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International Law and the Question of Western Sahara. Edited by Karin Arts and Pedro Pinto Leite. Leiden, The Netherlands: International Platform of Jurists for East Timor (IPJET); Oporto, Portugal: Ediçôes Afrontamento, 2007. Pp. 352, map, photographs. euro25.00.
On 30 April 2008, the United Nations Security Council enacted what was perhaps its most controversial resolution with respect to its efforts to resolve the three-decades-old Western Sahara conflict, one which it appeared, disappointed at least a few of the countries that publicly lent their support to it. Resolution 1813, while paying homage to the principle of self-determination for the territory's people in its first substantive paragraph, veered off this course just a few lines later, when it twice noted-with evident approval-a Moroccan proposal to give the former Spanish colony limited internal autonomy without its inhabitants being given the option to establish a fully independent Saharan Arab Democratic Republic (SADR). An alternative proposal made to the UN Secretary-General by the Polisario Front, Morocco's opponent, was only glancingly mentioned at the end of the same paragraph. Then, matters got steadily worse for the Saharawi people: the Council endorsed the UN chiefs report and stated that "realism and a spirit of compromise by the parties are essential to maintain the momentum of the process of negotiations," (UN security Council Resolution S/RES/1813 of 30 April 2008, p. 2) by which was meant several rounds of indirect Morocco-Polisario talks held at a suburban estate in Manhasset, New York, a few miles from New York City. The Manhasset discussions had not produced any noteworthy results (although some observers believed that Rabat was being drawn more deeply into recognizing Polisario as a legitimate party to the dispute) but the language of the resolution was troubling, especially when compared with earlier comments by the UN Secretary-General's personal envoy to Western Sahara,...