Voxy.co.nz, Thursday, 7 October, 2021

On September 29, the General Court of the European Union issued a landmark ruling, one of significant importance in international law for Western Sahara. Western Sahara is Africa’s last colony, occupied illegally by Morocco since 1975, and even in the face of a UN administered self-determination referendum agreed upon in 1991. New Zealand is a large-scale importer of high-quality phosphate rock from Western Sahara. In 2017-18, the High Court of South Africa noted that the Saharawi people are the rightful owner of the resource.

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Morocco dominates phosphate fertilisers thanks to its disputed control of Western Sahara
Matt Davies, BBC Sounds podcast: Business Daily.  31 Dec 2019

Matt Davies travels to Morocco to speak to Nada Elmajdoub, an executive at the national phosphate company OCP. He also hears from Mohamed Kamal Fadel, a spokesperson for the Polisario Front, which is bringing legal challenges against Morocco’s phosphate exports in its bid to win independence for Western Sahara; Professor Stuart White of the University of Technology Sydney questions the sustainability of the planet’s usage of mined phosphates to boost crop yields, plus Stephen Zunes, a professor of Middle East politics at the University of San Francisco, explains the history of the Western Sahara conflict and how Morocco gained the upper hand.

BBC Business Daily podcast

Amoy Dream is scheduled to land in Napier today.

Hawkes Bay Today
New Zealand Herald, Opinion, 26 August 2019
By: Kamal Fadel

A vessel named Amoy Dream carrying about 55,000 tonnes of phosphate rock from Western Sahara is expected to arrive at Napier Port today.
Seventy per cent of all New Zealand’s phosphate comes from Western Sahara, occupied by Morocco since 1975. It has, since then, been a shameful blot on the landscape of global justice and human rights.
Legal opinion is mounting that Morocco’s exploitation of Sahrawi resources, and the subsequent import of those resources, is illegal. (cont.)

NZ Herald article