Geneva (UN Human Rights Council) 17 June 2026 (SPS) — Speaking at a High-Leven Side Event in the UN Human Rights Council on Tuesday, international relations scholar and activist Dr. Moara Crivelente demanded that the international community assume its responsibility toward Western Sahara considering that Colonial occupation and the violation of international law poses serious threat to the world order.
Dr. Crivelente, Executive Director of the Brazilian Centre for Solidarity with the Peoples and Struggle for Peace (CEBRAPAZ), delivered her remarks at a high-level side-event titled "Western Sahara and the Right to Self-Determination: Challenges to International Legality," convened by the Geneva Support Group for Western Sahara Tuesday in the Human Rights Council in Geneva.
As the UN approaches the end of the Fourth International Decade for the Eradication of Colonialism (2021-2030), Western Sahara remains the last African territory on the UN list of Non-Self-Governing Territories. Dr. Crivelente stated that Morocco's settler-colonization is actively enabled and encouraged by economic exploitation and strategic backing from partners like Spain, France, the United States, and the European Union.
She pointed directly to the trade partnerships between Brussels and Rabat regarding Sahrawi resources, which have already been declared null by the Court of Justice of the EU, stating that "agreements like those signed between the EU and Morocco and already declared null by the Court of Justice of the EU when it comes to Saharawi resources... not only illegitimately endorse but also profit from the plundering and the perpetuation of injustice."
"By starting this legal case, Front Polisario has strategically made the Court put this finding in writing and reaffirm the EU’s obligations” she said.
She sharply criticized European institutions for attempting to "bend international law" by appealing these judicial decisions. This obstructionism, she noted, allows Morocco to continue utilizing classical colonial methods to suppress resistance, including censorship, enforced disappearance, displacement, and torture.
Dr. Crivelente criticized the structural inequalities dividing the global order into "center and periphery, the exploiter and the exploited, the protected and the exception."
She argued that global powers routinely deploy the logic of "might over right" to stall decolonization and impose neo-colonial ties when it suits their strategic calculations.
Furthermore, she warned against the promotion of "coercive and transactional diplomacy." She noted that while this approach has taken on a more openly transactional mode under Donald Trump, combining coercive and transactional frameworks is a long-standing US strategy that has consistently prolonged injustices globally.
Grounding her argument in established legal history, the University of Coimbra researcher reminded the assembly that the principle of self-determination graduated into an inalienable right precisely through the historic struggles of national liberation movements like the Polisario Front.
She invoked the landmark 1960 UN General Assembly Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples (Resolution 1514 (XV)), recalling its clear stipulations: denying colonial populations their freedom directly incites conflict and threatens universal peace, while the persistence of colonialism stifles the economic, social, and cultural development of dependent peoples. Furthermore, she noted that the General Assembly explicitly recognizes the legitimate right of peoples to fight, through all available means, against foreign domination.
She added that under the 1977 Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, wars of national liberation are explicitly recognized as international conflicts rather than internal disputes, cementing the global community's clear obligation to end foreign domination.
Dr. Crivelente insisted on paying her respects and expressing heartfelt solidarity with the family and the people of the "brave Saharawis fallen while struggling for such an inalienable right."
She concluded by stating that history proves people will continue to fight for their emancipation, and that the only path toward a just world is through the strengthening of collective action, international responsibility, and unwavering solidarity. (SPS)
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