Continuity Agreement: Kingdom of Morocco — House of Lords, 2020-03-09
Topic: International Affairs
Robert Stevenson (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I shall speak about the UK-Morocco association agreement. I also intend to make some remarks about the underlying issue here: Parliament’s continuing inability to scrutinise UK trade deals in a meaningful way. As your Lordships’ House will be aware, although there will be no direct parliamentary involvement in the UK, a UK-EU trade deal needs the approval of some 38 individual EU national parliaments and regional assemblies before it can come into force; and if we are able to negotiate a free trade deal with the USA, it will come into force only if it is approved by Congress—both the House of Representatives and the Senate. The UK-Morocco Association Agreement is a good example of why the current situation is, to my mind, untenable The UK-Morocco association agreement was laid before Parliament on 20 December 2019 and, as it is a treaty, it is subject to the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010. However, it is a negative instrument, so the only meaningful debate possible is the "nuclear option" of a vote to strike down the instrument in either of the Houses of Parliament within the statutory period, which has now passed—a piece of Gilbertian nonsense if ever there was one. The UK-Morocco association agreement is one of the Government’s continuity agreements designed to replace EU trade treaties after Brexit. It replaces the EU-Morocco association agreement, as well as the accompanying EU-Morocco dispute settlement mechanism agreement. The Lords European Union Committee drew the agreement to the special attention of the House, with particular reference to Western Sahara as, in the view of the committee, the inclusion of that territory "raises important questions, especially about how the UK should balance its commitment to Western Sahara’s ‘undetermined’ status." Western Sahara is categorised as a non-self-governing territory under chapter XI of the Charter of the United Nations. A 1975 International Court of Justice ruling recognised Western Sahara’s right to self-determination and, in 1991, the UN launched a mission to hold a referendum for the Sahrawi people to decide whether it should be an independent country or become part of Morocco. That referendum has still not been held. The EU signed a trade treaty with Morocco in 2012 which covered Western Sahara. The European Court of Justice has twice ruled, in 2016 and 2018, that Western Sahara is a "separate and distinct" territory from Morocco under international law, and that no agreement with Morocco can be applied to the territory of Western Sahara without the consent of the Sahrawi people The internationally recognised legitimate representative of the Sahrawi people has rejected every proposal that the EU’s trade agreement with Morocco should apply to them. A coalition of 93 Sahrawi civil society groups also stated that the people of Western Sahara reject the inclusion of their territory in any agreement concluded by Morocco. The EU amended the wording relating to Western Sahara in its agreement, so that it applies only to products from Western Sahara that are "subject to controls by customs authorities of Morocco", and the UK agreement notably includes this phrase. However, the EU Committee report draws the attention of your Lordships’ House to the fact that the Sahrawi national liberation movement, the Polisario Front, does not consider the consultation which preceded this compromise to have been sufficient. A letter signed by the general secretaries of the major trade unions and NGOs, including the Trade Justice Movement, War on Want, Global Justice Now and Traidcraft Exchange, was sent to the Government in January this year. The Swedish Government have also made a formal objection Last year, the High Court ruled that the territory of Western Sahara is separate from Morocco under international law and that the UK Government are therefore acting unlawfully by failing to distinguish between Morocco and Western Sahara. From my argument so far, I hope it is clear that your Lordships’ House owes our EU Committee a considerable debt of gratitude for its work in flagging up this issue. There is, without doubt, a sensitive political decision hidden within this seemingly simple rollover agreement, but the committee’s report raises wider questions of how this House and Parliament should deal with ratification of treaties. If we do nothing, surely we are complicit in undermining UN-led efforts to achieve a political solution that provides for the self-determination of the people of Western Sahara. Yet if we raise this issue, as the committee suggests, we are constitutionally unable to do anything, short of the nuclear option of voting down the treaty as a whole. Am I alone in thinking that this situation is unsatisfactory? If we do feel that, what can we do?