His Majesty’s (HM) Government has shelved the process of transferring the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) – the controversial ‘Chagos deal’ – to Mauritius amid fluctuating relations with the United States (US) since early 2026. Having first agreed to cede the archipelago in 2024, the United Kingdom (UK) signed the deal with Mauritius in May 2025, which included retention of the joint British-American military base on Diego Garcia for a cost of at least £101 million per year for 99 years.
While HM Government adhered to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling that the detachment of the Chagos Archipelago from Mauritius was wrongful, it was advisory, not legally binding. Thus, considering the most recent development in the BIOT deal and the UK’s loss of face on the global stage, for this week’s Big Ask, we asked seven experts: Is Britain overly subservient to international law?
Adjunct Fellow, Council on Geostrategy, and Senior Lecturer in National Security Studies, King’s College London
The UK is not overly subservient to international law. The BIOT case indicates a different problem: inconsistency. Britain is usually happy to invoke international law when it supports its wider foreign policy position, but more hesitant when legal rulings cut across strategic interests or the legacies of empire.
From the Mauritian perspective, Chagos is a decolonisation issue. It goes to the heart of how independence was handled, and whether that process was lawful. In 2019, the ICJ concluded that Mauritius’ decolonisation had not been completed lawfully because the Chagos Archipelago had been detached before independence. The United Nations (UN) General Assembly then backed this position, and called on the UK to end its administration of the islands.
The ruling is salient beyond the BIOT itself. For small states, international law is one of the few tools available to push back against raw power. If larger states brush aside rulings when they become inconvenient, the message is stark: rules only apply when you are weak. This is not a good look for a country that regularly presents itself as a champion of the ‘rules-based international order’.
There are other issues too. Diego Garcia still carries major strategic value, and the rights and wishes of Chagossians must be taken seriously. Even so, the proposed deal showed that legal principle and strategic interest can be reconciled. Sovereignty could pass to Mauritius while the base continues to operate under lease.
Therefore, the real question is whether Britain is willing to follow international law even when it is not the easiest option, because doing so strengthens its credibility, shows that its principles are applied consistently, and gives real meaning to its support for a rules-based international order.
Brig. (rtd.) Rory Copinger-Symes CBE
Senior Adviser, Bondi Partners and SecureCloud+, and Non-Executive Director, Halo International Group
The question contains a flaw. International law is not a buffet from which nations select convenient portions. You are either a signatory to its frameworks or you are not. To describe the UK as ‘overly subservient’ to obligations it has voluntarily and formally undertaken is simply to describe a nation honouring its word.
The real issue is not subservience, but interpretation. Britain’s courts and political culture have developed a habit of reading international obligations in their most expansive form. Where treaty language is ambiguous, the UK defaults to constraint. France deploys its military across the Sahel with minimal legal hand-wringing. Hungary defies European Court rulings with impunity. Britain ties itself in knots over the removal of a single foreign national.
This distinction matters acutely in the Indo-Pacific. The UK’s AUKUS commitments and its broader strategic focus eastward demand credibility – which comes from being a reliable partner. Yet, export licensing delays, legal constraints on intelligence cooperation, and institutional caution about sub-threshold operations all erode that credibility.
The People’s Republic of China (PRC) does not agonise over legal interpretation. It shapes facts on the ground – in the South China Sea, in Taiwan’s approaches, and in its economic coercion of regional partners – while remaining nominally within the letter of international frameworks. Britain, meanwhile, applies the spirit of those same frameworks with a rigour that its adversaries find baffling and its allies find frustrating.
The BIOT dispute crystallises this perfectly. A decision with profound basing implications for Diego Garcia – and therefore for British and American power projection across the Indian Ocean – became entangled in legal and moral obligations that, however genuine, carried strategic costs that were either ignored or underweighted.
The UK does not need to abandon international law. Rather, it needs to rediscover the confidence to interpret it – as every serious state does – in light of its own national interest. That is not subservience. That is sovereignty.
Adjunct Fellow, Council on Geostrategy, and English-qualified lawyer
The shelving of the BIOT deal is a welcome turn to a saga which the UK should never have entertained. It submitted to a lawfare campaign orchestrated by Mauritius, which mobilised votes at the UN General Assembly against Britain’s sovereignty over the territory, triggering an advisory opinion from the ICJ that considered the UK’s administration of the territory to be a ‘wrongful act’.
In 2024, David Lammy, then Foreign Secretary, claimed that the deal would strengthen Britain’s ability to challenge Russian and Chinese violations of international law in Ukraine and the South China Sea. This supported the view of Lord Hermer, Attorney General, that the UK should rebuild its reputation as a leader in international law by first honouring its legal obligations.
However, while Britain frets about the consequences of ignoring a non-binding opinion on the BIOT or constrains itself through a restrictive approach to military targeting in Iran, the PRC and Russia will continue to breach and instrumentalise international law to achieve objectives contrary to British and allied interests. The UK should not assume that its ‘goodness’ is enough, and should recognise that the legal domain is now a central arena of strategic competition that it must navigate. By clinging to a nostalgic and idealised vision of international law, Britain risks rendering itself strategically weak and unprepared for a harsher world.
The UK should, therefore, integrate lawfare into its broader strategic outlook, enabling it to identify and counter hostile legal campaigns, reassess treaty commitments that impose outdated constraints, resist over‑expansive judicial interpretations, and shape international law in emerging domains such as space. Only by adopting a proactive, rather than restrictive, approach to international law can British interests be protected effectively on the international stage.
Chair, British Foreign Policy Group
International law differs from domestic law for the political reason that states have sovereignty. Sovereign states choose whether to accede to treaties and to accept international laws. They may do so as a condition of their relationships with others – e.g., European Union (EU) members accepting the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) – but the decision is still political. No international body has the legitimacy of a sovereign nation.
