Christopher Nolan, known for directing blockbusters like Memento, Interstellar and Oppenheimer, is facing public backlash for filming scenes of his new film, The Odyssey, in part of north Africa called Western Sahara.
The territory, formerly known as Spanish Sahara when it was administered from Madrid, was occupied by the Moroccan military in the 1970s and unlawfully annexed. It remains classified by the UN as a “non-self-governing territory” awaiting decolonisation.
The recent controversy concerns the filming of part of The Odyssey in Dahkla, a Western Saharan city on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean. It has brought attention to one of the most overlooked and protracted armed conflicts in the modern world, now 50 years old.
Since Spain’s withdrawal in 1975, Western Sahara has been entangled in a territorial dispute involving an Algeria-backed national liberation movement called the Polisario Front, Morocco and, briefly, Mauritania. Amid serious human rights concerns, Morocco now occupies around 80% of the territory.
This is despite a landmark 1975 International Court of Justice (ICJ) advisory opinion affirming that the indigenous Sahrawi people have the right to decide whether to join Morocco or form their own state in a UN-backed referendum.
The referendum, which has been repeatedly delayed, is intended to ensure the free expression of the will of the Sahrawi people. Known as the “people of the Sahara”, the Sahrawi are made up of numerous tribes with a shared culture. They are a distinct ethnic group from Moroccans.
Only part of the Sahrawi people continue to live in Western Sahara under Morocco’s control. Most have fled to Algerian refugee camps supported by the UN Refugee Agency.
It was from Algeria, in 1976, that the Polisario Front declared the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR). The Polisario Front claims to represent the Sahrawi people and is considered a legitimate interlocutor by the UN and EU.
The SADR is now a member of the African Union and has, over the years, been recognised (and sometimes un-recognised) by numerous states. Yet it is far from being universally recognised, and Morocco and Polisario continue to engage in armed hostilities for territorial control.
Only a referendum could determine whether the Sahrawi want to be Moroccans or have their own state. But five decades on from the ICJ’s advisory opinion, no such referendum has been held. Meanwhile, Morocco has entrenched its control of Western Sahara, or what it calls the “Southern Provinces”.
It has done so by changing the demographic composition of the population by civil and military means, and bolstering international support for its 2007 autonomy plan. The plan offers limited self-rule for Sahrawis under Moroccan sovereignty, and is harshly opposed by Polisario and Sahrawi groups.
Recognising Moroccan sovereignty
In 2020, under the first Trump administration, the US became the first major power to recognise the autonomy plan and Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara. This was part of a diplomatic quid pro quo for Rabat’s normalisation of ties with Israel under the Abraham Accords. Washington has recently reaffirmed its position.
Other global players have followed suit. Spain endorsed the autonomy plan in 2022, despite maintaining an ambiguous policy of “active neutrality”. And France officially recognised Morocco’s sovereignty in 2024.
In June 2025, the UK stated that the autonomy plan represents “the most credible, viable and pragmatic basis for a mutually agreed and lasting solution to the Western Sahara dispute” in a joint communiqué with Morocco. This was despite affirming later that the territory remains of “undetermined” status.
Growing support for Morocco’s sovereignty claims is driven by several geopolitical interests. These include energy security, investment opportunities, counter-terrorism cooperation, migration management and regional influence.
Western Sahara is rich in phosphates, fisheries and potential offshore oil and gas reserves. Major infrastructure projects there, including water management, ports and renewables, are luring international investors.
More recently, Morocco has expanded its focus to tourism and transport development and, as seen with Nolan’s film and its plans to co-host the 2030 Fifa men’s World Cup, apparently also the entertainment industry.
Rabat seems to be using development as a means of domination. And its growing economic clout and regional influence are shifting the cost-benefit calculus of world powers to take Morocco’s side in this dispute. This has made support for legal principles politically inconvenient.
But legal principles matter and consistently support the Sahrawi position. In 2022, the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights reaffirmed that Morocco’s continued occupation violates the Sahrawi people’s right to self-determination. This right is a “jus cogens norm” in international law, meaning it is binding on all states and cannot be derogated from.
The International Law Commission stipulates that third states must neither recognise situations arising from breaches of such norms nor assist in their maintenance. This position was reaffirmed by the ICJ in July 2024. In its advisory opinion on Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories, it reiterated that states and international organisations should not aid or assist the maintenance of illegal occupations.
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This further implies that states should disengage from their investments in Western Sahara unless these have been agreed with the Sahrawi people. In October 2024, the EU’s Court of Justice annulled EU-Morocco trade and fisheries agreements where these applied to Western Sahara. It cited the lack of Sahrawi consent in violation of self-determination.
The growing diplomatic endorsement of Morocco’s autonomy plan risks legitimising an unlawful occupation under the veneer of pragmatism. The normalisation of occupation sets a troubling precedent for other territorial disputes around the world, from Ukraine and Palestine to Syria and Kashmir.
Some argue that Morocco’s autonomy plan represents a “realistic” solution to an intractable conflict. But decisions imposed without consent are not solutions, as they lead to further opposition and conflict. Privileging power over principle would betray the Sahrawi people and jeopardise international law.
Andrea Maria Pelliconi, Lecturer in Human Rights Law, University of Southampton
Victor Kattan, Assistant Professor of Public International Law, University of Nottingham
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
