Territorial Dispute with Mauritius: Maldives to Appeal Tribunal of the Sea Decision

The new president of Maldives, Mohamed Muizzu, is making his stance clear.

He has announced, during the unveiling of his plan for the first 100 days of his presidency, that the ruling of the Special Chamber of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) on the maritime border dispute between Mauritius and Maldives in the Indian Ocean, issued on April 28 this year, will be legally contested.

Maldives intends to appeal this decision within a 14-day period.

The disputed waters between Maldives and Mauritius cover an area of 95,000 square kilometers.

In its ruling, the ITLOS, based in Hamburg, Germany, awarded 47,232 square kilometers, the majority of the overlapping area, to Maldives and 45,331 square kilometers of the contested zone to Mauritius.

This new Mauritian delimitation includes the Chagos Archipelago.

While the previous Maldivian government hailed this decision as a victory for Maldives, the new president has a completely different perspective. For him, it is a bitter failure.

The then President of Maldives, Ibrahim Solih, was even accused by the opposition, in the context of this case before ITLOS, of accepting bribes through a secret deal worth more than Rs 22 billion to recognise Mauritius’ sovereignty over the Chagos Archipelago.

This, despite Maldives consistently supporting the United Kingdom on this issue, even at the United Nations General Assembly in 2019.

While Mauritius obtained 116 favourable votes, only six countries, including Maldives, supported the United Kingdom.

Source: Defi Media