423 of 6 October so long as qualifications contained in paragraphs 5 and 6 of the despatch are borne in mind. Mr Rycroft accused Mauritius of circumventing “a vital principle” that a country is not obliged to have a bilateral dispute submitted for a judicial settlement without its consent - “and let me be clear: we do not and we would not give that consent, because we are clear about what was agreed with Mauritius”. It is possible that observers might find the consent argument to be a legitimate stance for the U.K. to take. and to accept anything which was for the good of Mauritius. Dunne R. P., Polunin N. V., Sand P. H., Johnson M. L., 2014. The total area, including lagoons within atolls, is more than 15 000 km2, of which 12 642 km2 are accounted by the Great Chagos Bank, the largest acknowledged atoll structure of the world (the completely submerged Saya de Malha Bank is larger, but its status as an atoll is uncertain). "The UK has no doubt as to our sovereignty over the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT), which has been under continuous British sovereignty since 1814," it said in a statement. [28] The protection of the marine reserve will be guaranteed for the next five years thanks to the financial support of the Bertarelli Foundation. The largest island on the Chagos Islands archipelago, Diego Garcia, is where the US and the UK operate a large military base and was also used as a US military base for the US-led attacks against Afghanistan and Iraq in the 2000s. The party is led by Navin Ramgoolam. 298 there is no intention of permitting prospecting for minerals and oils. “More than five decades have passed, and now is the time to act,” he said. had put forward but he remained concerned about the availability of capital for development in Mauritius and hoped that the British Government would be able to help him in this respect. In the previous discussions he had found himself caught between two fires: the demands which the Mauritius Government had made, mainly for economic concessions by the United States, and the evidence that the United States was unable to concede these demands. It doubled the total area of environmental no-take zones worldwide. They named as well some of the atolls, such as Diego Garcia and Peros Banhos Atoll, mentioned as Pedro dos Banhos in 1513 by Afonso de Albuquerque. . While reaching a bilateral agreement with Mauritius or a trilateral one involving the U.K. would require some upfront effort in the short term, the more difficult campaign will be great power competition over the coming decades. The two copies handed over to me are herewith enclosed. The islanders were known as the Ilois (one French Creole word for "islanders") and they numbered about 1,000.