The Chagos Marine Protected Area Arbitration: Has the Scope of losc Compulsory Jurisdiction Been Clarified?

This article focuses on the jurisdictional issues that arose from the losc Annex vii Arbitral Award of the Chagos Marine Protected Area Arbitration ( Mauritius v. United Kingdom ). In this case, the arbitral tribunal for the first time answered the long-debated question of whether it has jurisdiction to hear a dispute concerning territorial sovereignty issues. This article argues that in the process of answering this question, the arbitral tribunal managed to identify the steps in order to determine the extent to which its jurisdiction extends to sovereignty disputes. However, the manner in which the tribunal, and the dissenting arbitrators, proceeded with each of these steps left much to be desired in terms of clarity and coherence. The Arbitral Award nonetheless managed to clarify the scope of Article 297 regarding the limitations to compulsory jurisdiction and in determining the threshold for the fulfilment of Article 283 on the obligation to exchange views.