ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the ICJ Advisory Opinion on the Chagos Archipelago (February 2019) which urged the UK to return sovereignty over the archipelago to Mauritius and thereby complete the decolonisation of that territory. Exploring the assertion that this was a triumph of international law, the essay questions the literary strategies that present decolonisation in romantic or tragic terms. Interrogating the historiography of international law presented in these emplotments, the author seeks another ‘style’ for narrating the relation between colonial pasts and decolonised futures.
