Boumerdes, August 12, 2026 (SPS) – Sahrawi Ambassador Mr. Malainin Lakhal affirmed during a lecture delivered today, Wednesday, before participants in the 14th Edition of the Summer University for Executives of the Sahrawi State and the Polisario Front, entitled “International Law and the Sahrawi People's Right to Self-Determination,” that the Sahrawi people's right to self-determination is firmly established under international law.
He noted that all relevant United Nations resolutions adopted since 1963 have affirmed this right as a decolonization issue registered with the United Nations, making Morocco's presence in Western Sahara that of an occupying power.
The Sahrawi diplomat reviewed the legal gains achieved by the Sahrawi people's cause, beginning with the 1975 ruling of the International Court of Justice, which unequivocally affirmed the Sahrawi people's right to self-determination and confirmed the absence of Moroccan sovereignty over the territory. He also referred to the resolutions of the Organization of African Unity and the African Union, as well as rulings by the European courts since 2016, which have affirmed that Morocco has no sovereignty over Western Sahara, a territory separate and distinct from Morocco.
The diplomat stressed that the Sahrawi people's right and its existence as an established state, as a founding and active member, have been settled at the level of the African Union, where the occupying state exists alongside the Sahrawi Republic under the umbrella of the African Union and has signed the African Union Constitutive Act.
He pointed out that the Sahrawi people's right is firmly established at the international level, and that all attempts by Morocco and its allies to remove the issue from its legal framework collide with the substantial legal foundation underpinning the Sahrawi cause. He stressed that this legal standing was not achieved easily, but rather was the result of diplomatic and legal battles waged by the Sahrawi people with the support of their allies.
He emphasized that the only solution lies in consulting the Sahrawi people through the organization of a free and fair referendum in which the Sahrawi people can determine their future.
