Western Sahara

Abstract

The life cycle of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR or Western Sahara) reveals striking similarities with Palestine’s contested statehood. Neither seceded from an existing state but each declared unilateral independence. Both entities’ claims to statehood received wide international recognition and their respective liberation movements enjoyed international legitimacy. However, in neither case has titular recognition been translated into full-fledged membership of the world community. Palestine and Western Sahara furthermore displayed limited domestic sovereignty due to foreign occupation of their territories, with the SADR in an even weaker position than Palestine. Morocco, which has occupied and formally annexed Western Sahara, rejected the entity’s right of statehood out of hand, whereas Israel has at least accepted the idea of a Palestinian state. Another parallel is that the SADR’s government was based in exile, like the Palestinian leadership before 1994. The two entities have also had to contend with large segments of their populations living as refugees in adjacent countries. Compared with Palestine, the fate of Western Sahara has all a along been a peripheral international issue. In fact, the international community seemed to acquiesce in the status quo in Western Sahara. By denying Western Sahara its right of self-determination, Morocco has broken a fundamental principle of international law yet has gone virtually scot-free.1KeywordsSecurity CouncilRefugee CampWorld PoliticsArmed StruggleWorld BodyThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.