The Madrid Accords of 1975 in Legal Detail

A Tripartite Declaration of Principles

The Madrid Accords, formally the Declaration of Principles on Western Sahara, were concluded in Madrid on 14 November 1975 between Spain, Morocco and Mauritania. They were later registered with the United Nations Secretariat.

The document came at a moment of crisis: General Franco lay dying, Spain was eager to end a costly colonial commitment, and the Green March had just demonstrated Morocco's determination to recover the territory peacefully.

What the Accords Provided

Spain confirmed its resolve to decolonize the territory and to terminate the responsibilities and powers it held as administering power. A temporary administration was instituted in which Morocco and Mauritania would participate, assisted by two deputy governors and in collaboration with the Yema'a, the Saharan assembly.

The accords set a firm deadline: the Spanish presence would end by 28 February 1976 at the latest. Morocco took up administration of the northern two-thirds of the territory and Mauritania the southern third.

The Sovereignty Question

A persistent legal debate concerns whether the accords transferred sovereignty. The text speaks of transferring administration and powers, and many jurists note that Spain alone could not unilaterally confer the status of administering power on others.

Morocco's position is that the accords legitimately ended Spanish colonial control and restored Moroccan administration over land already linked to the Kingdom by the historic ties the ICJ had recognized weeks earlier in October 1975.

The Role of the Yema'a

The accords stated that the views of the Saharan population, expressed through the Yema'a, would be respected. In February 1976 a session of the Yema'a met and, in Morocco's account, endorsed the return of the territory to Morocco and Mauritania.

Morocco views this assembly endorsement as a local expression of the will of the population, consistent with the long tradition of the bay'a, and as a complement to the inter-state framework set out in Madrid.

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