Sumar presents a bill that would prevent Spain from recognizing Moroccan sovereignty over the Sahara

Eduardo González The Sumar Plurinational Parliamentary Group in Congress has presented a Bill calling on Spain to comply with its international obligations of "non-recognition and non-assistance" in cases of "illegal occupation of territories." This implies that it should not recognize "expressly or tacitly" the sovereignty or administration of an occupying power "over an illegally occupied territory," with express mention of Western Sahara, among others. The proposal by Sumar (a minority partner in Pedro Sánchez's coalition government), presented on May 28 by MP Teslem Andala Ubbi (better known as Tesh Sidi, born in the Sahrawi refugee camps in Tindouf) and published this Friday in the Official Gazette of the Lower House, recalls that compliance with international law, and in particular international humanitarian law and international human rights law, "constitutes an essential element for preserving international peace and security, protecting civilian populations in conflict situations, and ensuring respect for the principle of legality in relations between States." It is, it continues, "a robust regulatory framework that Spain, as a State Party to the United Nations Charter and an active member of the international community, has incorporated into its legal system," which obliges our country to "respect, protect, and enforce the set of international norms that prohibit the illegal occupation of territories, annexation by force, and the consolidation of situations arising from serious violations of international law." He also recalls that "the principle of the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by force constitutes a fundamental norm of the international order, consolidated since the adoption of the United Nations Charter in 1945," and that this principle was reaffirmed "clearly" by the Security Council in 1967, which declared "the acquisition of territory by war inadmissible" and demanded "the withdrawal of armed forces from occupied territories." In addition, the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, ratified by Spain in 1952, establishes that "the occupying power may not transfer part of its civilian population into occupied territory or carry out de facto annexations." "These provisions have been repeatedly interpreted by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) as peremptory norms of general international law that do not permit any agreement to the contrary," Sumar continues. These principles, warns the group led by Vice President Yolanda Díaz, imply "the legal invalidity of Israeli settlements in occupied territory," oblige "all States to distinguish in their relevant relations between the territory of the State of Israel and the territories occupied since 1967," and urge "all States not to recognize the situation of occupation of the Palestinian Territory." "Similar situations have been confirmed in relation to Western Sahara, where the Security Council and the General Assembly have reaffirmed the right of the Sahrawi people to self-determination and rejected Morocco's annexation attempts," it continues. "The annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation and the occupation of part of Cyprus by Turkey since 1974 have also been the subject of international condemnation," it adds. "Neither expressly nor tacitly" For all these reasons, the Bill establishes that "no public sector entity (...) may recognize, expressly or tacitly, as legitimate the sovereignty or administration exercised by an occupying power over an illegally occupied territory." For all these reasons, the opening of diplomatic or consular representations in occupied territories, the signing of international treaties that include occupied territories as part of the occupying state, participation in official acts, international events, institutional visits, or public programs, and the use in public documentation, educational materials, or official cartography of names, geographical references, or symbols that normalize or legitimize illegal occupation are prohibited. Furthermore, "Spanish authorities and public entities must refrain from collaborating, directly or indirectly, in maintaining situations of illegal occupation" and "the conclusion of any type of bilateral or multilateral agreement or legal transaction of a political, commercial, military, economic, cultural, sports, technological, academic, scientific, institutional, or other nature with the power illegally occupying a territory is prohibited." Participation in activities involving the extraction, commercialization, transportation, or economic exploitation of natural resources from illegally occupied territories is also "expressly prohibited," "unless the free and authentic consent of the protected population and exclusive benefit for them can be proven." The Proposal also calls on public administrations to guarantee, "at all times," the legal, administrative, and geographical distinction between the legitimate territory of the occupying power and illegally occupied territories. It urges the Spanish State to actively promote "respect for international law with regard to illegally occupied territories" in the European and international forums and organizations of which it is a member, and especially in the United Nations system, as well as to promote "multilateral measures aimed at ending situations of illegal occupation and guaranteeing the effective exercise of the right of peoples to self-determination." Western Sahara If the Bill is passed, it could clash with the abrupt and unexpected about-turn taken by Pedro Sánchez's government in March 2022, when it decided to endorse the Moroccan autonomy plan for Western Sahara, the former Spanish colony occupied by Morocco since 1976, considering it "the most serious, credible, and realistic basis for resolving this dispute." This measure helped overcome the extremely serious diplomatic crisis with Morocco, but was rejected by the rest of the parliamentary group, including Sumar and the other governing partners. Last October, the Spanish government avoided any pronouncement on the decision by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) to annul the 2019 trade agreements between the European Union and Morocco, arguing that the people of Western Sahara had not been adequately consulted, despite the direct impact on their territory's resources. "We respect the decisions of the Court of Justice of the European Union," declared Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares before the Foreign Affairs Committee of Congress.

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