Western Sahara and the Self-Determination Debate
by Samuel J.
Spector
Middle East Quarterly
Summer 2009, pp. 33-43
http://www.meforum.org/2400/western-sahara-self-determination
The dispute over Western Sahara, a
sparsely-populated territory along the Atlantic coast between Morocco and
Mauritania, is as much a struggle over the potency of international law as
it is a row over land. The right to national self-determination, it is
often argued, dictates a pathway out of the current diplomatic stalemate.
This path could be taken by holding a United Nations-supervised plebiscite
to enable the territory's residents to determine their own political
future.[1] Yet, from a legal
perspective, national self-determination does not necessarily offer a
one-size-fits-all remedy, let alone a helpful framework, for the
settlement of conflicting claims and grievances over disputed
territories.
King Mohammed V (L)
successfully negotiated with France for Moroccan independence,
granted in February 1956. Following independence, Morocco also
worked to liberate the southern provinces of Western Sahara from
Spanish colonial rule. Here, the king greets President Dwight D.
Eisenhower on his visit to Morocco, December 22,
1959. |
While Western Sahara is hardly at
the forefront of U.S. or European policy, any resolution to its claims
will be important as it may create a precedent for Palestinian claims to
national self-determination in territories disputed with Israel, or to
Kurdish claims to self-determination in Turkish, Syrian, Iraqi, and
Iranian territory. Proponents of nationalist struggle or secession often
argue that their cause is not only just but is validated by national
self-determination. This they conceive of as an unassailable principle of
international law justifying not only the ends but also any means used to
achieve them. However, not only is the common conception of
self-determination incomplete in international law, but it has actually
hampered international law's development as an authoritative body of law
capable of resolving disputes between countries.
Western Sahara's Troubled History
Western Sahara hugs the Atlantic
Coast between Morocco and Mauritania. It is more than twice the size of
New York state, but the Central Intelligence Agency estimates its
population at just over 400,000, only about one-fiftieth of that of New
York and less than that of any single U.S. state or the District of
Columbia.[2] More than half of Western
Sahara's population lives in Laayoune, a small town just thirty miles from
the internationally-recognized Moroccan border.
The territory is as desolate in
resources as it is in population. There is no arable land and while the
region boasts phosphate deposits, much of its economic potential comes
from fishing off its 700-mile coastline. The marginality of the land
condemned the region to peripheral status in history. While empires rose
and fell to the north, south, and east, Western Sahara was always a
backwater. Caravans passed through the territory, tribes slowly Islamized,
and various North African Islamic dynasties—the Berber Almoravids
(1040-1147) and Almohads (1121-1269), for example, exerted some control.
Nevertheless, the region remained largely nomadic and free from central
authority.
Spain seized the territory after the
1884 Berlin Conference and while Madrid sent governors and engaged in some
construction, the area proved less profitable than other European colonies
and little development occurred. Spain finally abandoned its territory in
1975, after which both Morocco and Mauritania—each stating historical
claims but motivated more by a hope that the territory would hold
oil—claimed the region. Morocco went further, however, and sent Moroccan
settlers into the region. While natives of the region and international
backers continue to argue that Western Sahara should be independent, Rabat
has firmly insisted that the territory should remain under its
control.
What Is the Principle of Self-Determination?
