The Obama administration set an important international precedent for ocean conservation and protection of sensitive marine environments in the expansion of the no-take MPAs in the U.S. EEZs around the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands archipelago and Line Islands in the Pacific Ocean. The U.S. was then involved indirectly in the U.K.'s establishment of a vast marine protected area in the EEZ around the Chagos Islands archipelago in the Indian Ocean. The U.K.'s protected area excluded from the MPA the waters around Diego Garcia, an atoll that the U.S. leases from the U.K. government for use as a naval base. An UNCLOS tribunal ruled in Mauritius v. U.K. that the protected area was wrongly established in light of Britain's commitment to return the Chagos islands and their surrounding waters to Mauritius once they were no longer needed. Consultations with Mauritius prior to the Protected Area's creation were perfunctory and in violation of UNCLOS duties to consult and behave in good faith with respect to the rights of other coastal states.
