Geneva - September 9, 2025 (SPS) - The Human Rights Council headquarters in Geneva hosted a significant international conference titled "Fifty Years of Ignoring International Law in Western Sahara: The Costs and Prospects." The event took place on the sidelines of the 60th session of the Human Rights Council.
Organized by the Geneva Group for the Support of Western Sahara in partnership with the Polisario Front's representation in Geneva, which played a pivotal role in preparing the event, the conference saw the participation of prominent diplomatic, academic, and human rights figures.
The conference began with a speech by His Excellency Abdallah Saleh Possi, Tanzania's Permanent Representative to the United Nations in Geneva, head of the Geneva Group for the Support of Western Sahara. He emphasized the importance of standing with the Sahrawi people in their legitimate struggle for self-determination.
Professor Mads Andenes, a professor of international law at the University of Oslo, former head of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, gave an analytical presentation on the right to self-determination and the serious human rights violations that result from its denial.
Manuel Devers, the lawyer in charge of the Polisario Front's legal case before European Union courts, reviewed the repeated legal successes the Polisario Front has achieved in defending the sovereign rights of the Sahrawi people and their natural resources.
For his part, activist Erik Hagen, founder of the Western Sahara Resource Watch, highlighted the serious violations linked to the exploitation of Sahrawi resources by multinational corporations in the absence of any legitimate legal framework.
The conference concluded with a speech by Oubi Bouchraya Bachir, the Polisario Front's representative to the United Nations in Geneva and its special advisor on legal issues. He stressed that half a century after the International Court of Justice's advisory opinion on Western Sahara, the international community must redouble its efforts to end colonialism and enable the Sahrawi people to exercise their inalienable right to self-determination and independence.
Throughout its presentations, the conference affirmed that the continued disregard for international law and UN resolutions on Western Sahara poses a threat to regional peace and stability and compounds the suffering of the Sahrawi people under Moroccan occupation.
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