The two international lawyers representing Maldives in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) over the genocide in Palestine also represented Maldives in the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea (ITLOS), Adhadhu has learned.
The Maldives was represented at Monday's ICJ hearing by international lawyers of Essex Court Chambers and members of the Bar of England and Wales Amy Sander and Dr Naomi Hart.
The Attorney General's office said the two lawyers are representing Maldives voluntarily at no cost to the state. Similarly, the government did not pay any expenses for the lawyers during the ITLOS case.
While the two lawyers represented Maldives at the ICJ on Monday, the AG office issued a statement saying that the defense taken by the legal team in the ITLOS case has made it difficult to go for an appeal.
“Because of the defenses taken by the former government and the manner in which the case was handled, there are challenges in appealing the ITLOS decision,” the statement read.
Meanwhile, posts on X by the AG office in 2020 and 2022 confirm that the two lawyers who represented Maldives at the ICJ on Monday were members of the legal team in the ITLOS case.
Following the ITLOS judgment to divide the boundary between Maldives and Mauritius, the opposition at the time, who are now in the government, formed the Chagos Coalition and criticized the defense taken by the Maldives government.
They moved a no-confidence motion against former Attorney General Ibrahim Riffath and heavily criticized the legal team that represented the Maldives government during the ITLOS case.
A plan unveiled by President Dr. Mohamed Muizzu on November 15 stated that the ITLOS judgment would be appealed within the first 100 days of his government. But the government failed to fulfill the pledge when the 100 days ended on February 25.
According to the AG office statement issued on Monday, the ICJ's advisory opinion, which was referred to during the ITLOS decision in determining the border between Maldives and Mauritius, is not binding under international law.
The statement further noted that the AG office has been advised that based on the ICJ's advisory opinion and the UN General Assembly resolution, the decision that Mauritius has sovereignty over Chagos is not legally sound.
For those reasons, experts believe that Chagos is not under Mauritius' sovereignty. The government says there are challenges, but with the experts' recommendations, the ITLOS decision could be changed in an appeal.
The ICJ decided in 2019 that Mauritius has sovereignty over Chagos. In a case filed over the maritime boundary between the Maldives and the Chagos, ITLOS maintained the ICJ's decision and determined that Mauritius had sovereignty over the archipelago and divided an overlapping area of 92,000 square kilometers.
