Western Sahara

Big Powers at the UN Are Hanging Western Sahara Out to Dry

November 5, 2019

A stunning policy reversal by the United States regarding Western Sahara occurred last week, but it didn’t make many headlines. What happened? When the United Nations Security Council adopted a new resolution on Western Sahara, renewing the mandate of the UN peacekeeping mission —Minurso — there for another 12 months, the action meant America’s …

Africa, US Foreign Relations, US-UN Relations, WORLDVIEWS

One Comment

GEOPOLITICS

The US Is Driving the New Talks on Western Sahara, Involving Morocco and Algeria

December 2, 2018

by Stéphanie Fillion

Horst Koehler, a former German president who has been the United Nations special envoy for Western Sahara since last year, is bringing the parties to the longstanding conflict over that region to a roundtable meeting in Geneva soon. Koehler expressed his intent last summer to bring all the relevant players together by the end …

Africa, Geopolitics, Security Council, US Foreign Relations, US-UN Relations

Leave a Comment

WORLDVIEWS

The UN’s Three Main Bodies Are Failing to Do Their Job

October 11, 2016

by Mona Ali Khalil

“Those who seek to bestow legitimacy must themselves embody it, and those who invoke international law must themselves submit to it.” So spoke United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan at the 59th session of the UN General Assembly on Sept. 22, 2004. Annan’s statement should be understood to apply to the principal organs of …

WORLDVIEWS

One Comment

BOOKS

UN Peacekeeping: A Portrait of More Than 50 Years

December 28, 2015

by Helmut Volger

For many people in the world, the United Nations is often associated with peacekeeping, one of the most visible activities of the world body in its efforts to maintain international peace and security. Peacekeeping was created in the late 1940s and developed over decades into an ambitious instrument to contain severe political and military …

BOOKS

Leave a Comment

UN-Scripted: PassBlue's exclusive podcast series

Master of Science in Humanitarian Studies at Fordham University

Mostly, Sahrawi Women Just Want to Go Home

March 5, 2015

by Johanna Higgs

NEAR TINDOUF, Algeria — Our goal was to understand the dynamics of women who live in the refugee camps here in the Sahara Desert, where tens of thousands of Sahrawi people reside in tents and mud-brick buildings, having fled their homeland up to decades ago. The camps originated in 1975-1976, when the Sahrawis first …

Africa, Refugees, Security Council, UN Peacekeeping, Women

Leave a Comment

Western Sahara: A Chance for Change or to Stay Stuck in Time

April 10, 2013

by Dulcie Leimbach

The saga of Western Sahara, a disputed territory that has been stuck in limbo in North Africa for decades, will receive its annual nod this month by the United Nations Security Council, but this time actual changes may be afoot if the council acts more decisively, particularly on human-rights matters. Christopher Ross, the UN …

Africa, Human Rights, Peace and Security, Refugees, Security Council

Leave a Comment

Support Independent Journalism - Support PassBlue - Find out how →