In “The Second Act of the Somaliland File Is Playing Out in Rabat,” Shay Gal argues that Morocco’s approach to Somaliland has quietly shifted from diplomatic abstraction to strategic governance. No longer a marginal or hypothetical issue, Somaliland has entered the realm of precedent-setting state practice—particularly after Israel’s recognition—forcing Rabat to confront questions it can no longer defer.
At the heart of the article is a reassessment of sovereignty itself. Gal contends that sovereignty is not merely declared or inherited, but earned through effectiveness: sustained authority, administrative continuity, territorial control, and political stability. Somaliland, he argues, meets these criteria after more than three decades of de facto statehood, while the Horn of Africa has become a testing ground for the limits of African Union doctrine and non-recognition policies.
The article situates Morocco’s dilemma within the broader Western Sahara conflict and Algeria’s regional strategy. Contrary to prevailing assumptions, Gal maintains that recognizing Somaliland does not weaken Morocco’s Sahara position. Instead, failure to act allows others—particularly Algeria—to shape African norms and exploit contradictions within the African Union. The choice facing Rabat, the article concludes, is not between action and neutrality, but between strategic clarification and imposed consequences.
The complete piece, originally in French and translated into English by Google Translate, is as follows:
The Second Act of the Somaliland File Is Playing Out In Rabat
By Shay Gal
Sovereignty is not the antithesis of international law; it is the condition that makes its application possible. Some decisions are not driven by symbolic audacity or tactical maneuvering. They arise from a state’s obligation to preserve the internal coherence of its sovereignty.
Morocco’s consideration of Somaliland’s recognition follows this logic. In Rabat, the issue has moved beyond abstract debate and into the realm of governance. It has become a structuring variable in Morocco’s strategic calculus on Western Sahara. The taboo has been breached, and inaction is already producing measurable effects—effects that cannot be reversed without a deliberate decision.
Somaliland is no longer a marginal case confined to diplomatic footnotes. Since 1991, it has functioned de facto as a state, exercising stable territorial control and operating durable institutions, despite the absence of widespread de jure recognition.[1] Following its recognition by Israel—the first UN member state to do so—the issue has shifted decisively from theory to diplomatic practice. From that moment, Somaliland ceased to be hypothetical. It became a precedent, a criterion, and therefore a battleground of norms. The center of gravity of the debate has moved.
The question now is both simple and decisive: who determines the application of territorial integrity, and by what criteria? By allowing the debate to evolve without asserting its own framework, Rabat effectively permits others to define the rules of the African political order—precisely in a theater where Morocco has invested heavily to reassert strategic initiative.
The Misreading of the Sahara
The prevailing interpretation is flawed. Recognizing Somaliland does not weaken Morocco’s position on Western Sahara. What weakens it is the acceptance of equivalence between legally and politically dissimilar situations.
Rabat’s approach to the Sahara rests on a coherent and consistently applied doctrine, grounded in sovereign reality and embedded in law. This doctrine is based on:
- effectiveness of authority
- administrative continuity
- sustained public investment
- stability
- progressive alignment of international partners
Effectiveness here is not rhetorical; it is authority exercised, administered, and defended on the ground. The Sahara has been governed for decades as Morocco’s Southern Provinces, with infrastructure, public budgets, social services, and security structures functioning continuously. This reality is increasingly acknowledged in practice by international partners, notwithstanding the unresolved UN legal framework.[2] A growing number of states now treat Morocco’s autonomy proposal as a serious and credible basis for settlement.[3]
This doctrine is neither improvised nor selective. It is established, internalized, and operational.
Somaliland: Not a Parallel, but a Coherence
The same doctrine applies to Somaliland. It governs a territory characterized by:
- inherited colonial borders
- stable political institutions
- effective territorial control
- regular, competitive elections
Combined with a functioning administration sustained for more than three decades, this constitutes a case of sovereign effectiveness that cannot be ignored without eroding the credibility of the normative order itself.
This is not a parallel situation—it is a legal and political coherence. Somaliland seeks the restoration of a state that existed briefly in 1960 within clearly defined colonial borders, prior to its voluntary union with Somalia. Western Sahara, by contrast, is a former Spanish territory incorporated by Morocco in 1975 as part of an unfinished decolonization process. Collapsing these distinct trajectories into a single analytical category obscures reality and undermines consistency.
Refusing to acknowledge this distinction does not prevent Somaliland’s recognition elsewhere. It merely ensures that such recognition will occur without Morocco shaping its implications for its central sovereignty issue.
The real risk for Rabat is therefore not action, but abdication—allowing others to write the grammar of African sovereignty by default: the precedents, the criteria, and the coalitions that will define the norm.
Algiers: The Strategic Advantage of Inaction
Algeria has recognized this dynamic and is exploiting it. By opposing any recognition of Somaliland in the name of Somalia’s territorial integrity, Algiers affirms the inviolability of borders for recognized African states. Simultaneously, by supporting a separatist movement against Morocco, it instrumentalizes that same principle.
