Dynamics of Security Council resolutions: the case of the Sahara
- How Security Council resolutions work
- The adulterated use of old resolutions: the case of Pablo Iglesias
- Legal evolution: from referendum to mutually acceptable solution
- The 2022 resolution: humanitarian transparency and refugee census
- The 2025 resolution: the definitive change
How Security Council resolutions work
Contrary to what some would like to believe, the Security Council resolutions on Western Sahara that are adopted annually do not have as their sole or primary purpose the renewal of MINURSO's mandate. They are instruments through which the international community redefines the legal, political and diplomatic nature of the conflict.
Through them, the Council reaffirms or modifies its strategic orientation on how the dispute should be resolved, explicitly establishes the acceptable parameters for any solution, issues binding mandates to the parties involved (negotiations, humanitarian transparency, refugee censuses), introduces pronouncements on human rights and aid management, and progressively transforms the international legitimacy of the proposals in contention. Particularly relevant is how the Council rewrites the operational language of the conflict: the gradual replacement of ‘referendum’ with ‘realistic, mutually acceptable political solution’ — an expression already mentioned in Resolution 1309 of 2000 — is not merely terminological, but implies a fundamental change in the international legal basis.
In this way, the resolutions constitute the mechanism by which the international community marks which solutions are legitimate and which are obsolete, gradually consolidating the Moroccan autonomy proposal from ‘serious and credible’ in 2007 to ‘basis for negotiations’ in 2025. Therefore, conveniently using old resolutions while ignoring this process harmfully distorts reality, as it attempts to freeze the conflict in an outdated legal state and disregards decades of transformation. Each new resolution updates and replaces the previous one. This is a crucial point that certain political and media actors systematically manipulate to confuse public opinion, as we have seen in recent days.
What is truly significant in these resolutions is not the paragraphs that are repeated year after year, but the new elements they introduce with respect to the previous resolution. When a fragment of text is copied verbatim from a previous resolution, it means that the Security Council maintains its position without progress or regression. On the contrary, substantive changes in the wording mark the evolution of the conflict and the direction taken by the international community.
For example, the mere annual renewal of MINURSO's mandate for another year does not constitute an achievement or progress. It is simply an administrative continuity that has been going on since 1991. To celebrate this as a success for the Polisario Front with the aim of downplaying Morocco's achievements in this latest resolution is to manipulate the facts in order to continue to win the loyalty of a certain audience that is already indoctrinated or, failing that, to reveal a profound ignorance of the workings of the United Nations.
The adulterated use of old resolutions: the case of Pablo Iglesias
A perfect example of this manipulation was provided by former Spanish Vice-President Pablo Iglesias in November 2020, following the United States' recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over the territory. Iglesias posted a tweet quoting a UN Security Council resolution that mentioned ‘a free, fair and impartial referendum for the self-determination of the people of Western Sahara’. What Iglesias deliberately omitted was that this resolution was from January 1995, i.e. thirty years ago.
Since then, the Security Council has passed more than thirty resolutions that have substantially changed the approach to the conflict. Presenting a 1995 resolution as still valid, ignoring all subsequent ones, constitutes pure and simple disinformation. As Iglesias himself cynically stated in response to criticism, he was only recalling ‘what a UN resolution says’, without specifying that he was quoting an obsolete resolution that had been superseded by three decades of diplomatic transformation.
Only the most recent resolution reflects the current position of the Security Council. Everything else is manipulation or self-deception. Such practices reveal the desperation of those who defend obsolete and untenable positions.
Legal evolution: from referendum to mutually acceptable solution
The first major substantive change in Security Council resolutions came in 2007 with Resolution 1754. Since then, the word ‘referendum’ has disappeared from the Council's operational language, being replaced by the concept of a ‘just, lasting and mutually acceptable political solution’. This change was not accidental: it reflected the international community's recognition that the referendum was unworkable due to the impossibility of identifying who was entitled to vote after decades of population displacement.
Resolution 1754 of 2007 marked the beginning of this metamorphosis by welcoming the Moroccan autonomy proposal presented that same year, describing it as ‘serious and credible’. Since then, each successive resolution has reinforced this approach, progressively consolidating Moroccan autonomy as the only viable basis for a solution.
Resolution 1920 of 2010 explicitly called for ‘a realistic political solution’, gradually ruling out the separatist thesis. Resolution 2440 of 2018 went a step further by calling for a ‘realistic, viable and lasting political solution’, underlining the need for serious negotiations that include Algeria, explicitly identifying the latter as a key party to the conflict and urging it to make significant active contributions to the process, beyond presenting itself as a mere ‘neighbouring country’ that claims to have nothing to do with this issue.
