The Chagos Archipelago : The United Kingdom Versus Mauritius

In Africa, the majority of territorial issues are based on a pre-colonial basis. By pre-colonial basis I mean that boundaries were not exactly defined, according to the colonial countries such as France, United Kingdom, Germany you can find variety of documents, each one referring to boundaries in a different way. Different interpretations of the delimitation treaty after these countries were made independent also happened as well as the violation of the uti possidetis principle (a principle of international law by which the belligerent parties to a conflict retain their possession at the end of that conflict, notwithstanding the terms of a treaty) by the former colonial country.
The territorial conflict between the United Kingdom and Mauritius over the Chagos Archipelago illustrate well how a conflict happens between a country and its former colonial power. The Chagos Archipelago consists of 60 small islands and located near Mauritius. The Chagos Archipelago has been taken by France a short time after Mauritius has been annexed as a French colony in 1715. Then, the islands were inhabited so French people came to develop business, especially in the coconut industry and stayed there.
However, with the treaty of Paris in 1814, France gave away Mauritius and the neighbor islands such as the Chagos Archipelago and the Seychelles to Great Britain. At the time, the Chagos Archipelago was seen as integral part of Mauritius by both the French and the British, nevertheless the Seychelles became a separate British colony in 1903.
At the time of independence, Mauritius had to face a problem. It did not get its full territory back when it became independent in 1968. Indeed, Great Britain separated the Chagos Archipelago from Mauritius in 1965 to establish the so-called “British Indian Ocean Territory” which included the islands of Aldabra, Farqhar and Desroches of Seychelles which it later gave back to