Moroccan inaction supplies Algeria with a ready-made narrative: defending Somali unity while undermining Moroccan sovereignty. As long as Rabat refrains from acting, this inconsistency remains politically cost-free. The moment Rabat moves, it becomes structural—and costly for Algiers in African, European, and multilateral forums, including the African Union. It is precisely this shift that inaction prevents.
Rabat: Two Timeframes, Two Logics
Within Rabat, the distinction between diplomatic prudence and sovereign management is well understood. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs safeguards coalitions, voting alignments, and bilateral balances—particularly with Mogadishu.[4] This logic is inherently short-term.
Western Sahara, however, falls under the domain of sovereign management, overseen by the security and strategic apparatus. Here, the Directorate General for Studies and Documentation (DGED) plays a central role—not as a diplomatic actor, but as an institution responsible for strategic coherence, scenario planning, and anticipation of externalities.
Within this framework, Somaliland is not treated as a cause, but as an operational variable integrated into sovereignty scenarios. In this reading, the inability to decide becomes itself a priority sovereignty risk.
The Horn of Africa Is Not a Periphery
The Horn of Africa—marked by conflict, foreign military bases, and strategic maritime corridors—is a laboratory for testing the real limits of African sovereignty and non-interference. Somaliland exposes the African Union’s declining capacity to apply its own principles uniformly.
It demonstrates the eventual primacy of sovereign effectiveness over formalistic artifice. More importantly, it reveals how the absence of decisive action produces cumulative erosion—within a narrowing window of opportunity, without any guarantee that current realities will persist.
The African Union: A Managed Contradiction
The African Union manages contradiction as though it were equilibrium. It formally upholds the inviolability of inherited borders and reaffirms Somaliland’s inclusion within Somalia,[5]
while simultaneously tolerating de facto realities that diverge from this orthodoxy and cannot be reversed.
Morocco’s return to the AU did not resolve this contradiction; it exposed it. That exposure now permits a Moroccan decision without systemic risk. The Union may protest or condemn, but it cannot isolate Morocco, challenge its continental role, or erase realities it already tolerates elsewhere.
The Calculation: Action versus Abstention
The strategic calculation is straightforward. The immediate cost of recognizing Somaliland is limited—diplomatic friction and accusations of double standards. These costs are manageable.
The cost of non-recognition is heavier, cumulative, and diffuse. It allows others to establish African precedents without Moroccan input, perpetuates false equivalences with the Sahara, grants Algeria narrative flexibility, and weakens Morocco’s ability to consolidate the normative architecture surrounding its core sovereignty claim.
Recognizing Somaliland is neither ideological nor provocative. It is an act of strategic clarification. Sovereignty is not decreed; it is constructed through effectiveness and institutional continuity.
It is also a clear-eyed arbitration. Mogadishu delivers short-term votes; Hargeisa structures long-term options. In African forums, votes can shift. Structured sovereignty cannot. Acting now repositions Morocco offensively on the terrain of principles, rather than defensively against others’ contradictions.
In matters of sovereignty, inaction is never neutral. It breeds ambiguity. Morocco’s progress has always rested on transforming facts on the ground into gradual recognition. Somaliland presents the same challenge to the African system.
Ignoring it does not protect the Sahara. It merely delays the resumption of initiative under less favorable conditions.
This is not an attempt to evade the inevitable. It is a moment of strategic truth. Delaying the decision means accepting consequences—only this time, they will be imposed rather than chosen.
Footnotes
[1] Royaume du Maroc, Le Maroc prône une politique africaine « engagée et fédératrice », portail officiel du Royaume du Maroc, 7 avril 2025, consulté en 2026.
[2] Conseil économique, social et environnemental du Royaume du Maroc (CESE). Nouveau modèle de développement pour les provinces du Sud. Rabat, 2013.
[3] Royaume du Maroc, Ministère des Affaires étrangères, Sahara: US reaffirm support for Morocco’s autonomy plan as a “serious, credible and realistic” solution, communiqué officiel (site officiel du Ministère des Affaires étrangères), Rabat, consulté en 2026.
[4] Royaume du Maroc, Ministère des Affaires étrangères, de la Coopération africaine et des Marocains résidant à l’étranger, Le Maroc exprime son soutien total à l’intégrité territoriale et à la souveraineté nationale de la République fédérale de Somalie et rejette la reconnaissance de l’entité dite « Somaliland », communiqué officiel, Rabat, 28 décembre 2025.
[5] African Union, Peace and Security Council, Communiqué of the 1324th Meeting of the Peace and Security Council Held on 6 January 2026 at the Ministerial Level on the Preservation of the Sovereignty, Territorial Integrity, Unity, and Stability of the Federal Republic of Somalia, Addis Ababa, 6 January 2026, section 1–4 (“Deeply concerned by the unilateral recognition…; Condemns…; Reaffirms…; Welcomes the statement…”), Peace and Security Department, African Union Commission.
