Background
Since its accession to independence in 1956, Morocco has considered Spanish Sahara to be part of its pre-colonial territory, and Spain had largely decolonized its foreign holdings, including much of Spanish Morocco, but had retained the Spanish Sahara. In 1958, the Moroccan Army of Liberation fought the Spanish forces in the Ifni War. After support from France, Spain regained control of the region but returned the regions of Tarfaya, and Tantan to Morocco. Morocco continued to demand the return the remaining regions, Ifni, Saguia el-Hamra and Rio De Oro and several other regions (Mauritania, part of Algeria & part of Mali) colonized by France. During the 1960s, Morocco succeeded in getting Spanish Sahara to be listed on the list of territories to be decolonized, and on December 20, 1966, United Nations General Assembly Resolution 2229 called on Spain to hold a referendum on self-determination in the region.
After initially resisting all claims by Morocco and Mauritania (which also started laying claims to parts of the region), Spain announced on August 20, 1974, that a referendum on self-determination would be held in the first six months of 1975 and took a census of the region in order to assess the voting population.
Morocco declared it cannot accept a referendum which would include an option for independence and renewed its demands for the reintegration of the remaining provinces of Saguia el-Hamra and Rio de Oro to the country's sovereignty. In Mauritania, a smaller movement existed to overtake some amount of the territory, partitioning it with Morocco.
Algerian-Moroccan relations had been strained since Algeria's independence in 1962, culminating in the Sand war, and a lack of normalized relations. Algeria, after initially supporting Morocco and Mauritania in their demands, started in 1975 to support the independence of the territory. The Algerian official position was that it supported the right of self-determination of the people of the former Spanish colony. The Polisario Front, created in 1973, a national liberation movement known as Polisario (Spanish: "Frente Popular de Liberación de Saguia el-Hamra y Río de Oro" English: "Popular Front for the Liberation of Saguia el-Hamra and Rio de Oro") was formed in 1973 to expel the Spaniards. They engaged in several low-level acts of property destruction, mostly localized around the Fosbucraa conveyor belt, which exported the rich phosphates to the Atlantic Ocean.
On September 17, 1974, King Hassan II announced his intention to bring the issue to the ICJ. In December, Spain agreed to delay the referendum pending the opinion of the court. They gave their support to ICJ submission on the grounds that it be a non-binding, advisory opinion, rather than a "contentious issue", where the ruling would oblige the interested states to act in a particular manner.
On December 13, the United Nations General Assembly voted on submission, resulting in UN General Assembly Resolution 3292, affirming it and defining the wording of the questions to be submitted. Algeria was among the nations voting in favor, and several Third World nations abstained.
Read more about this topic: International Court Of Justice Advisory Opinion On Western Sahara
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