This is not just a week of bad news for the Saharawis. It is a signal to every occupier in the world: hold out long enough, find yourself powerful friends, and eventually the illegality becomes legal.

Western Sahara is not part of Morocco. Morocco has occupied the territory for more than fifty years. The International Court of Justice in The Hague has established that Morocco has no legitimate claim to Western Sahara. The EU Court of Justice has said the same thing time and again. Yet the people’s right to self-determination is now to be put in a drawer, because the right states have decided that this suits them best.

Behind it stands France, which has protected Moroccan interests throughout the years. These are the same principles that Paris defends with big words in Ukraine, and which it is now tearing to pieces in Western Sahara. In 2024, Macron declared that Western Sahara is part of Morocco. With Trump, who recognised the occupation as early as 2020, France has finally gained a partner on the Security Council. Earlier this year, a Moroccan motorway in Western Sahara was named after Trump. Together, France and Morocco have pressured the majority of the Council to act in violation of the UN Charter.

The proposed resolution also means that the UN peacekeeping operation is effectively shut down. A significant erosion in the resolution text already took place in 2025. At that time, the composition of the Council was different, and parts of Trump’s attempt were watered down. Among other things, some states on the Council succeeded in introducing a precondition on the right to self-determination, while stressing that both parties to the conflict must approve a final solution. Both of these elements are now proposed to be stripped away, and the solution is to be completely imposed.

The UN was created precisely to prevent strong states from taking land from weak ones. Now the UN is being used to do the opposite.

The Saharawi people are currently in collective shock and grief.

“Our thoughts are now with the Saharawi people. We think of all those who lost their loved ones during the invasion. Of all those who have spent decades in prison and under torture. Of those who walked through the desert in flight, and of their children who were born and grew up in exile. We think of all the diplomats who have worked day and night to defend their people’s rights,” says Erik Hagen, leader of the Support Committee for Western Sahara.

“To all Saharawis reading this: We stand with you in our condemnation of the heads of state, the EU commissioners and the bureaucrats who have normalised the occupation. May other peoples under occupation be spared the double standards and the false promises about values and human rights that you have faced,” says Hagen.

A minister in the UAE’s foreign ministry - who is now emerging as one of the candidates to become the UN’s new Secretary-General - has expressed that Morocco has sovereignty over Western Sahara, in direct violation of the UN Charter.

But nothing is decided by a council voting. The Saharawi people’s right to self-determination remains, regardless of what the Security Council may think. In a dozen judgments since 2010, the EU Court of Justice has established that the EU’s agreements with Morocco do not apply to Western Sahara, and those judgments stand. All the world’s states are still obliged to defend international law. At the same time, companies have an obligation to respect human rights – and thereby also the right to self-determination. Contracts entered into with the occupying power over the territory continue to lack a legal basis, even if the Security Council should choose to turn a blind eye to the UN Charter.

At the same time, the Saharawi people will not disappear or accept having a solution imposed on them. The conflict will not be solved by an impatient Trump – in partnership with France – wanting to erase Western Sahara from the world map.

This week’s resolution is bigger than Western Sahara. It is about whether occupations are to be permitted by the UN. “This is one of the most serious attempts to undermine international law since the founding of the United Nations”, an American professor said.