Caught in de Middle: UN Involvement in the Western Sahara Conflict

For over 30 years the Western Sahara conflict has played a major role in blocking any attempt at regional cooperation in north-west Africa and it continues to do so until the present day. The United Nations has played a major role in the conflict, especially since the creation of the UN mission for the Western Sahara, MINURSO. This paper evaluates the UN's efforts and looks at the analytical perspective of negotiation theorists on third-party intervention.

The current deadlock in the Sahara proves to be stable, because not only the conflicting parties themselves, but also the international community, seem to be satisfied with the current situation. In the final analysis, the UN have been very effective in reaching their true objective: a lasting ceasefire. Larosch argues that any evaluation of third-party intervention by the UN should pay attention to the political considerations of individual member states, especially within the Security Council, rather than the conviction that the UN intervenes out of a desire to solve the conflict.

The Western Sahara conflict has proved to be more than just another decolonization issue. The struggle in the territory has been lasting and will remain to be so for the foreseeable future. The current status quo is held in place by an unusually strong and coherent set of three factors: first, the interests at stake are small and little international attention is therefore devoted to the conflict; second, historical relations between Morocco and Algeria form a heavy burden on the issue; and third, the international community does not wish to engage and contribute to a solution, or is not able to at the moment.

The great powers involved stick to the importance of maintaining good relations with Morocco and Algeria. They would welcome a solution only if it is acceptable to all of the parties and does not require them to choose sides. This creates an almost inescapable situation. The UN supports the self-determination of the people of Western Sahara, but the Security Council refuses to commit itself to the possible outcome of this self-determination process. As long as both of these desires - self-determination but also a mutually acceptable solution - remain in place, a way out of the conflict is hard to imagine.

About the author

Jérôme Larosch was a member of the Clingendael Diplomatic Studies Programme (CDSP) until May 2007, where he coordinated postgraduate courses and training programmes in international relations for civil servants and diplomats. Before joining Clingendael in September 2004, Jérôme Larosch was a programme officer at the Evert Vermeer Foundation, the Social Democratic Party's development policy office, where he worked primarily on coherence in Dutch development policy. He has special expertise in this area and his current research interest is in the field of United States foreign policy and international negotiation. For this paper, the author undertook research for three months at the International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Laxenburg (Austria).

More information

Information is available at the secretariat of the Clingendael Diplomatic Studies Programme of the Netherlands Institute of International Relations Clingendael, contact by email or tel. (070) 3746605.