The Baker Plan

A United Nations plan to grant Western Sahara self-determination. The United Nations, or UN, is an international organization established in 1945 and now made up of 191 states. ... Self-determination is a principle in international law that a people ought to be able to determine their own governmental forms and structure free from outside influence. ...

Western Sahara's occupation by Morocco since 1975 is challenged by Polisario guerillas living in exile in neighbouring Algeria. Since 1991 a cease-fire is in place, accepted by both parties under the assumption that the UN would organize a referendum on independence. The 1991 referendum plan was however stalled due to disagreements on voter eligibility (Morocco demanding inclusion of its settlers, brought into the territory to out-number the Saharawi indigenous population), and by the late nineties Morocco was openly declaring the referendum a "dead option"; the cease-fire held due to foreign pressures on the Polisario. The Polisario, Polisario Front, or Frente Polisario, from the Spanish abbreviation of Frente Popular de Liberación de Saguía el Hamra y Río de Oro (Peoples Liberation Front of Saguia el Hamra and Rio de Oro) is an army and political movement in the Western Sahara, principally... Sahrawi and Saharawi are terms most commonly used for the natives of the Morocco-administered Western Sahara. ...

The Baker plan aims at instituting Saharan self-rule for a period of five years, whereafter the referendum is to be held, with Moroccan settlers controversially allowed the vote.

The first version of the plan, called Baker I, was delivered by UN special envoy James Baker in 2000, but both parties refused to accept it. The second version (Baker II) included minor changes, notably provisions as to how the Saharan autonomy was to be safe-guarded from Moroccan pressures, pleasing the Polisario, but also adding a third option of "permanent autonomy" to the ballot, thereby indulging Morocco. James Baker James Addison Baker III (born April 28, 1930), American politician and diplomat, was Chief of Staff in the President Ronald Reagans first administration, and Secretary of State in the administration of President George H. W. Bush and as United States Secretary of the Treasury from 1985 to...

This version of the plan was unanimously put forward by the Security Council in mid-2003. It was accepted by the Polisario but rejected it outright by Morocco, on the basis that the plan "questions Moroccan territorial integrity". This prompted Baker to resign, the second UN envoy to Western Sahara to do so, claiming there was no longer any feasible way to implement the peace agreement provisions. He has since then stated that Morocco showed no interest in implementing the UN decisions and will not do so if it stands a chance to lose in the referendum. A session of the Security Council in progress The United Nations Security Council is the most powerful organ of the United Nations. ...

Since early 2005 the UN Secretary General stopped referring to the plan in his reports, and by now it seems largely dead. No replacement plan exists, however, and worries persist that the political vacuum will result in renewed fighting. A large number of international organizations and other bodies have a secretary general or secretary-general as their chief administrative officers or in other administrative capacities. ...