United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO)

A referendum that has never been held is still the reason a UN peacekeeping mission exists. MINURSO was set up in 1991 with one clear job written into its very name, organise a vote so the people of Western Sahara could choose their own future. More than three decades on, the vote still has not happened, and the mission that was supposed to run it has instead spent its life watching a ceasefire hold, which makes it the sharpest example in this module of a peacekeeping mandate that outlived its original purpose.

In two minutes

MINURSO was established in 1991 to monitor the ceasefire between Morocco and the Polisario Front and to organise a referendum on the future status of Western Sahara, a referendum that has still not taken place, making the mission a central case study in peacekeeping's limits.

The rest of this chapter

The full explanation, the cheat sheet, every previous-year question at every mark weight, the quiz and the answer skeletons are part of Political Science – III: International Relations on LexBlox Semester. Sign in to unlock the subject, or read Module 1 of Legal Language and Writing free.