They Hate Our Justice

Some greasy foreigners at the International Court of Justice have placed themselves on the wrong side of history, natural justice and the Recrudescent Imperium of Westminster, Gibraltar and the Falkland Islands with a ruling on the decolonisation of the Chagos Islands. The UK confiscated the territory from Mauritius when that country gained independence fifty years ago, and presented it as a special-relationship gift to the United States; the islands were inhabited at the time, but only by persons of no moral significance. The excess natives were transferred to Mauritius and the Seychelles, although by some oversight many of them ended up in Britain, where doubtless they have been subjected to the usual migrants' welcome ever since. All in all, the matter would seem to have been settled to the satisfaction of everyone who mattered; but the UN general assembly last year took advantage of Britain's renewed ability to punch above its weight on the international stage, and asked the ICJ to interfere. Fortunately, like all legal rulings pertaining to the derelictions of Her Majesty's Government, the court's opinion is non-binding.