A brilliant legal historical monograph. I am tempted to use these in my classroom, except the course it would be relevant for is a lower division course and the depth and nuance of the book is too dense — and therefore unsuitable — for my typical first year cohort. Nonetheless, this is a book I would love to re-read and reconsider for a future course.

The core of this legal history focuses on Chagos, an island formerly French, then sold out from under its inhabitants to serve as a military outpost. These inhabitants, its natives, were forcibly removed and prevented from returning. Sands exposes the reader not only to the specific events of this case, but the larger political context around it: the slow and unwilling demise of European empires and their hold over their colonies, the heat of the Cold War, a long history of legal maneuvers played with cards held only by those with power.

Sands’ monograph is well written; its delivery is succinct, direct, and accessible, though I think it is better suited to an academically inclined reader than the general adult reader. It packs a punch in few pages; a fast-flowing torrent of information that propels and compels the reader to keep apace.

“What is a colony if not the brutal truth that when we speak the graves open. And the dead walk?” Eavan Boland

The process of decolonization is an ever present and active process. However, until I read this book, I did not realize that the process for some colonies stopped before it began and has been stalled in international courts until 2019.

The Last Colony by Philippe Sands tells the story of Britain’s last colony in Africa, a small group of islands known as the Chagos Archipelago that historically belonged to Mauritius. In a narrative that spans decades and continents, Sands demonstrates the often fraught process of decolonization in the modern world.

Sands uses the multitude of domestic and international court cases brought by people from Mauritius against the British to trace the development of international opinion concerning the enforcement of international human rights law during decolonization efforts. He moves forward in time from his previous works to show how international human rights laws have been developed and then ignored on the international stage, while also pointing to all of the ways that decolonized nations have been at the forefront of arguments for the implementation of these international laws and standards.

This book is another example of this author’s ability to explain that nebulous expanse of international laws and human rights. Of his other works, I have read East West Street and The Ratline, both of which cover the development of human rights law in the aftermath of World War II on an international and then on a personal level.

To personalize this narrative of human rights in the 21st century, Sands follows the story of Liseby Elysé, a woman born on Peros Banhos in the Chagos Archipelago and forcibly removed from the island by the British in 1973. The British had agreed to allow an American military base to be constructed on a nearby island and to smooth the way for this agreement they argued that any existing populations on the islands were actually transient workers and that the Chagos Archipelago was not part of the recently decolonized nation of Mauritius. Both of these arguments were lies and were later refuted in multiple courts.

Elyse becomes a key witness at The Hague for the lawyers from Mauritius to argue that the forcible removal of the citizens of Mauritius violated international law, that the right of return should apply to these people, and that the decolonization of Mauritius should be completed. They finally won their decolonization in 2019.

This highlights one of Sands’ main arguments of the book, pointing out the ways that countries tend to support human rights in the abstract, or when rival nations are abusing them, while pointedly ignoring them in favor of other political aims. He sums up this argument with a quote from Aimé Césaire, “A civilisation that plays fast and loose with its principles is a dying civilisation.”

In the 1960s, Britain created its last colony when it detached the Chagos Islands from the fledgling nation of Mauritius, forcibly deporting the residents whose families have lived there for centuries. Philippe Sands, who was one of the lawyers representing Mauritius at the World Court, tells the story of how this came to be, and the story of what happened afterward.

I had never heard of the story of Chagossians before, but I quickly became sucked into their fight for justice and demands to be allowed to return to the home from which they had been displaced by the lingering forces of colonialism. Sands discusses the story from both the political and personal angle, linking the life of Liseby Elysé, who had been forced from her birthplace as a young woman, with the history of how the case came to be tried in the Hague fifty years afterward, going into depth on the legal issues at hand.

The author notes that the book was shaped from a series of lectures he gave on the topic at the Hague Academy of International Law. As such, The Last Colony was much more dry and academic in tone than I had expected from the description. Though Sands does his best to explain the thorny issues of international law that surrounded the case, it was hard at times to fully understand how everything being discussed linked together and with the case.

I was very intrigued by the premise of the book. A woman going to the UN to fight for her right to return to her homeland.
Chagos is an island in the Indian Ocean, that is basically controlled by Britain. However, a nearby island was given to the Americans for an airbase and in twisted logic, that meant that Chagos must be evacuated and the residents 'rehomed" to another area.

What rights do the people of Chagos have? Who determines self governance?
Can the Chagossians return home?

These are some of the questions that were put forth to a UN court.

The UN court determined that the Chagossians have a right to the homeland. Yet, at the publishing of the book, the return has not happened.

The book is a great read into the functioning of the UN courts and how they go about hearing cases.

However, it got bogged down in minute details that distracted me from really caring about the Chagossian people.

Overall its an okay book that makes you ponder some of the questions, just wish that there had been more of a human side to the story, then just one ladies.