Geneva (UN Human Rights Council) 16 June 2026 (SPS) The Geneva Support Group for Western Sahara held a high-level side event on Tuesday in the margins of the UN Human Rights Council, warning that unilateral political approaches to the conflict threaten to erode international law and undermine the Sahrawi people’s inalienable right to self-determination.
The event, titled "Western Sahara and the Right to Self-Determination: Challenges to International Legality," brought together international legal experts, diplomats, and human rights defenders to address what organizers described as Africa's last unresolved case of decolonization.
Speakers emphasized that the right to self-determination stands as a foundational pillar of the international legal order, explicitly enshrined in the United Nations Charter, UN General Assembly Resolution 1514 (XV), and core international human rights covenants.
While decolonization is historically regarded as one of the UN’s greatest achievements, panellists noted that Western Sahara remains classified by the UN as a Non-Self-Governing Territory awaiting a genuine decolonization process based on the freely expressed will of its people.
The debate, moderated by Catherine Constantinidies, featured remarks from a prominent panel including Ambassador Geraldo Goncalves Miguel Saranga (Chair of the Geneva Group for Western Sahara), Professor Manfred Hinz, Ambassador Malainin Lakhal, Dr. Moara Crivelente, and Ambassador Oubi Buchraya.
Participants expressed deep concern over recent moves by certain states to endorse unilateral political proposals outside the established framework of genuine self-determination. The panel stressed that these political arrangements, if imposed without the consent of the Sahrawi people, risk violating the legal obligations established under the UN Charter and relevant General Assembly resolutions, asserting that the right to self-determination cannot be substituted, reinterpreted, or limited.
Legal experts at the event recalled the 1975 Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which concluded that no ties of territorial sovereignty existed that could block the application of self-determination through the free and genuine expression of the territory’s inhabitants.
The panel also highlighted that the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights recognizes self-determination as an absolute, unquestionable right that remains binding.
The side event concluded with a warning that the selective application of international law carries consequences far beyond Western Sahara, stating that evading established decolonization frameworks weakens the credibility of the United Nations system, compromises multilateralism, and prolongs regional instability and conflict.
The panel was attended by the Polisario Front Representative in Geneva, Ms. Nadjet Hendi, alongside ambassadors and diplomats from friendly nations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) accredited to the Human Rights Council, and international human rights defenders in addition to Human rights defenders from the Sahrawi occupied territories and refugee camps. (SPS)
090/500/60 (SPS)
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