Weaponisation of citizenship: two wrongs will not make a right (or respect rights) Although the Russian policy is to offer facilitated naturalization rather than impose its nationality unilaterally, it has been argued that “individualized naturalizations are illegal under international law if the affected persons’ consent is not free”.162 Others consider that, while this argument goes beyond the current state of international law, the Ukraine case raises “the possibility of non-recognition [of Russian nationality acquired in this way] based on breach of recognized international norms”, because the grant of nationality is associated with an act of aggression.163 The decades-old occupation of Western Sahara by Morocco and attribution of nationality to those resident there provides a frame through which to consider the impact of these views in the longer term. Western Sahara The status of the former Spanish territory of Western Sahara has been disputed between the Kingdom of Morocco and the Polisario Front independence movement for almost 50 years.164 When Spain finally agreed to apply the principle of self-determination to the previously Spanish territory in 1975, the UN Security Council referred the situation to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the successor to the PCIJ. In its 1975 Advisory Opinion,165 the court rejected the claims of both Morocco and Mauritania to the territory, meaning that an option for independence had to be put to referendum. Just days after the ICJ ruling, Moroccan armed forces crossed the border and occupied most of the northern part of the Western Sahara territory; followed by a ‘green march’ of tens of thousands of Moroccan civilians to ‘reclaim’ the region for Morocco. Mauritania subsequently withdrew its claim, leaving the territory in the control of Morocco. Since 1991, a UN mission has had the brief to organise a referendum on the status of Western Sahara, but, despite some overtures from time to time, there is no agreement on terms – in particular on who should have the right to vote.166 While this dispute has remained unresolved, with Morocco in occupation of the territory, tens of thousands of former residents of the territory and their descendants, known as Sahrawis, have lived as refugees in Algeria; while the descendants of those who remained in Western Sahara are now outnumbered four-to-one by people who have moved to the territory from within the internationally recognised borders of Morocco.167 Only a narrow strip in the east is under the control of the Polisario’s Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), which also administers perhaps 100,000 people living in camps near the southern Algerian oasis town of Tindouf.168 The population in the area of Western Sahara under Moroccan administration is assessed by the Moroccan authorities at around half a million people.169 Morocco considers the great majority of these residents (those who do not have another nationality) to be Moroccan nationals, and issues identity documents and passports accordingly. The refugees are generally not able to acquire Algerian nationality, although they may for some purposes be issued Algerian passports as travel documents, on the request of the SADR authorities. Neither Moroccan sovereignty nor status as “administering power” of the territory under the legal framework for non-self-governing territories have been recognized by the UN or the Organisation of African Unity/African Union.170 In 2018, the Court of Justice of the European Union, ruling in the context of a challenge to a fisheries agreement with Morocco, affirmed that ‘the territory of Western Sahara is not covered by the concept of “territory of Morocco”’.171 162 Peters A., Passportisation: ‘Risks for international law and stability – Part I’, EJIL: Talk!, 9 May 2019, Passportisation: Risks for international law and stability – Part I – EJIL: Talk! (ejiltalk.org). 163 Fripp E., ‘Passportisation: Risks for International Law and Stability – Response to Anne Peters’, EJIL:Talk!, 30 May 2019, Passportisation: Risks for International Law and Stability – Response to Anne Peters – EJIL: Talk! (ejiltalk.org). 164 Hodges, T. (1984), ‘The Western Sahara File’, Third World Quarterly, 6(1), 74–116. 165 Western Sahara, Advisory Opinion, [1975] ICJ Rep 12, 16 October 1975. 166 UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (1991). 167 ‘Human Rights in Western Sahara and in the Tindouf Refugee Camps,’ Human Rights Watch, 19 December 2008, Human Rights in Western Sahara and in the Tindouf Refugee Camps | HRW. 168 UNHCR’s Refugee Population Statistics Database 2023, UNHCR - Refugee Statistics. 169 Ghaedi M., ‘Morocco and Western Sahara: A new conflict brewing?’, DW Times, 19 July 2023, https://www.dw.com/en/moroccos-territorial-claims-on-western-sahara-a-new-conflict-brewing/a-66288761. 170 See Non-Self-Governing Territories | The United Nations and Decolonization. 171 Western Sahara Campaign UK v. Commissioners for Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs and Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Judgment of the Court (Grand Chamber) of 27 February 2018, ECLI:EU:C:2018:118. 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