The notion of self-determination as
a universal principle, whether viewed through a political, moral, or legal
lens, has been, and continues to be imprecise and in dire need of further
clarification. U.S. president Woodrow Wilson understood self-determination
to be the belief that every people had the right to select its own form of
government, to "choose the sovereignty under which they shall live," and
thus be free of alien masters.[3]
Although there was initially disagreement as to who precisely is the
"self" to which the right of self-determination refers, the
Versailles Peace Conference linked self-determination with the "principle
of nationalities," or an ethnographic view of the "self."[4]
While Palestinians, Kurds, and other
peoples without an independent state like to root their claims to
sovereignty in the United Nations, the U.N. Charter added little clarity
to existing notions of self-determination in international law. The
document refers only twice to the "principle of equal rights and
self-determination of peoples," and then only in a preamble to a statement
of the broader purpose of the organization.[5] Such passing references stand in stark contrast to
the operative principles of the charter that spoke of the need for its
member states to refrain from "the threat or use of force against the
territorial integrity or political independence of any state" and ruled
out U.N. intervention in "matters which are essentially within the
domestic jurisdiction of any state."[6]
It was not until 1960 with the
passage of the U.N. Declaration on the Granting of Independence to
Colonial Countries and Peoples[7] that
self-determination began to develop coherence as a principle. It
envisioned full self-determination as a goal for all peoples subject to
"alien subjugation, domination, and exploitation," intolerable political
living conditions which it identifies as a denial of a people's
fundamental human rights.[8] This
theory of self-determination presumed that the majority of inhabitants in
any colony would be free to choose their future political status although
the integrity of established national boundaries would continue to be
respected.[9] Third World leaders,
putting aside tribal claims that could result in a wholesale redrawing of
maps, largely accepted the importance of recognized borders. Such
boundaries were viewed as the essential building blocks of stable
self-government, helping to guard against the absorption by another state
or the dismemberment of a territory against the will of the majority of
its inhabitants.[10]
U.N. General Assembly resolutions
1514 and 1541 set out three means by which a territory could achieve
self-government. These were emergence as a sovereign independent state,
free association with an independent state, or integration with an
independent state.[11] The 1970
Declaration of the U.N. Special Committee on Friendly Relations reinforced
the position that there were legitimate outcomes of self-determination
apart from independence, so long as these outcomes reflected the freely
expressed choice of people in colonized territories.[12] The creation in 1961 of the U.N. Special Committee
on the Situation with Regard to the Implementation of the Declaration on
the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples set out a
supervisory role for the U.N. in the final stages of the
self-determination process. In this process, a colonial power would
request that the U.N. supervise a self-determination referendum so as to
ensure an orderly transition through decolonization to whatever form of
state the local population chose.[13]
The uncertain status of
self-determination in international law continues to spark debate. An
early community of legal "formalists" argued that self-determination was
incompatible with international law because all states with a right to
membership in the international system were already members.[14] Under such logic, Bosnia, Kosovo,
and East Timor, should not enjoy independence. Other international legal
scholars argue that the concept of self-determination may not yet be a
legal norm, but it is nevertheless necessary to recognize that it is
evolving in that direction.
In the post-World War II era,
"equality theory" became predominant. Its proponents held that the right
of dominated peoples to achieve equality in relation to those who dominate
them removed self-determination from the realm of abstract legal norms and
transformed it into a universal right (although one applied selectively to
instances in which a non-Western population has been subject to European
colonial domination).[15]
Not all scholars and officials
accept equality theory, however. Critics point out the arbitrariness used
in determining the "colonial" or "alien" label.[16] Ali Mazrui, a scholar of African studies and
director of the Institute of Global Cultural Studies at Binghamton
University, for example, noted that "the definition of colonialism as
subjugation to alien rule" has been "of a very relative character,"
depending "not on whether the ruler is alien, but on whether in being
alien … [he] is also European."[17]
Addressing the U.N. General Assembly in 1961, Lord Home, then-foreign
secretary of the United Kingdom, articulated this concern, asking, "Is
there to be one principle for Asia and Africa and another for Europe? One
