TITLE:
Revisiting the UN’s Special Political and Decolonization Committee Effectiveness in Addressing and Resolving the Western Sahara Conflict
AUTHORS:
El Yasmine Hasnaoui, Jamal Ait Laadam
KEYWORDS:
Fourth Committee, C-24, Western Sahara, Morocco, Algeria, Autonomy Plan
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Social Sciences,
Vol.13 No.4,
April
24,
2025
ABSTRACT: This paper focuses on the pivotal role played by the UN Special Political and Decolonization Committee, in solving the Western Sahara Conflict. In 1963, with the recommendation of Morocco, the Western Sahara was included on the UN’s list of territories to be decolonized by the administering power Spain. In 1975, when Spain ceded control of this territory to Morocco since then, the issue has not been about an existing state seeking separation in boundaries. Instead, it pertains to the application of a just and lasting political solution between the concerned parties (Morocco, the Polisario Front, Algeria, Mauritania). Therefore, the work of the Committee should have ceased, as the UN Security Council addresses the Western Sahara as a matter of peace and security, and not as a decolonization matter. In this sense, this paper aims to identify the irrelevance of the Fourth Committee in solving the Western Sahara conflict and suggests the pragmatic mechanisms implemented by the Security Council to solve this issue.