International law and the Western Sahara conflict - Hardcover

Spain joined the UN in 1955, and the UN's main bodies pressured Spain to proceed with the decolonization of "Spanish Sahara," which shortly after, and under the name of Western Sahara, was included in the list of non-self-governing territories. When Spain was preparing the referendum of self-determination in 1975, the UN General Assembly asked for it to be suspended until the International Court of Justice issued an advisory opinion. This opinion established that, in 1884, there were no ties of sovereignty between Morocco and Mauritania and the people of the territory, and that the conflict should be resolved through the exercise of the right of self-determination. Nevertheless, following the signing of the Madrid Agreements and the withdrawal of Spain from the territory, Morocco and Mauritania occupied it, forcing the Saharawi people to start a war of national liberation that would last until 1991. That year launched a peace plan negotiated by Morocco and the POLISARIO Front, which provided for the holding of the referendum on self-determination. When the UN's Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara issued the composition of the census in 2000, Morocco decided to abandon the peace plan, accusing the UN of bias, thus leaving the conflict in an apparent impasse. Since 1975, the result of this conflict has seen the Saharawi people split between those who survive through international humanitarian aid in refugee camps in Tinduf, Algeria, and those who live in their own country under Moroccan occupation. This book explains the key issues of the conflict, from the perspective of international law, with particular emphasis on the development of the peace plan, as well as the causes and consequences of its paralysis.

In 1974 Spain began the process of decolonization of the Non-Self-Governing Territory of âSpanish Saharaâ , but before the imminent death of the dictator and the uncertainty about the future of the country, Spain opted to hand over the territory to Morocco and Mauritania. This occurred in spite of the fact that the International Court of Justice had previously established that when Spain arrived in the territory (1884) there were no ties of sovereignty between Morocco and Mauritania and the population of the territory. According to the opinion of the Court, the settlement of the conflict must necessarily go through the holding of a referendum on self-determination. After the occupation of the territory by Morocco and Mauritania in November 1975, the POLISARIO Front began a war of national liberation, which ended with the ceasefire of 6 September 1991. In 1990, the Security Council approved the âSettlement proposalsâ and the âImplementation Planâ , which were accepted in 1988 by Morocco and the POLISARIO Front. The Security Council -Resolution 690 (1991)- decided to establish the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO), and tasked it with organizing a referendum in which the people of Western Sahara would choose between independence and integration with Morocco. When MINURSO completed the census, Morocco said that it would not accept any referendum on self-determination that included the option of independence, offering instead a plan for autonomy. For this reason, and given the fact that the Security Council has been acting since 1975 in the context of Chapter VI of the UN Charter, the process is currently stalled. Therefore, in this context, even though the conflict is still being analyzed annually by the UN Committee on Decolonization, the Saharan population continues to suffer the consequences of the occupation: they are physically divided between those living in the territory of the Western Sahara under Moroccan repression, those who live in the part of the territory which is under the control of the POLISARIO Front, and those who survive thanks to international aid in the refugee camps in Tinduf, Algeria.