At the request of the Polisario Front, the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal held its first public session on Western Sahara in Brussels on 10 and 11 November 1979. The aim was to examine the issue ahead of the United Nations General Assembly debate on the territory’s decolonisation process. During the proceedings, the legitimacy of the various claims to Western Sahara were analysed in light of international law and the principle of self-determination of peoples.
Using documentation, witness statements and expert testimony, the Tribunal reconstructed the historical and legal context of the conflict, from Spanish decolonisation to the 1975 Madrid Agreements, and examined the positions of Morocco, the Polisario Front and the other parties involved. The session also referred to the International Court of Justice’s advisory opinion and United Nations resolutions recognising the right of the Sahrawi people to self-determination.
Based on the evidence gathered, the Tribunal characterised the situation as an unfinished decolonisation process. It recognised the Sahrawi people as the holders of the right to self-determination and affirmed the illegality of the territory’s occupation and the agreements that provided for its partition without the consent of the local population.
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