The statement presented by Morocco before the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva was not simply another announcement of the number of countries supporting the Kingdom on the issue of the Moroccan Sahara. What stands out is that forty countries chose to affirm, within one of the United Nations’ principal institutions dealing with human rights, their support for Morocco’s full and complete sovereignty over its southern provinces, while directly linking that position to the political process led by the Security Council.
"Nous n’abandonnerons jamais personne."
À l’ouverture de la 63e session du Conseil des droits de l’homme ce matin, @volker_turk a rappelé que les droits humains sont une boussole en ces temps troublés. Ils sont porteurs d’espoir et apportent des solutions concrètes à nos défis. pic.twitter.com/UGE4jWb2gS
— ONU Genève (@ONUGeneve) September 7, 2026
During the general debate of the 63rd session of the Human Rights Council, Ambassador Omar Zniber, Morocco’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Office and other international organizations in Geneva, announced that he was speaking on behalf of a group of forty countries supporting Moroccan sovereignty over the southern provinces.
The statement leaves little ambiguity about the nature of that position. The signatories affirmed that the Moroccan Sahara issue remains a political dispute falling within the mandate of the Security Council, and that its settlement should continue through the UN political process established for it, away from any political instrumentalization of the Human Rights Council’s mechanisms.
This position carries particular significance because the statement does not merely express support for Morocco. It places that support within the framework that now shapes the UN process: Security Council Resolution 2797, adopted on 31 October 2025.
The forty countries therefore expressed their support for implementing the resolution and relaunching the political process. They also renewed their support for Morocco’s autonomy initiative under Moroccan sovereignty, presenting it as a realistic solution that can serve as a basis for efforts aimed at reaching a final settlement of the dispute.
The signatories also welcomed what they described as Morocco’s updating of its autonomy initiative and its more detailed formulation, considering the Moroccan proposal a practical basis upon which efforts to resolve the dispute can build.
Autonomy therefore does not appear in the statement as an idea detached from the UN process. It is presented as part of the political discussion that the latest Security Council resolution places at the center of efforts to reach a settlement.
In Geneva, Morocco also insisted on another principle: human rights should not become a means of changing the nature of the dispute or transferring the issue from the Security Council to other United Nations mechanisms.
The statement called on member states to ensure that their engagement with the Human Rights Council and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights remains free from political instrumentalization, while stressing the independence of human rights mechanisms from political disputes.
The Moroccan position does not diminish the importance of human rights. Rather, it defends the respective mandates of UN institutions and the framework within which each is expected to operate. According to the approach reaffirmed by Morocco and its partners in the statement, the dispute over the Moroccan Sahara has a clearly defined political framework within the Security Council. Human rights mechanisms, for their part, should carry out their mandate without being turned into another arena for political confrontation.
The forty signatories did not limit their statement to the political dimension. They also welcomed Morocco’s commitment to ensuring the return and reintegration of the populations of the Tindouf camps, on the basis of equality with other Moroccan citizens and with international guarantees.
That issue forms part of a broader conception of a settlement—one that does not treat the populations of the camps merely as an element of a political dossier, but as a human component of any genuine solution capable of bringing to an end a situation that has lasted for decades.
Morocco also links this prospect to the wider regional future. According to the vision reaffirmed by the Kingdom before the Human Rights Council, ending the dispute would not merely close an old political file. It would also create greater space for cooperation, integration and development across the African and Arab spheres.
This approach comes at a time when Morocco’s southern provinces occupy an increasingly visible place in the Kingdom’s African and international relations, through investment, development projects and growing diplomatic representation in Laayoune and Dakhla.
The statement backed by forty countries does not, by itself, settle the dispute, nor does it remove the need to continue the political process under the auspices of the Security Council. It does, however, reveal an increasingly visible diplomatic direction within international institutions: support for Morocco’s sovereignty over its southern provinces, support for the autonomy initiative under Moroccan sovereignty, and recognition of the Security Council-led political process as the framework for settlement.
In Geneva, the forty countries also made clear that the Moroccan Sahara issue should not become an instrument for political maneuvering within the international human rights system. Defending human rights does not require politicizing UN mechanisms or using them outside their respective mandates.
For Morocco, the task remains to consolidate this process and broaden international support for this approach, while continuing efforts to make the autonomy initiative the realistic and practical framework for a definitive settlement of the dispute.
In this dynamic, Morocco was not alone in Geneva. Forty countries joined it in reaffirming that the future of the Moroccan Sahara lies in a realistic political solution under Moroccan sovereignty—not in moving the issue from one UN institution to another.
