{"id":118422,"date":"2025-11-02T02:06:15","date_gmt":"2025-11-02T01:06:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ceadigilaw.org\/el-sahara-occidental-ante-la-onu-y-la-realpolitik-moral\/"},"modified":"2026-07-17T13:12:58","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T11:12:58","slug":"el-sahara-occidental-ante-la-onu-y-la-realpolitik-moral","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ceadigilaw.org\/en\/blog\/el-sahara-occidental-ante-la-onu-y-la-realpolitik-moral\/","title":{"rendered":"Western Sahara before the UN and moral realpolitik"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Dr. <\/strong>Antonio Tejeda Encinas<\/strong><\/a> Lawyer | Techno-Geopolitical Analyst | <\/em><\/p>\n

In a world that no longer distinguishes between principles and expediency, the latest Security Council resolution on Western Sahara marks something more than a diplomatic turn: it is the consecration of a new orthodoxy, in which the law is invoked to justify its own renunciation. We shall examine, through a geopolitical lens, how the UN has transformed a right \u2014 self-determination \u2014 into an administrative formula. Between supervised autonomy and postponed justice, what is at stake is not only the future of the Sahrawi people, but the credibility of the international order itself.<\/em><\/p>\n

I. The echo of a historic vote<\/h3>\n

On 31 October 2025<\/strong>, the United Nations Security Council<\/strong> adopted Resolution 2797 (2025)<\/strong> on Western Sahara. Eleven votes in favour, three abstentions \u2014 Russia, China and Pakistan<\/strong> \u2014 and the absence of Algeria marked a milestone that few analysts dared to describe with the bluntness it deserves: a de facto mutation<\/strong> of the principle of self-determination into a paradigm of autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty<\/strong> has taken place.<\/p>\n

The text renews the mandate of MINURSO<\/strong>, but, beyond the formality, it establishes a new operative language<\/strong>: the 2007 Moroccan autonomy plan becomes \u201cthe serious and credible basis<\/strong>\u201d upon which negotiations must be conducted. Self-determination is not repealed, but its practical application is deactivated<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

In this context, my friend and colleague Miguel \u00c1ngel Rodr\u00edguez Mackay<\/strong>, former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Peru, declared with his customary frankness that the Sahara dossier \u201cno longer belongs to the Fourth Committee on Decolonization\u201d and that the UN has created \u201ca breaking point\u201d that consecrates Morocco\u2019s sovereignty over the territory. His reading, diplomatically brilliant, condenses what many States already think and few dare to say openly: that the cycle of decolonisation has ended<\/strong>, and that the Sahara must be treated as an internal Moroccan matter<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

However, from the standpoint of public international law<\/strong>, that conclusion cannot be sustained without doing violence to the legal architecture of the United Nations.<\/p>\n

II. The real breaking point: what Resolution 2797 says \u2014 and what it does not say<\/h3>\n

Resolution 2797 (2025)<\/strong> renews MINURSO\u2019s mandate and the call for a \u201crealistic, pragmatic, enduring and mutually acceptable political solution\u201d. Thus far, continuity. What is new is the insistence on the Moroccan autonomy plan as the only viable reference<\/strong>, relegating the referendum promised since 1991.<\/p>\n

But in legal terms, the Security Council has no power to declassify<\/strong> a territory from the list of Non-Self-Governing Territories<\/strong>, nor to unilaterally redefine its status. That prerogative belongs to the General Assembly<\/strong>, where the Fourth Committee<\/strong> continues to recall, year after year \u2014 including in 2025 \u2014 that Western Sahara remains an unfinished process of decolonisation<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Positive law, therefore, has not changed<\/strong>. What has changed is the balance of power within the system<\/strong>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

III. Doctrine versus practice: from the referendum to the \u201cviable solution\u201d<\/h3>\n

The principle of self-determination of peoples is not a poetic clause: it is a peremptory norm (ius cogens)<\/strong> derived from the UN Charter<\/strong>, Resolution 1514 (XV)<\/strong> and multiple pronouncements of the International Court of Justice. In 1975, the ICJ<\/strong> itself, in responding to the request for an advisory opinion on the \u201clegal ties\u201d between the Sahara and Morocco, concluded that no ties of territorial sovereignty existed<\/strong> and that a process of free and genuine self-determination<\/strong> should be carried out.<\/p>\n

That legal mandate was never fulfilled. For decades, Morocco and the Frente Polisario<\/strong> argued over who could vote; the referendum was postponed sine die; and MINURSO became an administrative mission without a human rights mandate.<\/p>\n

Resolution 2797 does not correct that anomaly: it consecrates it<\/strong>. It elevates the Moroccan plan to the rank of sole reference and omits any mention of the referendum. In practice, self-determination is reduced to administrative autonomy within Morocco\u2019s sovereignty<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

IV. Mackay\u2019s reading and the mirage of closure<\/h3>\n

Rodr\u00edguez Mackay (Rodr\u00edguez Mackay, former Foreign Minister of Peru and a great friend, whom I bring in here as a first-rate internationalist whose reflections serve as an external spur to this analysis) interprets this turn as a historic full stop<\/strong>, a kind of \u201cnormalisation\u201d of the Sahrawi question under the umbrella of international law and of a \u201csense of reality\u201d. According to his view, the UN has finally accepted that the Sahara \u201calways belonged to Morocco\u201d, and that external actors \u2014 Algeria, the Polisario, even the Fourth Committee \u2014 are superfluous in this new stage.<\/p>\n

His reasoning is coherent from the standpoint of diplomatic logic<\/strong>, but untenable from the legal one<\/strong>. The Council cannot convert an occupation into sovereignty through the accumulation of years or the reiteration of support. International law does not recognise acquisitive prescription<\/strong> over colonial territories, and the Sahara\u2019s belonging to Morocco has never been declared by any international tribunal<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Mackay\u2019s phrase \u2014 \u201cthe Sahara always belonged to Morocco<\/strong>\u201d \u2014 may have symbolic and emotional value, but no legal value<\/strong>. In the language of the law, patriotic sentiments (Mackay is Peruvian) do not substitute for valid titles.<\/p>\n

V. The semantic shift: from law to narrative<\/h3>\n

What has happened in the Security Council is more than a simple vote: it is a mutation of normative language<\/strong>. In less than twenty years, the resolutions have gone from demanding a self-determination referendum to promoting a \u201cviable political solution\u201d. That substitution of words is not innocent: it represents the domestication of international law by diplomacy<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The UN does not deny self-determination: it simply redefines it<\/strong> as \u201cautonomy within the existing State<\/em>\u201d. Semantics becomes a mechanism of neutralisation: the principle is retained so as not to break the legal framework, but its content is hollowed out to allow for stability. That is moral realpolitik<\/strong>: the kind that dresses itself in legality to justify the renunciation of principle.<\/p>\n

VI. The global chessboard and the logic of power<\/h3>\n

The Sahara conflict has become a secondary piece on a larger board:<\/p>\n