The group was first formed in 2004 as the International Coalition for the Protection of Natural Resources in Western Sahara, with a main focus to stop Kerr-McGee and TotalFinaElf, the two oil companies which carried out seismic exploration activities in Western Sahara at the time.
The network was in short formed as a response to the entry of oil companies into the territory, and to the 2002 UN Legal Opinion which deemed such oil exploration in violation of international law.
On 5 February 2005, at a meeting in Brussels, the group formalised its mission and demands, and renamed to Western Sahara Resource Watch. Many of the activists had a background in the global East Timor and anti-Apartheid solidarity movements, and had inherited the organisational and campaign skills from those solidarity campaigns.
From 2006, WSRW worked on the EU-Morocco trade agreements as a main focus area, while at the same time campaigning to stop the oil and phosphate companies involved in the illegal plunder of the territory.
The association today has an international board of seven, and a secretary based in Belgium.
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US eyes minerals in occupied Western Sahara
Seeking to position itself as a key supplier of strategic minerals for Western powers, Morocco has signed a new agreement with the United States that covers Western Sahara’s waters and the critical minerals harboured there.
TAQA-Moeve obtains land in occupied Western Sahara
Morocco’s push for green hydrogen has taken a decisive step forward - on territory it does not legally own.
EU-Morocco Statement: autonomy without self-determination, law without lawfulness
A joint statement that came out of last week’s EU-Morocco Association Council asks readers to believe in a fiction: that an undefined autonomy plan imposed by an occupying power can satisfy the right to self-determination, and that respect for international law can coexist with the systematic ignoring of the EU’s own highest court.
Greenland Yes, Western Sahara No? The EU’s self-determination test
As the European Union rightly rallies behind Greenlanders’ right to decide their own future in the face of external pressure, a test of the EU’s real commitment to self-determination is quietly unfolding in Brussels.