Philippe Sands on Britain’s Last Colony
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 8 March 2023
⏱️ 53 minutes
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Summary
A few weeks ago, Human Rights Watch released a report on the forced expulsion of the Chagossian people, whom the United Kingdom deported from their island homes in the Indian Ocean about 60 years ago to make way for the United States to build a military base called Diego Garcia. The report recommends reparations for the Chagossian people and a trial for individuals responsible for these crimes against humanity—the very first time the group has laid such a charge at the door of the US and UK.
Lawfare Managing Editor Tyler McBrien sat down with Philippe Sands, an international human rights lawyer who served as counsel for Mauritius in its bid to reclaim sovereignty over the Chagos Archipelago. Philippe is the author of several books, including his most recent, "The Last Colony: A Tale of Exile, Justice and Britain's Colonial Legacy," which is about the islands. They discussed the Chagossian people’s decades-long legal struggle to return to their ancestral home, a chance phone call from a ski lift, and the role of race and identity in the making and application of international law.
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Transcript
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| 0:29.0 | So the British with supreme legal logic decided that the way to avoid that rule |
| 0:39.0 | needing the consent of the affected population was to create a situation in which there was no affected population. |
| 0:46.0 | And so what they did, and we've got all the legal documents on this now, as it's pretty shocking stuff, |
| 0:51.0 | was they decided to re-characterize the population. |
| 0:54.0 | Instead of being inhabitants, residents, permanent population of the Chegos Archipelago, |
| 1:00.0 | they became contract laborers. |
| 1:03.0 | And as contract laborers, they had no right to be consulted. |
| 1:07.0 | I mean, it was ludicrous. It was a complete artist. |
| 1:10.0 | But that was the technique. |
| 1:12.0 | So having created that principle, no permanent population, to get around the need to seek consent, |
| 1:20.0 | they then, by their own logic, had to remove the entire population. |
| 1:24.0 | I'm Tyler McBride, managing editor of LawFair. |
| 1:28.0 | And this is the LawFair podcast, March 8, 2023. |
| 1:32.0 | A few weeks ago, Human Rights Watch released a report on the forest expulsion of the Chegosian people, |
| 1:37.0 | whom the United Kingdom deported from their island homes in the Indian Ocean about 60 years ago, |
| 1:41.0 | to make way for the United States to build a military base called Diego Garcia. |
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