{"id":122934,"date":"2025-11-02T02:06:15","date_gmt":"2025-11-02T01:06:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ceadigilaw.org\/blog\/o-saara-ocidental-diante-da-onu-e-a-realpolitik-moral\/"},"modified":"2025-11-02T02:06:15","modified_gmt":"2025-11-02T01:06:15","slug":"o-saara-ocidental-diante-da-onu-e-a-realpolitik-moral","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ceadigilaw.org\/pt\/blog\/o-saara-ocidental-diante-da-onu-e-a-realpolitik-moral\/","title":{"rendered":"Western Sahara at the UN and moral realpolitik"},"content":{"rendered":"
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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 convenience, the Security Council\u2019s latest resolution on Western Sahara marks more than a diplomatic shift: it enshrines a new orthodoxy, in which law is invoked to justify its own abandonment. Through a geopolitical lens, we will examine how the UN has turned a right \u2013 self-determination \u2013 into an administrative formula. Between autonomy under tutelage and justice deferred, 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 \u2013 Russia, China and Pakistan<\/strong> \u2013 and Algeria\u2019s absence marked a milestone that few analysts dared to describe as bluntly as it deserves: a de facto mutation<\/strong> of the principle of self-determination into a paradigm of autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The text renews the mandate of MINURSO<\/strong> but, beyond the formalities, it establishes a new operational language<\/strong>: Morocco\u2019s 2007 autonomy plan becomes \u2018the serious and credible basis<\/strong>\u2019 on which negotiations are to be conducted. Self-determination is not repealed, but its practical application is switched off<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Against this background, 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 file \u2018no longer belongs to the Fourth Committee on Decolonisation\u2019 and that the UN has created \u2018a breaking point\u2019 that enshrines Morocco\u2019s sovereignty over the territory. His reading, diplomatically brilliant, sums up what many states already think and few dare to say openly: that the cycle of decolonisation is over<\/strong>, and that the Sahara should 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 \u2013 and what it does not<\/h3>\n

Resolution 2797 (2025)<\/strong> renews MINURSO\u2019s mandate and the call for a \u2018realistic, pragmatic, lasting and mutually acceptable political solution\u2019. So far, continuity. What is new is the insistence on the Moroccan autonomy plan as the only viable point of reference<\/strong>, sidelining the referendum promised since 1991.<\/p>\n

In legal terms, however, the Security Council has no power to remove<\/strong> a territory from the list of Non-Self-Governing Territories<\/strong>, or to redefine its status unilaterally. That prerogative belongs to the General Assembly<\/strong>, where the Fourth Committee<\/strong> continues to recall year after year \u2013 2025 included \u2013 that Western Sahara remains an unfinished process of decolonisation<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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

III. Doctrine versus practice: from the referendum to a \u2018viable solution\u2019<\/h3>\n

The principle of the 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 numerous pronouncements of the International Court of Justice. In 1975 the ICJ<\/strong> itself, answering the request for an advisory opinion on the \u2018legal ties\u2019 between the Sahara and Morocco, concluded that there were no ties of territorial sovereignty<\/strong> and that a process of free and genuine self-determination<\/strong> should go ahead.<\/p>\n

That legal mandate was never fulfilled. For decades, Morocco and the Polisario Front<\/strong> argued over who was entitled to vote; the referendum was postponed sine die; and MINURSO became an administrative mission with no human rights mandate.<\/p>\n

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

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

Rodr\u00edguez Mackay \u2013 former Foreign Minister of Peru and a dear friend, whom I bring in here because he is a first-rate internationalist whose reflections act as an external spur to this analysis \u2013 interprets this shift as a historic full stop<\/strong>, a kind of \u2018normalisation\u2019 of the Sahrawi question under the umbrella of international law and a \u2018sense of reality\u2019. In his view, the UN has at last accepted that the Sahara \u2018always belonged to Morocco\u2019, and that the external actors \u2013 Algeria, the Polisario, even the Fourth Committee \u2013 have no place in this new phase.<\/p>\n

His reasoning is coherent in diplomatic terms<\/strong> but untenable in legal terms<\/strong>. The Council cannot turn an occupation into sovereignty through the passage of time or through repeated expressions of support. International law does not recognise acquisitive prescription<\/strong> of colonial territories, and no international court has ever declared<\/strong> that the Sahara belongs to Morocco.<\/p>\n

Mackay\u2019s phrase \u2013 \u2018the Sahara always belonged to Morocco<\/strong>\u2019 \u2013 may carry symbolic and emotional weight, but no legal weight<\/strong>. In the language of the law, patriotic sentiment (Mackay is Peruvian) is no substitute for valid title.<\/p>\n

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

What happened in the Security Council is more than a simple vote: it is a mutation of normative language<\/strong>. In less than twenty years, resolutions have gone from demanding a self-determination referendum to promoting a \u2018viable political solution\u2019. 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 \u2018autonomy within the existing state<\/em>\u2019. Semantics becomes a neutralising mechanism: the principle is retained so as not to break the legal framework, but emptied of content to make stability possible. That is moral realpolitik<\/strong>: the kind that dresses itself in legality to justify abandoning 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