rule for the British Commonwealth and another for the Russian Empire? I
thought if a principle was anything, it was universal."[18]
Likewise, Thomas Franck, an emeritus
professor of law at New York University, argued that drawing artificial
distinctions between situations that are otherwise so similar eroded the
legitimacy of the concept and called for it to be applied coherently and
consistently if it were to be hailed as law.[19] Some scholars have questioned whether a
decolonization or equality model for self-determination has outlived its
usefulness. Gerry Simpson, a professor of public international law at the
London School of Economics, argued that "the decolonization model is a
demonstrably unwieldy and inflexible device" when applied to cases of
"indigenous, nationalist, secessionist, democratic, and devolutionary
self-determination."[20]
Situations involving minority
populations seeking to secede from a sovereign state also render
irrelevant traditional conceptions of self-determination.[21] In such cases, in the absence of a history of
Western colonization of that territory, the doctrine of uti
possidetis (the maintenance of colonial borders) prevails over any
conflicting interest in achieving ethnic autonomy.[22] Thus, until the Russian invasion in 2008 resolved
the matter by force, international lawyers could not assist the desire of
South Ossetians in Georgia to unite with their kin in Russia.[23]
The era of decolonization has
largely passed. Today, fresh ethno-national conflicts within established
states have called into question how useful the traditional conception of
self-determination is. Moreover, they raise questions about whether any
international legal consensus can provide guidance in situations that
involve states ruling over adjacent territories. The short answer to those
questions is "no" as reflected in the discrepancy between the strong
international support for self-determination in East Timor (Timor Leste),
which gained its independence from Indonesia in 2002, and more muted calls
for self-determination in such classic cases as Kashmir and Western
Sahara.[24]
The Western Sahara Case
Western Sahara provides an
interesting test case in just how divided the world remains on whether to
support self-determination in a territory amid a neighboring state's
irredentist claims.[25] In the case
of Western Sahara, for example, Morocco and Mauritania have laid claim to
its territory even as Spain and Algeria support its independence. The
paralysis in resolving the Western Sahara dispute is a result, on the one
hand, of battlefield reality and, on the other, the fact that, despite the
passage of time and the consequent development of the law in response to
new realities, there are no objective criteria that would lead to the
preference of one claim over another.[26]
Claims to Western Sahara are
multilayered. The Berlin Conference, hosted by Otto von Bismarck in
November 1884 for the purpose of carving up the African continent among
the European powers, ended with the Western Sahara territory allocated to
Spain. Spain colonized the territory in 1884 and held it as a Spanish
protectorate. From 1961 onwards, Spain administered Western Sahara as a
non-self-governing territory under Chapter XI of the U.N. Charter. This
implicitly recognized the right of its inhabitants to
self-determination.[27] Meanwhile,
neighboring Morocco gained its independence from France in 1956, and
Algeria followed soon after in 1962.
In 1966, the U.N. General Assembly
reaffirmed the right to self-determination of the peoples of the Spanish
Sahara[28] and requested Spain, in
consultation with other interested parties including the governments of
Morocco and Mauritania, to establish procedures "for the holding of a
referendum under United Nations auspices with a view to enabling the
indigenous population of the Territory to exercise freely its right to
self-determination."[29]
Spain, Morocco, and Mauritania,
however, essentially colluded to postpone the referendum.[30] After Spain announced that it would hold a
referendum under U.N. auspices in 1975, the U.N. General Assembly, at
Morocco's urging, requested that the International Court of Justice
determine two things: "(1) Was Western Sahara … at the time of
colonization by Spain a territory belonging to no one (terra
nullius)?" and, if not, "(2) What were the legal ties between this
territory and the Kingdom of Morocco and the Mauritanian entity?"[31]
Spain and Algeria took the position
that the "questions formulated … were, from a legal standpoint, ambiguous,
incomplete, and irrelevant, since they failed to take into account the
development of contemporary international law in relation to
Non-Self-Governing Territories."[32]
Nevertheless, the International Court of Justice accepted the case[33] and, in an advisory opinion, ruled
unanimously on the first question that at the time of colonization by
Spain, Western Sahara was not terra nullius.[34] As to the second question, the court acknowledged
that its opinion on the question of historic title should in no way be
seen as detracting from the fundamental right of self-determination of the
people of Western Sahara.[35]
The court ultimately ruled that
Morocco and Mauritania did not have a valid claim to Western Sahara based
