The advance version of the UN Secretary-General’s 2026 report (S/2026/781) prompted divergent interpretations in Moroccan and international media. International coverage emphasized self-determination and the Sahrawi population’s consent as prerequisites for a negotiated, mutually acceptable settlement of the Sahara question. Moroccan media, by contrast, viewed the report as reaffirming the central value of Rabat’s autonomy proposal. 

Neither interpretation is necessarily right or wrong. Each, however, must be assessed against the legal and political evolution of the issue within the United Nations. 

That evolution helps explain how—and why—the principles often presented as competing positions of the parties concerned converged for the first time following the UN Security Council’s adoption of Resolution 2797 in October 2025. 

The UN Charter remains the governing framework. It recognizes the principle of self-determination and requires States to resolve disputes peacefully and in good faith. In 1975, Morocco demonstrated its commitment to a peaceful resolution by referring the matter to the International Court of Justice. 

The Court’s advisory opinion confirmed the existence of legal ties between Morocco and the Sahrawi tribes but concluded that those ties did not establish territorial sovereignty. It further emphasized the requirement for a free and genuine expression of the will of the territory’s population, without identifying independence as the sole institutional outcome. 

‘Back to Square One’ and ‘Ras le Bol’ 

The International press assessment reflects, though in legal terms, a ‘Back to Square One’ attitude, whereas that of the Moroccan press fully rejects, for evident reasons, any reference to previous architectures that have shown their limits, and thus expresses its ‘Ras le Bol’, aware that the issue has consumed, for more than half a century, enormous resources, energies and efforts, and has mostly eroded the country’s patience. 

It is worth mentioning that before Morocco presented its Autonomy Plan (2007), three successive UN attempts to resolve the issue failed and have never converged, due to their different assumptions about self-determination, the parties’ respective responsibilities, and the links between a negotiated settlement and a referendum. 

The first initiative, the Settlement Plan (1988–1991), developed under Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, established a clear sequence: a ceasefire followed by a UN-supervised referendum offering a choice between integration with Morocco and independence. Its viability, however, depended on an agreed electorate. Persistent disputes over voter identification and eligibility therefore undermined the process and ultimately prevented MINURSO, the relevant UN mission, from delivering the referendum at the heart of the Plan. 

The second attempt, the Framework Agreement (2001), during Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s tenure (also referred to as “Baker I”), proposed self-government with substantial local powers for the Polisario, an interim status without first resolving sovereignty permanently, which led to disagreements over the distribution of authority and the legitimacy of the proposed political arrangement. 

The third initiative, the Baker II Peace Plan (2003), offered a structured path toward a final settlement. By combining transitional self-government with a subsequent referendum on final status, it sought to preserve local political participation, defer the sovereignty question during the transition, and bridge the parties’ competing positions. Despite these advantages and the Security Council’s support, disagreements over voter eligibility, referendum options, and the consequences of the vote remained unresolved. The Plan was therefore not implemented. 

The Moroccan press reading reflects, therefore, a national unequivocal support to the Autonomy plan, as a proposal that overcomes the limits of all three previous initiatives, to acquire greater importance within the UN political process that finally led the Security Council to adopt it as a basis for negotiations, and to recognize, even while retaining self-determination as the objective, that “genuine autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty could constitute a feasible solution”. 

The Secretary-General’s October 2026 report appears then to take the process further by addressing practical elements of a possible settlement, including transitional arrangements, self-government, electoral mechanisms, resource-sharing, reconciliation, security and guarantees. 

This evolution does not mean that the UN has imposed autonomy or definitively settled the status of the Sahara. Rather, it has moved from a predominantly referendum-centered decolonization paradigm toward a negotiated political settlement proposal, in which autonomy is being examined as a “possible institutional vehicle for exercising self-determination”. 

The Off-side Player: A Non-Party Political Participant 

In this evolving framework, Algeria too requires particular attention. Its assertion that it is not a party to the dispute does not remove its obligations as a UN member, or the relevance of its conduct in the political process; even though political influence does not automatically create international legal responsibility for the conduct of another actor. 

Any legal analysis of Algeria’s stance should, therefore, distinguish between the latter’s political role and its obligations under the UN Charter, including any possible responsibility arising from its conduct under the law of State responsibility. 

Article 33 of the UN Charter requires the parties to a dispute likely to endanger international peace and security to seek a solution through negotiation, mediation, conciliation, arbitration, judicial settlement or other peaceful means. 

Furthermore, the UN Charter does not prescribe a single institutional form through which self-determination must be exercised, and the broader UN practice recognizes different constitutional outcomes, provided that they correspond to the freely expressed wishes of the concerned population. The legal proposition is, therefore, not necessarily “self-determination equals independence”, it is “self-determination requires the people concerned to be able to determine their political status freely and genuinely”. 

UNSC Resolution 2797 introduces a distinction between formal characterization and actual participation, as the contemporary UN process involves Morocco, Polisario, Algeria and Mauritania in consultations and in negotiations. 

Consequently, Algeria’s role can be, today, described as neighboring State and participant in the UN political process, as a political actor, with an increasingly undeniable, factual role, as a State potentially subject to legal consequences for its own conduct, and as a separate question requiring application of the law of State responsibility. Therefore, Algeria’s own conduct must be consistent with its obligations under the UN Charter and other applicable rules of international law. 

Morocco’s 2007 Autonomy Proposal introduced a different institutional approach. Rather than proposing a choice between Moroccan sovereignty and an independent State, it offers extensive self-government for the Sahara within Moroccan sovereignty. 

Its legal relevance therefore depends less on the terminology of autonomy than on its substance. The critical question is whether the proposed arrangement would provide meaningful legislative authority, genuine executive authority, appropriate judicial competence, democratic representation, protection of cultural and political identity, real participation in economic affairs, credible guarantees and, ultimately, genuine political acceptance. 

If these conditions are fulfilled, autonomy can be analyzed as a possible form of internal self-determination rather than as a rejection of self-determination. This is precisely why the evolution of the Security Council’s language is significant. 

A Bridge over Troubled Waters 

UNSC Resolution 2797 moves Morocco’s Autonomy proposal a step forward and creates, for the first time, an important legal and political bridge that paves the way for self-determination, negotiated settlement and genuine autonomy as possible institutional outcome. Its significance lies in the repositioning of autonomy at the centre of the negotiating process. Any reading of the October 2026 UNSG’s report should therefore elevate the discussion from depicting competing legal narratives to participating in the edification of the practical architecture that can address transitional arrangements, a possible transitional council, self-government and electoral mechanisms, resource-sharing, reconciliation, security, international guarantees and consultation with the population. 

All the above elements correspond directly to the substantive requirements that would determine whether autonomy could constitute genuine self-determination. Such an approach also allows the parties to move from disagreement over final status toward agreement on the institutional conditions necessary to make a final settlement viable. 

The reported consideration by the Secretary General Personal Envoy, of “go and see” visits involving people from the Tindouf camps is noteworthy. Its potential significance lies in providing individuals with first-hand information about conditions and the proposed political arrangement, thereby potentially contributing to a meaningful exercise of political choice. 

The report therefore appears to move the UN process closer to the practical question inherited from the ICJ, namely how the Sahrawi population in the Tindouf camps can make  a free and genuine political choice under conditions in which the available alternatives can be meaningfully assessed.