Large numbers of Sahrawi citizens took to the streets in El Aaiún, the largest city in Western Sahara, on Monday, to demand a just United Nations-sponsored solution that guarantees their right to freedom, self-determination, and independence. The demonstrations come as the United States allegedly pushes a draft UN Security Council resolution that would make Morocco’s autonomy plan the sole basis for negotiations over the future of the territory.

The US-drafted text, reportedly circulated among Security Council members on October 22, has drawn strong objections from the Polisario Front, the Sahrawi independence movement, as well as human rights and solidarity organizations. Arguing the proposal risks predetermining the outcome of negotiations by placing Morocco’s plan over Western Sahara at the center of the process, rather than allowing the Sahrawi people to freely decide their political future.

The dispute comes as the Security Council considers the future of the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO), established in 1991 to support the UN-OAU Settlement Plan, which included a referendum on self-determination.

Polisario Front warns it could withdraw from the peace process

In a letter from October 22 to Aglaia Balta, Greece’s permanent representative to the United Nations and current president of the Security Council, Dr Sidi Mohamed Omar, the Polisario Front’s representative to the UN, strongly rejected the US zero-draft.

Omar said the text “fully reflects the national position of the penholder as well as that of Morocco, the occupying state,” describing it as “another extremely dangerous, unprecedented departure” from international law and the UN framework governing Western Sahara’s decolonization.

He added that the process cannot be reduced to Security Council Resolution 2797 (2025), but must be understood within the wider body of relevant UN resolutions and the original agreement underpinning MINURSO. The mission was established under Resolution 690 (1991), following an agreement between the Polisario Front and Morocco, based on the UN-OAU Settlement Plan.

According to the Polisario Front, changing the framework unilaterally would align the mission with Morocco’s position and undermine international efforts to resolve the territory’s status through decolonization.

“The non-compliance of Morocco, the occupying state, with its commitments under the UN-OAU Settlement Plan, which was adopted unanimously by the Security Council, cannot justify any infringement upon the inalienable right of the Sahrawi people to self-determination and sovereignty over their homeland,” Omar wrote.

Emphasizing that the text “cannot constitute a basis for any deliberations on MINURSO or the peace process in Western Sahara” and warned that, if it passed without “substantive and meaningful changes,” the movement “would have no choice but to disengage from the peace process as a whole.” But remains committed to a just, lasting, and definitive peace.

Morocco’s autonomy plan

One of the main concerns raised by the Western Sahara Research Watch (WSRW) is the reported change in the language of the draft. The text reportedly describes Morocco’s autonomy proposal as the “only basis” for negotiations, strengthening the language of the 2025 resolution, which referred to it as “a basis.”

The WSRW argues that the difference is substantial. While autonomy could theoretically be one option freely chosen by the Sahrawi people, making Morocco’s proposal the sole basis in advance risks narrowing the political choices available to them.

The organization asks, “How can the people freely determine the territory’s future if negotiations may only take place within a model that presupposes Moroccan sovereignty?”

Going farther, the draft describes autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty as the most feasible solution. This shifts the purpose of negotiations away from determining Western Sahara’s status and towards negotiating the terms of Moroccan control.

The WSRW also warns that the draft’s references to consulting Sahrawis in the territory, in refugee camps, and throughout the diaspora do not guarantee that they will have a decisive role in determining the outcome.

“Being heard is not the same as being allowed to decide,” the organization argues.

The European Association of Lawyers for Democracy and World Human Rights (ELDH) has also called on the United Nations to uphold international law and the Sahrawi people’s right to self-determination.

International law and the question of sovereignty

The Campaign for the Right to Self-Determination of the People of Western Sahara (CODESA) has also rejected the premise that international recognition of Morocco’s claim can determine the territory’s legal status.

“Recognition by third states cannot turn occupation into sovereignty,” the organization argues.

Western Sahara remains on the UN list of Non-Self-Governing Territories. In its 1975 advisory opinion, the International Court of Justice found that the materials and information presented to it did not establish any tie of territorial sovereignty between Western Sahara and Morocco that would displace the application of self-determination through the free and genuine expression of the territory’s people.

CODESA also points to the UN General Assembly Resolution 34/37, adopted in 1979, which deplored Morocco’s continued occupation of Western Sahara and reaffirmed the right of the Sahrawi people to self-determination and independence. It further cites the UN Legal Counsel’s 2002 opinion on the legality of resource exploration in the territory and the 2024 rulings of the Court of Justice of the European Union, reaffirming Western Sahara’s separate and distinct status from Morocco.

CODESA maintains that a political outcome cannot be declared in advance and then presented as self-determination. It invokes UN General Assembly Resolution 1541 (XV), which sets out principles relevant to the exercise of self-determination, including that integration with another state must result from the freely expressed wishes of the people through an informed and democratic process.

The organization also objects to the United States’ prominent role as facilitator, arguing that a mediator that has already recognized Morocco’s claim cannot be assumed to be impartial. It maintains that negotiations must allow the parties to present their positions without imposing one party’s proposal as the only acceptable framework.

“Negotiations in which only the occupying power’s proposal may be discussed are not negotiations; they are terms of surrender offered to the occupied people,” CODESA says.

Over the years, Morocco’s autonomy plan for Western Sahara has gained diplomatic support as several countries have shifted their positions towards recognizing Moroccan sovereignty over the disputed territory rewarded by trade deals.  But these diplomatic changes have not resolved the central question of Western Sahara’s future, and the right of the Sahrawi people to determine their own political status.