Op-ed: “The Polisario II judgment: tensions with International Law and with the EU Political Institutions”

On 4 October 2024, the Court of Justice rendered a landmark ruling in Polisario II (C‑779/21 P and C‑799/21 P). The case was brought by Front Polisario, a self-determination movement of the Sahrawi people of Western Sahara. Western Sahara is a non-self-governing territory which since 1975 has been occupied and largely controlled by Morocco. While the UN and the International Court of Justice recognises the right to self-determination of Western Sahara, the Sahrawi people never had the chance to exercise this right and its legal personality remains contentious in the international plane (Naili (2022)). The CJEU has never had to deal directly with this conflict or the issue of statehood, but has addressed it indirectly in cases concerning