on historic title, dealing a blow to the "automatic retrocession" to their
own control which both demanded.[36]
However, reference to Morocco's "legal ties" to the territory shifted the
terms of the debate. By construing "legal ties" as broader than mere ties
of territorial sovereignty, the court "blurred the line between 'self' and
'territory' arguments that it had drawn by equating the right of
self-determination with the free will of the colonial population, and
legal ties with pre-colonial claims to territory."[37] Such a finding arguably weakened rather than
bolstered the "strength and universality of the principle of
self-determination."[38]
From an international law
perspective, the court ruling opened the door to arguments that challenged
the paradigm framing the rules on the acquisition of sovereignty over
territory at the time.[39] Abdeslam
Maghraoui, a professor of comparative politics at Duke University, divided
Morocco's counter-narrative into three distinct categories: (1) historical
ties of sovereignty between Moroccan sultans and Saharan tribes; (2)
treaties and colonial records recognizing Morocco's territorial integrity
and its control over the Saharan provinces; and (3) Morocco's efforts to
help liberate the southern provinces from Spanish colonial rule after
1956.[40] European states might
concentrate power territorially, but Morocco in effect argued that in its
nomadic Western Sahara context, tribal and religious connections should be
paramount.[41]
Maghraoui acknowledged that, before
European colonization, the authority of Moroccan sultans "did not extend
evenly and consistently to all territories they considered to be under
their sovereignty" but, nevertheless, he argued that official
representatives appointed through royal decrees operated throughout the
distant Saharan territories within the framework of the sultan's
administrative apparatus.[42]
Morocco's occupation of Western Sahara would, in its view, help
reconstitute an empire that it had lost at the time of the Spanish
colonization of its territory and thus vindicate its historic title to the
territory.[43] Rabat's prioritization
of relations between states and tribes interpreted sovereignty according
to a pre-modern state structure rather than the modern mechanisms.[44] Two justices, Isaac Forster of
Senegal and Fouad Ammoun of Lebanon, offered separate opinions that
challenged the international court's pro-Sahrawi independence leanings and
instead proposed that the Moroccan counter-narrative, rooted in Morocco's
pre-colonial historical ties of sovereignty to Western Sahara, as well as
its claim of decolonization by "reversion to former sovereignty,"[45] be accorded appropriate emphasis in
arriving at the court's decision.
The Moroccan response was quick. The
day after the international court published its advisory opinion, Morocco
put the international community on notice that it would march 350,000
"unarmed civilians" from Morocco southward into Western Sahara "to gain
recognition of [Morocco's] right to national unity and territorial
integrity." It had concluded that, rather than rejecting its historic and
legal claims to the territory, the advisory opinion had in fact endorsed
them.[46]
Facts on the ground matter. Morocco,
Mauritania, and Spain initiated tripartite negotiations. The resulting
Madrid agreement amounted to a Spanish endorsement of a decolonization
formula that involved partition of the territory between Morocco and
Mauritania.[47] U.N. General Assembly
Resolution 3458A, adopted by the General Assembly on December 10, 1975,
reaffirmed the right of the inhabitants of Western Sahara to
self-determination but also noted the Madrid agreement and called for
further consultations with the territory's population without offering any
formal timetable or condemnation of Moroccan actions.[48] In effect, this set the stage for decades of
stalemate.
Algeria and Morocco, meanwhile,
pursued a diplomatic and at times military proxy war over the territory.[49] Algeria provided support, for
example, to the Frente Popular de Liberación de Saguía el Hamra y Río de
Oro (Polisario), a guerilla organization that sought to obtain
international recognition of the territory's independence from Morocco.
Algerian policy aimed to keep Moroccan forces bogged down in the territory
while harming its neighbor's standing in the international arena where the
rights of the disputing parties were widely debated. After the Algerian
government recognized the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic in February
1976, Morocco broke off diplomatic ties with its eastern neighbor.[50] Through the late 1980s, Algeria
assisted the Polisario with money, arms, and diplomatic support although
Moroccan military superiority ultimately rendered the Polisario little
more than a government-in-exile in western Algeria.[51] While Morocco and the Polisario agreed, in
principle, to a referendum, preparations for this became bogged down in a
dispute over the identification of Sahrawis eligible to vote in any
self-determination poll.
Former U.S. secretary of state James
A. Baker III, acting as personal envoy to U.N. secretary-general Kofi
Annan, outlined three possible outcomes of a final status referendum in
the territory: independence, autonomy, and full integration into Morocco.