International organisations, including courts, only have authority if their sovereign members choose to accept it. In practice, their decisions can be influenced by states’ political interests. There is also the risk of a ‘principal-agent’ conflict if an organisation and the professionals associated with it advance their own interests and values distinct from the views of its members. Appeals to an ‘international rules-based system’ are political rather than legal, and in a multipolar world, more contested.
Rules are, of course, essential for trust in business, and international agreements on arms control and the environment, for example, bring wider benefits. However, the UK needs to be clear-eyed about its and others’ interests, and more selective about the commitments it makes: caveating them where national interests require, and opting out where necessary.
Not complying with laws a country has accepted destroys trust: refusing to comply is legitimate and should be respected. The latest version of HM Government’s Ministerial Code, which requires ministers to comply with international law on par with national law, is an abrogation of the sovereign state’s duty to its citizens and their interests.
*This response is written in a personal capacity, and does not necessarily reflect the views of the British Foreign Policy Group.
Senior Adviser for Geopolitics, Centre for Risk Studies, and Convenor, Geopolitical Risk Analysis Study Group, University of Cambridge
I agree that Britain has become overly subservient to international law. For a succession of governments, homage to international law has become the guiding principle of foreign policy at serious cost to the UK. The BIOT deal is the clearest example of this, but the same applies in multiple arenas – from the recent decision to deny American access to British military bases to policy on asylum and immigration.
I base this view on three considerations.
First, the primary duty of any government in the international arena is to uphold national interest. That does not mean disregarding international law. On the contrary, the UK has an interest in promoting a rules-based system that provides predictability and order. But, where international law comes into serious conflict with national interest, the latter should prevail.
Second, international law is not law in the same sense as domestic law. It is not enacted by a sovereign legislature or enforced by a central authority. Rather, it is a body of norms, treaties, and agreements on how states should behave in the international arena, and is inherently more flexible and contingent than domestic law – to the point that states can resile from treaties that contravene their interests.
Third, in today’s geopolitical climate, excessive deference can be counterproductive. The logic of self-restraint presumes adherence to international law by other states – especially Britain’s adversaries. However, that is not the world we inhabit today, if ever we did.
The UK’s opponents ignore, reinterpret, or instrumentalise international law to advance their own interests, and for Britain to bind itself rigidly to it is to place the country at a strategic disadvantage, or worse – as in the case of the BIOT deal – to undermine its national interest.
Freelance security and defence consultant
A major theme within the ICJ’s advisory opinion on the legal consequences of separating the Chagos Islands from Mauritius concerned the principle of self-determination and the human rights implications of colonial rule. Neither the method of ending the UK’s administration over the Chagos Archipelago, nor the manner in which the deal was executed, can be deemed as having seriously foregrounded these particular legal issues.
The drafters of the BIOT deal were correct in understanding that decolonisation is not a political choice, despite the way the deal is currently being discussed. It is a mandated condition of modern international relations. It is merely a fact that maintaining 20th century colonies into the 21st – and 22nd – centuries is logistically problematic.
That is not to say that Britain’s hands were tied, or that the deal was adequately comprehensive – poor upfront explanation to the public, renegotiating on terms overly favourable to the new Mauritian government, and U-turns based on winds of change from Washington all deserve critique.
Maintaining vital military assets abroad should not be conflated with maintaining colonies, even if the current location of bases are credited to a colonial past. Trying to posture to any state, particularly Russia or the PRC, through lawfare cannot have a controlled effect. The UK is in no position to be drawn into bygone spheres-of-influence policy, or continue simply to react to American decisions du jour.
The various pitfalls of the BIOT deal are not indicative of subservience to international law. They signal a problem with Britain’s purported vision of its global leadership model. The UK has to mind the ripple effects of being seen to ignore international law, but it must also consider its strategic coherence – which it is currently struggling to do effectively.
The Rt. Hon. Anne-Marie Trevelyan
Minister for the Indo-Pacific (2022-2024) and Secretary of State for International Trade (2021-2022)
Shelving the handover of the BIOT to Mauritius demonstrates a belated understanding that Britain’s Indo‑Pacific posture rests not on words, but on hard power and the needs of critical allies. Diego Garcia is one of the most globally strategically important islands, underpinning the UK’s Five Eyes power projection capability. It is remote, unglamorous, and indispensable.
Washington’s refusal to agree to changes to the UK-US Treaty, which would enable the giveaway, is a clear reminder that interdependence and trust with Five Eyes partners must be the determining factor in Britain’s decisions. Even when individual leaders are throwing tomatoes at each other, the deep ties and reasons for the alliance are undiminished, and must be protected.
The BIOT deal is not an isolated issue; it sits squarely within the UK’s need to be a serious Indo‑Pacific actor. HM Government has remembered what disruption to choke points does to British economic security vis-à-vis the Strait of Hormuz and consequent energy price hikes. If this happened in the Malacca or Taiwan Straits, it would affect everything from food and phones to chips and cheap Chinese imports. The UK cannot assume someone else will protect its economic interests – it has to be there.
From the South China Sea to the Red Sea, freedom of navigation is under daily pressure. Diego Garcia supports persistent maritime domain awareness, enables rapid response operations, and underwrites deterrence across those key chokepoints.
By shelving the deal, Britain has – perhaps accidentally – chosen strategic continuity over legal resolution. That choice will reassure partners living in this increasingly contested region where sub-threshold coercion, attacks on undersea cables, militarisation of sea lanes, and the weaponisation of legal ambiguity is a daily reality.
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