Chagos (Archipiélago)

"El archipiélago de Chagos (antiguamente, islas Aceite, y en inglés, Chagos Archipelago) es un grupo de siete atolones que comprenden más de 55 islas tropicales individuales, que se encuentran en el centro del océano Índico. Chagos se encuentra a unos 500 km al sur de las Maldivas, su vecino más próximo, y a 1600 km al suroeste de la India, a mitad de camino entre Tanzania y Java. Los habitantes de las Maldivas lo llaman Foalhavahi () y se conoce como Phehandwip en (hindí: /pjéjan duíp/) y Paeikaana Theevukal (tamil: ). El grupo de las Chagos es una combinación de diferentes estructuras coralinas que coronan una cadena submarina que corre en dirección sur atravesando el centro del océano Índico, la cual está formada por volcanes sobre el Réunion hotspot. A diferencia de las Maldivas no existe en las Chagos un patrón evidente de formación de los atolones, lo que hace que el archipélago ofrezca un esquema un tanto caótico. La mayoría de las estructuras coralinas de las Chagos son atolones submarinos. Oficialmente forma parte del BIOT (British Indian Ocean Territory: Territorio Británico del Océano Índico) y está reclamado por Mauricio."

"The Chagos Archipelago (/tos/ or /ts/) or Chagos Islands (formerly the Bassas de Chagas, and later the Oil Islands) is a group of seven atolls comprising more than 60 individual tropical islands in the Indian Ocean about 500 kilometres (310 mi) south of the Maldives archipelago. This chain of islands is the southernmost archipelago of the Chagos-Laccadive Ridge, a long submarine mountain range in the Indian Ocean. The Chagos forms a terrestrial ecoregion together with the Maldives and the Lakshadweep. The islands and their surrounding waters are a vast oceanic Environment Preservation and Protection Zone (EPPZ) (Fisheries Conservation and Management Zone (FCMZ) of 544,000 square kilometres (210,000 sq mi)), an area twice the size of the UK's land surface. Officially part of the British Indian Ocean Territory, the Chagos were home to the Chagossians, a Bourbonnais Creole speaking people, for more than a century and a half until the United Kingdom evicted them between 1967 and 1973 to allow the United States to build a military base on Diego Garcia, the largest of the Chagos Islands. Since 1971, only the atoll of Diego Garcia is inhabited, and only by military and civilian contracted personnel. The sovereignty of the Chagos Archipelago is being disputed between the UK and Mauritius. The United Kingdom excised the archipelago from Mauritian territory prior to Mauritius' independence. The Chagos group is a combination of different coralline rock structures topping a submarine ridge running southwards across the centre of the Indian Ocean, formed by volcanoes above the Réunion hotspot. Unlike the Maldives, there is no clearly discernible pattern in the atoll arrangement, which makes the whole archipelago look somewhat chaotic. Most of the coralline structures of the Chagos are submerged reefs. The Chagos contain the world's largest coral atoll (The Great Chagos Bank). It also has one of the healthiest reef systems in the cleanest waters in the world, supporting half the total area of good quality reefs in the Indian Ocean. As a result, the ecosystems of the Chagos have so far proven resilient to climate change and environmental disruptions. On 1 April 2010, the British government Cabinet established the Chagos Archipelago as the world's largest marine reserve. At 640,000 km2, it is larger than France or the US state of California. It doubled the total area of environmental no-take zones worldwide. The protection of the marine reserve will be guaranteed for the next five years thanks to the financial support of the Bertarelli Foundation. The setting up of the Marine Reserve would appear to be an attempt to prevent any resettlement by the evicted natives in the 1960s and 1970s. Leaked US Cables have shown the FCO suggesting to the US counterparts that setting up a protected no-take zone would make it "difficult, if not impossible" for the islanders to return. The reserve was then created in 2010. Mauritius initiated on 20 December 2010 proceedings against the UK under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) to challenge the legality of the MPA which the United Kingdom declared around the Chagos Archipelago. On 18 March 2015, the Permanent Court of Arbitration unanimously held that the marine protected area (MPA) which the UK declared around the Chagos Archipelago in April 2010 violates international law. Anerood Jugnauth, Prime Minister of Mauritius, pointed out that it is the first time that the UK's conduct with regard to the Chagos Archipelago has been considered and condemned by any international court or tribunal. He qualified the ruling as an important milestone in the relentless struggle, at the political, diplomatic and other levels, of successive Governments over the years for the effective exercise by Mauritius of its sovereignty over the Chagos Archipelago. The tribunal considered in detail the undertakings given by the United Kingdom to the Mauritian Ministers at the Lancaster House talks in September 1965. The UK had argued that those undertakings were not binding and had no status in international law. The Tribunal firmly rejected that argument, holding that those undertakings became a binding international agreement upon the independence of Mauritius, and have bound the UK ever since. It found that the UK's commitments towards Mauritius in relation to fishing rights and oil and mineral rights in the Chagos Archipelago are legally binding. The Tribunal also found that the United Kingdom's undertaking to return the Chagos Archipelago to Mauritius when no longer needed for defence purposes is legally binding. This establishes that, in international law, Mauritius has real, firm and binding rights over the Chagos Archipelago, and that the United Kingdom must respect those rights. The Tribunal went on to hold that the United Kingdom had not respected Mauritius' binding legal rights over the Chagos Archipelago. It considered the events from February 2009 to April 2010, during which time the MPA proposal came into being and was then imposed on Mauritius."