But Rabat continued to balk at any plan that explicitly offered
independence.[52] Morocco instead
proposed creation of a "Sahara Autonomous Region," which it updated in
April 2007 with the introduction of the "Moroccan Initiative for
Negotiating an Autonomy Status for the Sahara."[53] While the U.N. Security Council says that the two
sides should negotiate without preconditions,[54] the council has, in fact, itself stated two
preconditions: that talks should aim at achieving self-determination for
the people of Western Sahara and that the U.N. should be in charge of the
referendum.[55]
Not every organization agrees with
the Security Council. While proponents of Western Sahara's independence
say the dispute should be an open-and-shut case from the perspective of
international law, given "the peremptory norm of international law with
respect to decolonization,"[56] a
body no less important than the International Crisis Group described the
failure to break the deadlock to be the result of what it sees as the
U.N.'s continuing focus on self-determination. Its report maintains:
By continuing to define the issue
as self-determination, the U.N. has encouraged the Polisario Front and
Algeria to continue to invest all their energy in seeking the
realization of this principle and at the same time has pressured the
Moroccan government to pay lip service to self-determination, when in
reality Rabat has never sincerely subscribed to it. The U.N. thereby has
inhibited the parties to the dispute from exploring the possibility of a
resolution based on a different principle or set of principles.[57]
The International Crisis Group thus
recognizes that self-determination is anything but a panacea for the
resolution of conflicting sovereignty claims, as it offers a
one-size-fits-all solution that may not be appropriate in the case of some
present-day conflicts, including that being waged over Western Sahara.
The End of Self-Determination?
While the latter half of the
twentieth century may have marked the predominance of equality theory,
that same theory may not be as appropriate for resolving disputes in the
twenty-first century. Claiming an absolute right to full "external"
self-determination in the form of complete independence for the Sahrawi
people while ignoring Morocco's interests in the matter has continued to
block any meaningful diplomatic compromise.
Within the scholarly community,
there is a growing realization that the law of self-determination as
crystallized in the era of decolonization is inadequate to deal with
modern disputes involving conflicting sovereignties. Conflagrations along
ethno-national divides pit the indigenous inhabitants of former European
colonies against each other for control of what were once colonial
territories. Such conflagrations are more prevalent than they were while
neocolonial disputes between majority and minority populations in the
developing world have increasingly given rise to calls for more equitable
treatment within existing states, as opposed to outright secession or
independence. Accordingly, Gregory H. Fox, a visiting professor of law at
Wayne State University Law School, notes that "with the effective end of
decolonization and the virtually unanimous refusal of states to recognize
a right of secession, the legal norm [of self-determination] appears to
have been deprived of much of its content."[58]
According to Fox, trying to
understand the right to self-determination within the decolonization
period as "a vehicle for independent statehood" has been rendered
essentially meaningless. This has led to a demand that self-determination
be re-conceptualized as an "internal" right requiring a "reordering of a
state's domestic law." This law operates along the lines of "minority
protection regimes, democratic political processes, safeguards for
cultural rights, and various forms of federative autonomy,"[59] but it stops short at redrawing
state boundaries made necessary by independence or secession scenarios.
Fox insists that the internal right to self-determination has been slowly
gaining acceptance.[60] In his view,
such a right acts as a general tool that allows a variety of particular
rights to be joined together. This allows us "to demonstrate that a
principled coexistence is possible between claims to group autonomy and
the maintenance of states' territorial integrity." What must follow, in
Fox's view, is the reframing of the rule of self-determination as a
principle permitting greater flexibility in its interpretation and
application.
