Western Sahara

News in Brief

On 10 December, Human Rights Day, the people of Western Sahara, illegally occupied by Morocco for 40 years, won a small victory when the European Union’s court of justice (ECJ) overturned a 2012 EU-Morocco trade agreement.

The ECJ said that the agreement (on agricultural, processed agricultural and fisheries products) wrongly covered produce from the occupied territory of Western Sahara. This is illegal unless the people of the territory are consulted, said Western Sahara Resource Watch.

The ECJ is also considering an EU-Morocco fisheries agreement, and a case brought by Western Sahara Campaign UK, on the labelling of goods.