Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)

My Lords, I wish briefly to speak to Amendment 40 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Callanan. I am struck by the fact that, in all his interventions so far in these debates—at Second Reading, in Committee and, now, on Report—he has never referred at all to the report of the International Agreements Committee on this treaty. He also seems not to have registered, let alone to respect, the vote that was taken at the end of the debate on 30 June. The point I am making is that, were the noble Lord to go back to the documents and the evidence that was tabled at the time when the International Agreements Committee’s report was laid before this House, he would find there the testimony of Sir Christopher Greenwood. It is remarkably convincing and answers the question posed by the noble Lord in his Amendment 40; it describes what Sir Christopher thinks would happen in circumstances where Mauritius returned to a route that involved international litigation. It is all set out there. He is an extremely distinguished British national judge of the International Court of Justice. It has nothing to do with the advisory opinion. It is to do with his views about the situation that would then exist. He believes that Mauritius would not have too much difficulty in convincing any international court to which it took litigation that the Chagos Islands were transferred at the time of Mauritian independence.