Hurst Hannum, a professor of
international law at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts
University, is largely in agreement with Fox and articulates a new vision
of self-determination within international law, a vision which "will
support creative attempts to deal with conflicts over minority and
majority rights before they escalate into civil war and demands for
secession."[61] This right to
autonomy is not an end in itself but rather a political tool to ensure
that the rights and needs of the concerned population are properly
addressed in light of their unique goals.[62] Self-determination must be addressed as a means to
an end rather than an end in itself—"that end being a democratic,
participatory political and economic system in which the rights of
individuals and the identity of minority communities are protected."[63] For Gerry Simpson, the aim must be
to save the principle of self-determination from its "descent into
incoherence." At the core of its renewal is "the adoption of a more
liberal and expansive interpretation of the right, incorporating autonomy,
constitutional recognition, devolution, and cultural self-expression." He
adds that "this proposal would galvanize self-determination and rescue it
from the theoretical confusion and political misuse that have plagued it
in recent decades."[64]
A redefinition of
self-determination, Hannum contends, "may signal a new usefulness for the
concept of self-determination in the decades to come"[65] insofar as it places human and minority rights
before unilateral secession. As the legitimacy of the principle of
self-determination has been gradually eroded in the post-colonial era, a
resurgence of self-determination along more creative, flexible lines might
be precisely the boost that international law needs at the present day. A
reformed right to self-determination, envisioned as a continuum of rights
rather than an absolute entitlement to independence in all situations,
will do its part to promote international stability, peace, and
security.
Robin White, a professor of law at
the University of Leicester, attributes harmful developments in the
Western Sahara situation to an "exclusive focus" on independence as the
"only solution" to colonial status.[66] White concludes that "had the United Nations
worked on the criteria to be used in determining when the alternatives of
association, integration, or some other political status would be
appropriate, it is possible that there would have been greater room for
manoeuvre and resort to unilateral unlawful acts inhibited."[67] Similarly, Michla Pomerance,
professor of international law at the Hebrew University, argues that
self-determination has become "not a continuum of rights, nor a universal
principle applicable to 'all peoples,' but an 'all or nothing'
proposition."[68] The challenge for
the future of self-determination then is one of
Balancing conflicting principles,
of maximizing individual and group rights while respecting the rights of
other individuals and collectives and preserving international peace and
security. Such complexity can only be handled by means of a flexible
approach which sees self-determination as a continuum of rights,
as a plethora of possible solutions, rather than as a rigid absolute
right to full "external" self-determination in the form of complete
independence … Independence, or other options, may need to be
precluded—even if desired by the "self" concerned. Such alternatives as
federal schemes, autonomy, minority rights [and] guarantees of
non-discrimination … may present themselves as forms of
self-determination best suited to the particular circumstances.[69]
Thus, the decolonization era
understanding of self-determination, which has largely prevailed up to the
present, and whose preferred winner-take-all outcome conveniently ignores
crucial international, regional, and domestic realities, has become a
recipe for stalemate and a possible threat to peace and diplomatic
compromise. We can do better.
Conclusion
How, then, would an application of
self-determination, redefined loosely along the lines described above, be
achieved in the context of the Western Sahara dispute, and what might it
look like?
As long as the diplomatic process
over the future of Western Sahara remains saddled with the dual
encumbrances of a U.N.-administered framework and a U.N. resolution on the
basis of a strict notion of self-determination, the suitability of the
U.N. system as the dispute's sole arbiter will continue to be called into
question. By removing institutional and bureaucratic obstacles to
advancement in solving the Western Sahara dispute—obstacles that the
present U.N. framework has done much to perpetuate—the parties would be
compelled to think in terms of creative solutions to decades-old problems.
If that were to happen, they would take out of the equation a major
incentive for political and diplomatic posturing that has until now
stalled meaningful progress. An arrangement rooted in a realistic vision
of autonomous self-government that would incorporate reasonable guarantees
of cultural expression, political freedoms, and human rights for the
inhabitants of Western Sahara might then be given a chance to take
shape.
Indeed, such an approach holds out
the potential for advancement in the resolution of other disputes
involving conflicting claims of self-determination and sovereignty,
including the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Whereas international
organizations have over the past sixty years served as uninterrupted
debating societies with regard to the professed rights of the Palestinian
people under international law, the fundamental frailty of the law
concerning self-determination has largely frustrated efforts to translate
mere legal pronouncements into actual on-the-ground progress. Arguably,
the result has been the squandering of tremendous financial resources,
institutional efforts, and time in support of a diplomatic course of
action that is pervaded by "process" and high-minded legal "principle" yet
often short on the substance and dynamism necessary to translate theory
into practical, real-world compromise improving the everyday lives of
ordinary people.
