Oil deals cause concern

Foreign companies that prospect for oil in Western Sahara without due regard for its people's wishes would be violating international legal principles relating to non-self-governing territories, UN News reported the UN's top legal officer as saying on Tuesday. The assessment by Legal Counsel Hans Corell, contained in a letter made public at UN headquarters in New York, was in response to a UN Security Council request for an opinion on Morocco's right to sign certain contracts with foreign oil companies with regard to mineral resources in Western Sahara. Morocco, which annexed most of the former Spanish colony in November 1975, signed deals last year with French oil giant TotalFinaElf and US energy company Kerr-McGee, the Financial Times of London reported. However, Corell said the contracts, which dealt with oil reconnaissance and evaluation, did not entail the exploitation or physical removal of the minerals. "The legal counsel concludes that as such the specific contracts dealt with in the Security Council's request were not in themselves illegal," UN News reported. "If, however, further exploration and exploitation activities were to proceed without respect to the interests and wishes of the people of Western Sahara, the contracts would be in violation of international legal principles dealing with non-self-governing territories." Determining who are the people of Western Sahara has been a question the United Nations has been wrestling with for the past 10 years. Disagreement between Morocco and the Polisario, the group fighting for the independence of Western Sahara, on who is eligible to vote has frustrated UN plans to hold a referendum on self-determination for the territory.