The End of the Western Sahara Peace Process and the Collapse of the UN Ceasefire

Abstract

With the collapse of the nearly three decade-old ceasefire in Western Sahara in late 2020, the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) has been called into question for its double failure. While the United Nations (UN) mission in Western Sahara, created in 1991, came to be seen to be a peacemaking failure, it had long stood as a peacekeeping success. This is no longer the case. How then to account for the recent collapse of what had once been one the world’s most durable armistices? This chapter aims to revisit the last decade of the Western Sahara peace process and to identify the pivotal moments that led to the final breakdown of the Morocco-Polisario ceasefire, the resumption of armed hostilities, and the intensification of the political impasse over the fate of the contested Western Sahara and its people’s long denied right to self-determination.