After much wrangling from the French, the UN Security Council unanimously passed resolution 1495 right on the July 31st deadline for the rollover of the MINURSO peacekeeping operation in Western Sahara. In the best diplomatic tradition, the resolution affirmed the commitment to provide for the self-determination of the people of Western Sahara, even while it seriously compromised on it by supporting a peace plan that would allow the Moroccan settlers in the territory to vote on independence in five years. As with Israeli settlers on the West Bank, these Moroccan colonists are there in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits countries from transfering their civilian population onto territories seized by military force.
Book chapter in Rightsizing the State: The Politics of Moving Borders edited by Brendan O’Leary, Ian Lustick and Thomas Callaghy (Oxford University Press 2001)
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New Hope for Western Sahara
Article in Middle East Policy, Vol. V, No. 4 (January 1998).
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Western Sahara: Peace Derailed
Book chapter in International Dimensions of the Western Sahara Conflict edited by Daniel Volman and Yahia Zoubir (Greenwood Press 1993).