The 2022 resolution: humanitarian transparency and refugee census
Another new development can be found in the October 2022 resolution, which introduced a reference to the diversion of humanitarian aid, dealing a real diplomatic blow to the Polisario Front and Algeria. Firstly, the Security Council included an explicit reference requesting that ‘the delivery of humanitarian aid be carried out in accordance with UN best practices’. This mention, absent from previous resolutions, constituted an implicit denunciation of the systematic diversion of humanitarian aid perpetrated by the Polisario for decades for personal gain.
This diversion had been confirmed by reports from the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF). The Security Council thus publicly acknowledged a reality that had been denounced for years: aid intended for Sahrawi refugees in the Tindouf camps was systematically diverted for personal gain by members of the Polisario, with the collusion of Algeria.
In relation to the above, the same 2022 resolution strongly reiterated the request to ‘proceed with the registration of refugees in the Tindouf camps’. In other words, to carry out a real census of the camp population. This request, which has been systematically rejected by Algeria and the Polisario for more than twenty-five years, has as one of its objectives to expose the artificial inflation of refugee figures that the Polisario maintains in order to increase the humanitarian aid that it subsequently diverts. The larger the population they declare, the more aid they receive. The more aid, the more diversion and, therefore, the more corruption. The refusal to allow the census reveals the magnitude of the fraud perpetrated over decades.
The 2025 resolution: the definitive change
With regard to the alleged last-minute changes to the text as a means of exerting pressure in favour of the Polisario Front — which some have pointed out in recent days with the intention of downplaying the scope of this resolution — it should be noted that before each annual vote on a Security Council resolution, there are intense diplomatic negotiations between the fifteen members to reach a consensus text, or at least a majority text. In other words, this is a normal annual occurrence, but its intensity varies significantly from year to year depending on the contentiousness of the issue and geopolitical alignments. The fact that even in 2025, with maximum conflict, no permanent member vetoed the resolution shows that even those who might oppose it to a greater or lesser extent recognise the inevitability of the Council establishing Moroccan autonomy as the mandatory basis for negotiations.
In essence, the resolution adopted on 31 October 2025 represents the culmination of eighteen years of diplomatic evolution since 2007. For the first time in history, the Security Council explicitly states that negotiations should be conducted ‘on the basis of Morocco's autonomy proposal,’ recognising that genuine autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty could be the most feasible solution.
This language marks a qualitative leap from all previous resolutions. While previous resolutions merely ‘took note’ of the support expressed by various states for the Moroccan initiative, the 2025 resolution categorically states that this proposal should be the basis for negotiations. As US Ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz pointed out, this is ‘a historic vote’ that recognises that Moroccan autonomy is ‘the only fair and lasting solution’ to the conflict.
The resolution also asks the UN Secretary-General for something unprecedented: to present a strategic review of MINURSO's mandate in six months' time, ‘taking into account the outcome of the negotiations’.
This request for a ‘strategic review of the mandate in six months’ is highly unprecedented and marks an important turning point, comparable to the explicit mention of Moroccan autonomy as a basis for negotiation. A strategic review is radically different. It implies that the Security Council is asking the Secretary-General to assess whether the current mandate is still viable, given the new parameters established in the 2025 resolution. Requesting a ‘strategic review of the mandate’ after 34 years could be equivalent to saying: ‘The original mandate is no longer viable. We need to fundamentally rethink why this mission exists and what it is for.’
This constitutes an implicit admission that the referendum will not happen, and also that the mission would in any case need to reinvent itself on the basis of the recently adopted resolution, with an approach closer to autonomy and not to a referendum. And, ultimately, that if there is no progress in six months, the Council itself could consider the very viability of continuing MINURSO. This would follow the evolutionary logic of what we have been describing: the current resolution is the one that enjoys the greatest legitimacy.
In short, the unprecedented six-monthly review of MINURSO underlines the urgency and conviction of the international community that the time has come to move from managing the stalemate to implementing a definitive solution.
The Polisario Front may continue to insist rhetorically on its supposed ‘legitimate right’ to a referendum, but the reality is clear: the international community has spoken with crystal clarity. The solution to the conflict lies in autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty, not independence. Everything else is mental masturbation by a few to continue deceiving many.