The Right to Resistance and the Western Sahara: A Twail Analysis of the International Legal Order and Its Constraints on Decolonization

The Western Sahara is often called the Last Colony in the World, in reference to its anachronistic status as a territory deemed to have self-determination by the United Nations and ICJ, but still under the rule of another country. Scholarship on the Western Sahara tends to concentrate on the protracted stalemate in their war of independence against Morocco, highlighting the roles of several individual actors, such as France, the United States, the United Nations, and the Polisario, and how these actors create a particular structure to the conflict. This Note focuses on the role of the International Legal Order, as created and upheld by actors such as the United Nations and the United States, in developing and maintaining the stalemate. First, this Note examines the way the rules on the prohibition on the use of force have asymmetrically limited the ability of the Sahrawi people and the Polisario to respond to colonial violence and to pursue their right to self-determination. Second, this Note examines how the principles of self-determination as defined by the International Legal Order further the power imbalances which allow the oppression of the Western Sahara to continue. Following in the tradition of Third World Approaches to International Law, this Note highlights the displacement of the local legal order in the Western Sahara, and aims to demonstrate that by stifling the right to resistance in the Western Sahara, the International Legal Order merely perpetuates the power imbalances of colonialism

The Right to Resistance and the Western Sahara: A Twail Analysis of the International Legal Order and Its Constraints on Decolonization

The Western Sahara is often called the Last Colony in the World, in reference to its anachronistic status as a territory deemed to have self-determination by the United Nations and ICJ, but still under the rule of another country. Scholarship on the Western Sahara tends to concentrate on the protracted stalemate in their war of independence against Morocco, highlighting the roles of several individual actors, such as France, the United States, the United Nations, and the Polisario, and how these actors create a particular structure to the conflict. This Note focuses on the role of the International Legal Order, as created and upheld by actors such as the United Nations and the United States, in developing and maintaining the stalemate. First, this Note examines the way the rules on the prohibition on the use of force have asymmetrically limited the ability of the Sahrawi people and the Polisario to respond to colonial violence and to pursue their right to self-determination. Second, this Note examines how the principles of self-determination as defined by the International Legal Order further the power imbalances which allow the oppression of the Western Sahara to continue. Following in the tradition of Third World Approaches to International Law, this Note highlights the displacement of the local legal order in the Western Sahara, and aims to demonstrate that by stifling the right to resistance in the Western Sahara, the International Legal Order merely perpetuates the power imbalances of colonialism