Self-determination must, therefore,
be reframed in the present context as a continuum of rights affording the
affected populations a range of democratic entitlements and humanitarian
protections within existing sovereign states. The era when
self-determination was synonymous with an absolute right to political
independence has passed, and more flexible and creative bases for
compromise between disputing parties are presently in order. In this
spirit, the chairman of the U.N. General Assembly's Special Committee on
Decolonization, Margaret Hughes Ferrari of Saint Vincent and the
Grenadines, speaking at an October 8, 2007 meeting on the Western Sahara
dispute, acknowledged that U.N. efforts concerning non-self-governing
territories must recognize "that there is no magic formula of 'one-size
fits all.'" Rather, she continued, a good faith effort to focus on
tangible results would lead to the conclusion that "different territories
have different needs and expectations and should be considered on a
case-by-case basis."[70]
Samuel J. Spector is a
graduate of Georgetown University Law Center. An earlier version of this
essay won second prize in the Middle East Quarterly's 2008 Albert
J. Wood Student Writing Contest.
[1] Robert T. Vance, Jr., "Recognition as an
Affirmative Step in the Decolonization Process: The Case of Western
Sahara," 7 Yale Journal of World Public Order, 1980-81, p. 46;
Roger S. Clark, "The 'Decolonization' of East Timor and the United Nations
Norms on Self-Determination and Aggression," 7 Yale Journal of World
Public Order, 1980-81, p. 27.
[2] "Western
Sahara," Central Intelligence Agency, The 2008 World Fact Book,
accessed Mar. 23, 2009.
[3] Michla
Pomerance, Self-Determination in Law and Practice: The New Doctrine in
the United Nations (Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1982), p.
1.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid., p. 9; Gerry J. Simpson, "The Diffusion of
Sovereignty: Self-Determination in the Post-Colonial Age," Stanford
Journal of International Law, Summer 1996, p. 266.
[6] "Purposes and
Principles," chap. 1, art. 2 (7), Charter of the United
Nations, San Francisco, June 26, 1945.
[7] "Declaration on the Granting of Independence to
Colonial Countries and Peoples," U.N. General Assembly (UNGA) resolution
1514 (XV),
Dec. 14, 1960.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Thomas M. Franck, "The Stealing of the
Sahara," American Journal of International Law, 70 (1976):
698.
[10] Ibid.
[11] UNGA resolution 1514; UNGA
resolution 1541, Dec. 15,
1960.
[12] Rupert Emerson,
"Self-Determination," American Journal of International Law, 65
(1971): 470.
[13] Franck, "The
Stealing of the Sahara," pp. 699-701.
[14] Nathaniel Berman, "Sovereignty in Abeyance: Self
Determination and International Law," Wisconsin International Law
Journal, Fall 1988, p. 62.
[15] Ibid., p. 64.
[16] Pomerance, Self-Determination in Law and
Practice, p. 15.
[17] Ibid.,
p. 16.
[18] Ibid., p. 15.
[19] Martti Koskenniemi, "National
Self-Determination Today: Problems of Legal Theory and Practice,"
International and Comparative Law Quarterly, Apr. 1994, p. 242.
[20] Simpson, "The Diffusion of
Sovereignty," pp. 256-7.
[21]
Laurence S. Hanauer, "The Irrelevance of Self-Determination Law to
Ethno-National Conflict: A New Look at the Western Sahara Case," Emory
International Law Review, Spring 1995, pp. 133-77.
[22] Ibid., p. 147.
[23] Koskenniemi, "National
Self-Determination Today," p. 244.
[24] Hurst Hannum, "Self-Determination in the Twenty-First
Century," in Hurst Hannum and Eileen Babbitt, eds., Negotiating
Self-Determination (Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books 2006), pp.
69-70.
[25] Pomerance,
Self-Determination in Law and Practice, p. 18.
[26] Ibid., p. 23.
[27] Karen Knop, Diversity and
Self-Determination in International Law (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2002), pp. 110-1.
