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Western Sahara—Political and Legal Aspects of an Unfinished Decolonisation
By Jan Voderadsky
Abstract
The problem of Western Sahara is, after the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the second most protracted territorial dispute, charging the agenda of the international community. For almost 30 years it has been attended to by the United Nations, especially its Security Council, which adopted dozens of resolutions concerning the issue (so far, unfortunately, without the desired effect).
The Slovak Republic, which starting from 1 January 2006 is likely to become for the two-year period a member of the UN Security Council, must be well prepared to tackle this relatively less known subject. The aim of the article is to summarise the problems and chronology of the conflict, to point to the principal distinctiveness of the two existing methods of approach to its solution, i.e. those based on international legality and power politics respectively, as well as to draw the basic lines which the Slovak analysis should take into consideration in the process of the defining of its own position.