It’s not often that Western Sahara makes international headlines, but in mid-November it did: Nov. 14 marked the tragic—if unsurprising—breakup of a tenuous, 29-year cease-fire in Western Sahara between the occupying Moroccan government and pro-independence fighters. The outbreak of violence is concerning not only because it flew in the face of nearly three decades of relative stasis, but also because Western governments’ reflexive response to the resurgent conflict may be to upend—and thereby hamper and delegitimize for perpetuity—more than 75 years of established international legal principles. It is imperative that the global community realize that, in both Western Sahara and Morocco, the path forward lies in adhering to international law, not overriding it.
The conflict in Western Sahara dates back to 1975, when the territory was on the verge of gaining independence from its colonizer, Spain. Under pressure from the United States, which did not want to see the leftist independence movement known as the Polisario Front lead an independent state, Madrid granted administrative authority over the northern two-thirds of the country to Morocco and ceded the southern third to neighboring Mauritania. In early 1976, the Polisario established the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), which has been recognized by 80 countries and is a full member state of the African Union. Mauritania ceded its portion of Western Sahara to the SADR in 1979, only to see it immediately seized by Morocco. For over a decade, Morocco—with French and U.S. support—continued to battle Polisario guerrillas while violently suppressing pro-independence demonstrations and other nationalist activities within the occupied Western Saharan territory it considers part of Morocco.
