The government celebrated a UN decision reinforcing the claim on the Falklands

The Government welcomes the decision of the International Court of Justice, the highest judicial authority of the United Nations, which urges the United Kingdom to put an end to the colonization of the Chagos Archipelago, a historic claim of the islands Mauritius. Is the decision a blow to colonialism in general and strengthens the legal position of Argentina in claiming the sovereignty of the Malvinas Islands.

The advisory opinion rendered today by the court of law obliges the United Kingdom to put an end to the colonization of the Chagos Archipelago immediately and unconditionally. In addition, it delegitimizes the argument of the self-determination of peoples.

"It is an important fact that we must give it the attention it deserves because of the similarity with the Argentine claim of the Falklands, which is, in the case of the Chagos Archipelago, as in that of the Malvinas, a situation of territorial dismemberment where the population that was in the islands was transferred against his will, in this case to the Argentine continent, in 1833 ", said the Chancellor

Jorge Faurie

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At a press conference, the Foreign Minister said that Argentina had always affirmed that "the process of decolonization, undertaken under the auspices of the United Nations, was aimed at restoring the state of affairs. territorial integrity of Argentina, and not the principle of self-determination being applicable in the present case ".

In the resolution, the Court emphasized that it is the General Assembly and the Decolonization Committee – which also deal with the question of the Malvinas Islands – which must decide and supervise the modalities according to which a non-autonomous territory must be decolonised. This also detracted from the referendum held in the Falkland Islands in 2013, where residents voted in favor (1513 inhabitants, or 99.8% of the total) to maintain their territorial political status. -mer british.

According to the Court, it is the General Assembly that must oversee the process of popular consultation in the event of decolonization.

"This has tremendous validity for the claim of Argentina," said Faurie. He added: "The arguments presented in the Advisory Opinion are of great importance to our country, as they ratify on one hand the role that corresponds to the United Nations, the General Assembly, the Committee and the United Nations. of decolonization and the argument that territorial dismemberment is not acceptable in the process of decolonization, nor the principle of self-denial when the people consulted are not the people who correspond to the decolonization process. place where this referendum takes place. "