The Attorney General's Office has said that the Maldives will not give up any territory in the case filed by Mauritius against the Maldives at the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS).
ITLOS in Germany is currently hearing a territorial dispute over an area between the Maldives and Chagos.
Chagos is a group of seven atolls comprising more than 60 islands in the Indian Ocean about 500 kilometers south of the Maldives archipelago. For decades, Mauritius and the United Kingdom have been in a dispute over ownership of the Chagos Islands, after Mauritius claimed the Chagos Archipelago as Mauritian territory when Mauritius gained independence from the United Kingdom in 1968. Maldives became embroiled in the dispute as the country's EEZ overlaps with that of Chagos.
"The stand on this issue has not changed. We will not willingly give up any territory of the Maldives," an official from the AG's Office said.
The AG's Office said the voting policy at the UN had changed, and that the Maldives would vote at the UN against the colonization of Chagos.
"President Solih has sent a letter to the Prime Minister of Mauritius informing him [of the decision]. AG Riffath mentioned that at ATLOS. The Maldives believes that Chagos should be returned to its original inhabitants [Mauritius]", AG's Office Communications Director Hussain Hassan said.
Regarding the case filed with ITLOS, the AG's Office said that ITLOS would examine the case under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and determine the boundaries of the disputed maritime areas in accordance with the principles set out in the Convention. As a general rule, such boundaries are determined based on the principle of equidistance.
The AG's Office said the result would be that the boundaries of the Maldives' maritime areas would be defined in accordance with the rules set out in the Convention, and the Maldives would have sovereign rights over those areas.
Attorney General Ibrahim Riffath
