Maldives publishes probe commission rules for maritime boundary case with Mauritius

The President’s Office has published the regulations and procedures that will govern the Special Commission created to investigate how the Maldives acted in ITLOS Case No. 28, the maritime boundary dispute with Mauritius. The text is carried as Qararu No. 2026/17 in the Gazette of the Government of Maldives, Volume 55, Number 161, dated Sunday 1 November 2026, corresponding to 21 Jumada al-Ula 1448.

The instrument is a presidential decree rather than a court filing, and its stated purpose is narrow and procedural: to publish, in the official gazette, the regulations and procedures of a special commission attached to the President’s Office whose task is to inquire into the conduct of the Maldivian side in the case. The decree title names the body, the mandate and the case, so the commission’s existence and its rulebook now rest on a public, citable instrument rather than on an internal administrative arrangement.

The case itself is identified in the decree in its official title, reproduced in English alongside the Dhivehi text: “Dispute concerning delimitation of the maritime boundary between Mauritius and Maldives in the Indian Ocean (Mauritius/Maldives)”. That formulation places the commission’s work squarely on the delimitation of the maritime boundary between the two Indian Ocean states, as pleaded before the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea.

Rules of the commission, published in full

The decree is set out as a body of numbered provisions running from the general to the operational, opening with the citation of the instrument and continuing through numbered articles and lettered and parenthesised sub-paragraphs. Its subject matter, as declared on its face, is twofold: the regulations the commission applies and the procedures it follows in discharging its investigative mandate.

The operational text is published in Dhivehi, the language of the gazette, with the title of the underlying case given in the original English. The instrument is presented as coming from the President’s Office in Malé, which is also the office designated for correspondence about the publication.

A gazette record built for citation

The publication fixes a set of official identifiers that make the instrument traceable:

• Gazette: Government of Maldives, Volume 55, Number 161.
• Date of publication: Sunday, 1 November 2026 (21 Jumada al-Ula 1448).
• Instrument: Qararu No. 2026/17 (decree number 2026/17).
• Issuing office: the President’s Office, Malé, Republic of Maldives.
• Case covered: ITLOS Case No. 28, “Dispute concerning delimitation of the maritime boundary between Mauritius and Maldives in the Indian Ocean (Mauritius/Maldives)”.
• Correspondence on the publication: legalaffairs@po.gov.mv; telephone 3336211; mobile 7242885; website www.gazette.gov.mv.

The decree is filed under Section I of the issue, the section reserved for presidential decrees, regulations and similar instruments of general application, and it is the sole item published in that edition of the gazette.

Why the rulebook matters

What the decree settles is the perimeter of the inquiry: who the commission is, what it is empowered to examine, and under which procedures it will take evidence and report. Because the commission is constituted within the President’s Office and its mandate reaches the conduct of the Maldivian side in an international arbitration, those working rules determine which officials, ministries and agencies fall within the probe and on what terms their acts will be reviewed.

By putting the regulations and procedures in the gazette, the government has made the commission’s framework a public document, open to scrutiny by the People’s Majlis, by the agencies affected and by the public following the dispute with Mauritius. The terms on which accountability for the Maldives’ handling of ITLOS Case No. 28 will be assessed are now, formally, a matter of record.

Source: Gazette of the Government of Maldives, Vol. 55, No. 161, 1 November 2026, Section I (official reference: Qararu No. 2026/17).