Scientific Council press release
A year ago (June 2020), our Observatory discovered that scientific partnerships were underway between Moroccan institutions and the IRD, a French public research institution under the supervision of the French Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs and the Ministry of Higher Education and Research, for research conducted in Western Sahara by the PALOC and ISE-M laboratories:
As Western Sahara is internationally recognised as a non-self-governing territory within the meaning of Chapter XI of the United Nations Charter, the last territory in Africa awaiting decolonisation, and as Morocco’s sovereignty (as the occupying power) over this territory is not recognised by international bodies, we immediately requested copies of the agreements from the IRD representative in Morocco. Having received no response from the IRD’s legal department, we then sent a letter on 22 December 2020 to the IRD’s CEO, Valérie Verdier:
In the absence of any response from the IRD presidency and its ethics committee, we were forced to refer the matter to the Commission for Access to Administrative Documents (CADA) on 20 May 2021, which enabled us to obtain, on 4 June 2021, from the CEO of the IRD, copies of these agreements (annexes), which prove that the IRD’s actions violate international law and are inconsistent with France’s non-recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara.
The IRD’s unwillingness to shed light on these agreements raises questions about the ethics of the governance of an institution that claims on its website to ‘defend an original model of equitable scientific partnership with countries in the South and interdisciplinary and citizen-based science’ (www.ird.fr). Furthermore, the fact that the IRD signs agreements with the occupying power of this territory, where war resumed last November, appears to be an open endorsement of a colonisation project, support that is also evident in the communication materials of the IRD’s representation in Morocco, in disregard of the Sahrawi people who live in this territory or in exile and who suffer the effects of this colonisation on a daily basis (repression of human rights, transfers of populations from Morocco, plundering of natural resources, etc.).
Today, our Observatory denounces the illegality of these agreements, calls on the IRD to cancel them immediately and adopt a code of ethics more in line with international law, in particular the right of peoples to self-determination, the rules of international humanitarian law, and the provisions of the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict and its 1999 Second Protocol, noting that the IRD is liable to legal proceedings.
Paris, 7 July 2021
Members of the Scientific Council :
Silvia ALMENARA NIEBLA, Postdoctoral Researcher, Vrije Universiteit Brussel
Isaías BARREÑADA BAJO, Professor of International Relations, Complutense University of Madrid
Marjorie BEULAY, Senior Lecturer in Public Law, University of Picardie Jules Verne
Mark DRURY, Senior Lecturer in Anthropology, Princeton University
Irene FERNÁNDEZ-MOLINA, Senior Lecturer in International Relations, University of Exeter
Larosi HAIDAR ATIK, Professor of Translation and Interpreting, University of Granada
María LÓPEZ BELLOSO, Postdoctoral Researcher in Law, University of Deusto
Rocío MEDINA MARTÍN, Professor of Political Science and Public Law, Autonomous University of Barcelona
Carlos RUIZ MIGUEL, Professor of Constitutional Law, University of Santiago de Compostela
Jeffrey SMITH, Professor of Law and Human Security Policy, Norman Paterson School of International Affairs (Ottawa)
Judith TAVAKOLI, Senior Lecturer in Anthropology, Goethe University Frankfurt
Yahia H. ZOUBIR, Professor of International Studies and Director of Research in Geopolitics
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