The official cost of the deal to surrender the Chagos Islands to Mauritius – a country which never owned the islands in the first place – has been put at £101 million a year over the 99-year term of the lease. But the real cost could end up being multiples of this. Not only did it involve putting the sovereignty of an import airbase into the hands of a nation which is close to China, but it has sent a powerful message to developing countries all around the world that Britain – or at least its current government – is a pushover which can be plundered for payments on all kinds of issues.
Yesterday the International Court of Justice – the same UN body which delivered the verdict on the Chagos Islands which Keir Starmer felt obliged to obey – delivered an opinion that industrialised countries are liable for the consequences of historic carbon emissions. It opens to way for countries which claim to be affected by climate change to put in demands for compensation. The government of Vanuatu – a string of low-lying islands in the Pacific – lost no time in suggesting that it will now do just this. Don’t expect it to be a few billion: fantasy estimates for the cost of historic carbon emissions have run into the trillions.
The Foreign Office so far has said only that it will study the opinion. Trouble is that when you have climbed on a plinth of righteousness and told the world that Britain is a country which takes notice of judgements from the International Court of Justice (ICJ), how do you then thumb your nose at it and say that its opinion stinks? I am open to being proved wrong, but sadly I can already imagine Lord Hermer shaking his head and telling members of the Cabinet that sorry, we just have to pay up.
But it won’t end with climate reparations. Next up, you can bet, will be a judgement from the ICJ that Britain and other developed countries are liable for reparations for slavery, too. Indeed, one of the ICJ’s judges, Patrick Robertson, published a report in 2023 claiming that Britain likely owed £18 trillion to 14 countries in which it was involved in slavery. Ready to fill the fiscal hole when Lord Hermer concludes that Britain must obey the ECJ, Rachel Reeves? Think a wealth tax would sort out that kill, Lord Kinnock? It is more than six times the size of the UK economy.
The only way to react to the kind of stuff coming out of the ICJ is to tell it take a running jump. It is all very nice to think of there being an international system of law which enforces justice for all, yet you can’t have properly functioning international courts when you do not have a global system of democracy. The ICJ is a form of kritarchy – rule by judges – which is itself contrary to the principles of human rights. ‘The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government,’ states the UN Declaration of Human Rights. Tell me where that fits in with the concept of an international court which makes judgements based on no democratic process, just on its own opinions.
The Conservatives and Reform have indeed already come out and, in as many words, told the ICJ where to go. Shadow foreign secretary Priti Patel said: ‘The ICJ has lost its core purpose and is now joining political campaigns based on ideological obsessions.’ Richard Tice has stated: ‘We will not be beholden to any foreign court.’ The choice at the next election, it seems, will be between a ruling party led by a human rights lawyer who is in thrall to bodies like the ICJ, and who as a result will find himself forever trying to tackle ruinous bills, and at least two opposition parties who are contemptuous of international law and promise always to put the interests of the UK citizens who elected them first. It will be an interesting battle.
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