[28] "Question of Ifni and Spanish Sahara," UNGA
Resolution 2229, Dec. 20,
1966.
[29] Franck, "The Stealing
of the Sahara," p. 702.
[30]
Ibid., pp. 703-4.
[31] Mark W.
Janis, "The International Court of Justice: Advisory Opinion on the
Western Sahara," Harvard International Law Journal, Summer 1976,
pp. 609-10.
[32] Franck, "The
Stealing of the Sahara," p. 706, 709.
[33] Janis, "The International Court of Justice," p.
616.
[34] Ibid.
[35] Franck, "The Stealing of the
Sahara," p. 710; Berman, "Sovereignty in Abeyance," p. 100.
[36] Franck, "The Stealing of the
Sahara," p. 711.
[37] Knop,
Diversity and Self-Determination in International Law, pp.
132-3.
[38] Clark, "The
'Decolonization' of East Timor," p. 26.
[39] Ibid.
[40]
Abdeslam Maghraoui, "Ambiguities of Sovereignty: Morocco, The Hague and
the Western Sahara Dispute," Mediterranean Politics, Spring 2003,
p. 117.
[41] Knop, Diversity
and Self-Determination in International Law, pp. 134-5.
[42] Maghraoui, "Ambiguities of
Sovereignty," pp. 117-8.
[43]
"Self-Determination: The Cases of Fiji, New Caledonia, Namibia, and the
Western Sahara," Proceedings of the American Society of International
Law, 1988, p. 441; Janis, "The International Court of Justice," p.
617.
[44] Maghraoui, "Ambiguities
of Sovereignty," p. 119.
[45]
Pomerance, Self-Determination in Law and Practice, p. 44; Berman,
"Sovereignty in Abeyance," p. 102.
[46] Franck, "The Stealing of the Sahara," pp.
711-2.
[47] Ibid., p. 715.
[48] Clark, "The 'Decolonization' of
East Timor," p. 27.
[49] I.
William Zartman, "Foreign Relations of North Africa," Annals of
the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Jan. 1987.
[50] Jacques Eric Roussellier,
"Quicksand in the Western Sahara? From Referendum Stalemate to Negotiated
Solution," International Negotiation, 2005, no. 2, pp. 316-7.
[51] Charles Dunbar, "Saharan Stasis:
Status and Future Prospects of the Western Sahara Conflict," Middle
East Journal, Autumn 2000, p. 527.
[52] "Western Sahara: Out of the Impasse,"
International Crisis Group Middle East/North Africa Report, no. 66,
June 11, 2007, p. 3.
[53]
Ibid., p. 6.
[54] "The Situation
Concerning Western Sahara," U.N. Security Council Resolution 1754, Apr. 30,
2007.
[55] "Western Sahara: Out of
the Impasse," p. 8.
[56] Vance,
"Recognition as an Affirmative Step in the Decolonization Process," p.
46.
[57] "Western Sahara: Out of
the Impasse," p. 9, supra note 56.
[58] Gregory H. Fox, "Self-Determination in the Post-Cold
War Era: A New Internal Focus," Michigan Journal of International
Law, Spring 1995, p. 733.
[59]
Ibid., p. 734.
[60] Ibid., p.
755.
[61] Hannum,
"Self-Determination in the Twenty-First Century," p. 473.
[62] Ibid., p. 474.
[63] Ibid., p. 66.
[64] Simpson, "The Diffusion of
Sovereignty," p. 260.
[65] Hannum,
"Self-Determination in the Twenty-First Century," p. 61.
[66] Robin C.A. White,
"Self-Determination: Time for Re-Assessment?" Netherlands International
Law Review, no. 28, p. 434.
[67] Ibid.
[68]
Pomerance, Self-Determination in Law and Practice, p. 74.
[69] Ibid., pp. 73-4.
[70] "Most of World's Population No
Longer Lives Under Colonial Rule, but United
Nations Decolonization Mission Still Unfulfilled, Fourth Committee
Told as Debate Begins," U.N. General Assembly, Fourth Committee, 2nd mtg.,
Oct. 8, 2007. Related Topics: North Africa
Samuel J.
Spector
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