Christopher Nolan, identified for steering blockbusters like Souvenir, Interstellar and Oppenheimer, is dealing with public backlash for filming scenes of his new movie, The Odyssey, in a part of north Africa known as Western Sahara.
The territory, previously referred to as Spanish Sahara when it used to be administered from Madrid, used to be occupied through the Moroccan army within the Seventies and unlawfully annexed. It stays categorised through the UN as a “non-self-governing territory” looking forward to decolonisation.
The hot controversy considerations the filming of a part of The Odyssey in Dahkla, a Western Saharan town at the coast of the Atlantic Ocean. It has introduced consideration to one of the crucial lost sight of and chronic armed conflicts within the fashionable global, now 50 years outdated.
Since Spain’s withdrawal in 1975, Western Sahara has been entangled in a territorial dispute involving an Algeria-backed nationwide liberation motion known as the Polisario Entrance, Morocco and, in brief, Mauritania. Amid severe human rights considerations, Morocco now occupies round 80% of the territory.
That is regardless of a landmark 1975 World Court docket of Justice (ICJ) advisory opinion asserting that the indigenous Sahrawi other folks have the appropriate to come to a decision whether or not to enroll in Morocco or shape their very own state in a UN-backed referendum.
The referendum, which has been many times behind schedule, is meant to make sure the loose expression of the need of the Sahrawi other folks. Referred to as the “people of the Sahara”, the Sahrawi are made up of a large number of tribes with a shared tradition. They’re a definite ethnic crew from Moroccans.
Best a part of the Sahrawi other folks proceed to are living in Western Sahara beneath Morocco’s keep watch over. Maximum have fled to Algerian refugee camps supported through the UN Refugee Company.
Morocco has claimed Western Sahara as its personal since 1975.
Peter Hermes Furian / Shutterstock
It used to be from Algeria, in 1976, that the Polisario Entrance declared the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR). The Polisario Entrance claims to constitute the Sahrawi other folks and is regarded as a valid interlocutor through the UN and EU.
The SADR is now a member of the African Union and has, through the years, been recognised (and every now and then un-recognised) through a large number of states. But it’s a long way from being universally recognised, and Morocco and Polisario proceed to have interaction in armed hostilities for territorial keep watch over.
Just a referendum may decide whether or not the Sahrawi wish to be Moroccans or have their very own state. However 5 a long time on from the ICJ’s advisory opinion, no such referendum has been held. In the meantime, Morocco has entrenched its keep watch over of Western Sahara, or what it calls the “Southern Provinces”.
It has performed so through converting the demographic composition of the inhabitants through civil and armed forces approach, and bolstering world make stronger for its 2007 autonomy plan. The plan gives restricted self-rule for Sahrawis beneath Moroccan sovereignty, and is harshly antagonistic through Polisario and Sahrawi teams.
Recognising Moroccan sovereignty
In 2020, beneath the primary Trump management, the United States turned into the primary main energy to recognise the autonomy plan and Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara. This used to be a part of a diplomatic quid professional quo for Rabat’s normalisation of ties with Israel beneath the Abraham Accords. Washington has just lately reaffirmed its place.
Different world avid gamers have adopted swimsuit. Spain counseled the autonomy plan in 2022, regardless of keeping up an ambiguous coverage of “active neutrality”. And France formally recognised Morocco’s sovereignty in 2024.
In June 2025, the United Kingdom mentioned that the autonomy plan represents “the most credible, viable and pragmatic basis for a mutually agreed and lasting solution to the Western Sahara dispute” in a joint communiqué with Morocco. This used to be regardless of asserting later that the territory stays of “undetermined” standing.
Brahim Ghali, president of the SADR and secretary-general of the Polisario Entrance, attends a Polisario congress at a refugee camp in south-western Algeria in 2023.
STR / EPA
Rising make stronger for Morocco’s sovereignty claims is pushed through a number of geopolitical pursuits. Those come with power safety, funding alternatives, counter-terrorism cooperation, migration control and regional affect.
Western Sahara is wealthy in phosphates, fisheries and doable offshore oil and gasoline reserves. Primary infrastructure tasks there, together with water control, ports and renewables, are luring world traders.
Extra just lately, Morocco has expanded its focal point to tourism and shipping building and, as noticed with Nolan’s movie and its plans to co-host the 2030 Fifa males’s Global Cup, it seems that additionally the leisure trade.
Rabat appears to be the usage of building as a way of domination. And its rising financial clout and regional affect are transferring the cost-benefit calculus of worldwide powers to take Morocco’s aspect on this dispute. This has made make stronger for prison ideas politically inconvenient.
However prison ideas subject and constantly make stronger the Sahrawi place. In 2022, the African Court docket on Human and Peoples’ Rights reaffirmed that Morocco’s persevered profession violates the Sahrawi other folks’s proper to self-determination. This proper is a “jus cogens norm” in world regulation, that means it’s binding on all states and can’t be derogated from.
The World Legislation Fee stipulates that 3rd states should neither recognise eventualities coming up from breaches of such norms nor help of their upkeep. This place used to be reaffirmed through the ICJ in July 2024. In its advisory opinion on Israel’s profession of Palestinian territories, it reiterated that states and world organisations will have to no longer support or help the upkeep of unlawful occupations.
This additional signifies that states will have to disengage from their investments in Western Sahara except those were agreed with the Sahrawi other folks. In October 2024, the EU’s Court docket of Justice annulled EU-Morocco industry and fisheries agreements the place those carried out to Western Sahara. It cited the loss of Sahrawi consent in violation of self-determination.
The rising diplomatic endorsement of Morocco’s autonomy plan dangers legitimising an illegal profession beneath the veneer of pragmatism. The normalisation of profession units a troubling precedent for different territorial disputes around the globe, from Ukraine and Palestine to Syria and Kashmir.
Some argue that Morocco’s autonomy plan represents a “realistic” option to an intractable war. However selections imposed with out consent don’t seem to be answers, as they result in additional opposition and war. Privileging energy over idea would betray the Sahrawi other folks and jeopardise world regulation.
