Chahid El Hafed (Sahrawi Refugee Camps) 25 July 2026 (SPS) – The President of the Working Group on Natural Resources and Related Legal Issues, Amb. Oubi Bouchraya Bachir, affirmed on Saturday that the struggle to protect the Sahrawi people's natural resources constitutes the foremost line of defense against Morocco's occupation strategy, stressing that depriving the occupying power of the economic benefits derived from the occupied Territory would dismantle the third phase of Morocco's colonial project.
Speaking at the opening of the international Conference on "The Legal Battle and the Sahrawi People's Permanent Sovereignty over Their Natural Resources," held at the Presidency of the Sahrawi Republic in Chahid El Hafed, Ambassador Oubi explained that the legal battle over Western Sahara's resources dates back to the period following the 1991 ceasefire.
He noted that Morocco sought to consolidate its presence in the Territory and alleviate its economic difficulties by expanding settlement activities and signing oil exploration contracts with foreign companies, including Kerr-McGee and Total, in 2001.
He recalled that the Frente POLISARIO responded by submitting a complaint to the United Nations Security Council, which led to the landmark 2002 legal opinion issued by the UN Under-Secretary-General for Legal Affairs, Hans Corell. That opinion reaffirmed Western Sahara's status as a Non-Self-Governing Territory and concluded that any exploitation of its natural resources without the consent and benefit of its people would be contrary to international law.
Oubi also reviewed the succession of legal victories achieved before European courts, beginning with the “Brita” case in 2010, in which the European Court ruled that products originating from the occupied Palestinian territory could not benefit from preferential trade treatment. He highlighted the 2016 judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), which confirmed that Western Sahara and Morocco are two separate and distinct territories under international law.
He further noted that subsequent rulings in 2018 reaffirmed the Sahrawi people's rights over the Territory's adjacent waters and airspace, culminating in the landmark judgments of 2021 and 4 October 2024. Those decisions definitively annulled the EU-Morocco agricultural and fisheries agreements insofar as they applied to Western Sahara, recognized the Frente POLISARIO's legal standing before EU courts, and required products originating from the Territory to be identified under the separate customs code “EH”.
The President of the Working Group also disclosed what he described as renewed attempts by European Union institutions to evade the Court's rulings through an agricultural agreement concluded in October 2025 based on what he characterized as a misleading interpretation of the concept of "implied consent."
He added that these efforts were met with broad opposition in the European Parliament, which rejected attempts in November 2025 to bypass the Court's ruling on the customs labeling of products originating from Western Sahara. He also revealed that the Frente POLISARIO filed a new legal action in December 2025 against the Council of the European Union and supporting Member States in order to continue challenging these measures before the courts.
Concluding his remarks, Ambassador Oubi stressed that control over natural resources lies at the heart of the struggle for self-determination. He argued that the legal gains achieved in recent years constitute a strong safeguard against politically motivated positions, including France's support for Morocco's autonomy proposal.
He emphasized that safeguarding the Sahrawi people's sovereignty over their natural resources remains the most effective means of defeating Morocco's economic colonialism and nullifying the consequences of its military occupation and demographic policies in Western Sahara. (SPS)
090/500/60 (SPS)
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