Chagossians. We were not at the negotiating table; we did not co‑design the framework; we were presented with a fait accompli. This is the opposite of meaningful participation.

A treaty that affects the totality of our homeland for almost a century, but that treats us as objects of welfare rather than subjects of rights, cannot be reconciled with the standards that have emerged for Indigenous and displaced peoples. It repeats, in legal language, the same pattern that removed us from the maps and the statistics in the first place.

The treaty expressly rules out any resettlement on Diego Garcia. It allows Mauritius to consider resettlement on some outer islands of the archipelago, but only “other than Diego Garcia,” turning our main island into a permanent exception. For us, Diego Garcia is not just a military base on a map. It is a place of family homes, churches, graves, and memories, the heart of our homeland.

International human rights standards, including those on reparations and Indigenous peoples’ rights, recognise that in cases of forced displacement, restitution – including the right to go back to one’s home and land – is central. For Chagossians, any arrangement that fixes our exclusion from Diego Garcia in a treaty does not repair the wrong; it legalises it. A future in which we may visit occasionally, as guests or tourists, is not the same as a right to live, to build, to be buried, to decide, and to belong.

The 2019 advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice recognised that the detachment of the Chagos Archipelago from Mauritius was unlawful and that the decolonisation of Mauritius was not properly completed. It called on the UK to end its administration “as rapidly as possible” and on the UN General Assembly to organise the process that would follow. That opinion, however, was limited by the question put to the Court; it focused on the State‑to‑State aspect of decolonisation, not on the full range of Chagossians’ human rights.

The General Assembly, in turn, emphasised that Chagossians must be able to resettle, and that no impediment or obstacle should be placed in the way of their return. Subsequent human rights decisions and expert opinions have gone further, recognising us as a distinct people with rights to self‑determination, return, culture and full reparation. In other words, international law has started to see what was missing: that the story of Chagos is not complete if it only addresses which flag flies over the territory and not how the people of that territory are treated.

Against this background, the May 2025 treaty does not deliver the decolonisation that was promised. It treats decolonisation as a purely inter‑State transaction, fixes the exclusion from Diego Garcia in treaty form, and gives one State a practical veto over resettlement on the remaining islands. In doing so, it contradicts the very standards it claims to implement and ignores the central principle that the wishes and rights of the people concerned are paramount.

The financial structure of the treaty reveals whose interests are really being served. Over the life of the agreement, the lease and related payments for the base amount to very large sums; additional funds are committed for general economic development. For Chagossians, by contrast, the treaty offers a single, finite “trust fund,” without guarantees of co‑governance by our community, without a legal link to the much larger flows of base revenue, and without a framework that ensures the money will correspond to our actual losses and needs.

International law on gross human rights violations and racial discrimination is clear: effective remedies after a displacement like ours must include restitution (as far as possible returning people to their original situation), compensation for irreparable harms, rehabilitation (health care, education, livelihood support), satisfaction (truth, acknowledgement, apology, memorialisation) and guarantees of non‑repetition. A one‑off fund, managed and designed by others, is not enough.

We are not opposed to financial support; many Chagossian families live in poverty and urgently need better housing, schooling, healthcare and livelihoods. But money cannot be a substitute for the right to return, to land, to culture, and to real decision‑making power over our future. Without those elements, the fund risks functioning as a modest welfare tool that leaves the deeper injustice untouched.

Our story is also a story of racial discrimination. From the beginning, Chagossians – a predominantly Black Creole population – were spoken about in language that denied our humanity and our status as a people. Officials described us as “Tarzans” and “Man Fridays,” or as temporary workers without a permanent home, in order to justify expulsion and to tell international bodies that there was “no permanent population” on the islands. These words had consequences: they erased us from legal protections and made it easier to remove us.

To this day, we see a stark difference between how our community is treated and how other inhabitants of overseas territories have been treated. In some territories, local populations have been consulted, recognised and even allowed to express their views in referendums about their political future. For Chagossians, there has never been a referendum, an official consultation on our status, or a process centred on our choices as a people.

The 2025 treaty risks locking this disparity into a new legal framework. It recognises that there is a “regrettable legacy” but does not structure real participation, full reparation or equality of treatment. Instead, it largely repeats the pattern: States decide, security and strategic interests prevail, and the displaced Indigenous community is expected to accept what is offered.

6. A pattern of racial injustice continues.

What We Stand For

ICP wants to create a space for proposals and hope. We believe that another path is possible: one that respects both international law and our dignity.

A future agreement that fully recognises Chagossians as a people and as rights‑holders, not only as a vulnerable group in need of welfare.

A genuine right of return to the archipelago, including Diego Garcia, designed together with our community and implemented in a way that is safe, sustainable and respectful of the environment.

Full and meaningful participation of Chagossians in all decisions about our land, the use of our territory, and the remedies for past violations, in line with international standards on free, prior and informed consent.

A comprehensive reparations framework that goes beyond a single fund to include restitution, adequate compensation, rehabilitation, truth‑telling, formal acknowledgement and guarantees of non‑repetition.

International monitoring and engagement – by the UN and by other human rights bodies – to ensure that any future arrangement is not only legally tidy for States, but just for the people whose lives it reshapes.

We, the Indigenous Chagossian People, refuse to be written out of the story of our own homeland. On 22 May 2025, a treaty was signed without us. Through our group, we are reclaiming our voice. We invite you – whether you are a Chagossian, an ally, a lawyer, a decision‑maker, or a member of the public – to read, reflect, and stand with us in demanding a future in which our rights, our culture, and our islands are finally reunited.

Indigenous Chagossian People