The U.N. Security Council’s renewal of the mandate of the U.N. Mission in Western Sahara, or MINURSO, on April 28 marked a shift in the United Nations’ approach to the Western Sahara dispute.

The inability of Morocco or Polisario to negotiate over the Western Sahara’s self-determination – whether autonomy or independence – has largely confined the U.N.’s mediator role to contextual, if not peripheral issues. As a result, the Western Sahara dispute has shifted ground with Morocco and the Algeria-backed Polisario advancing competing agendas on the purpose and role of MINURSO, particularly whether the peacekeeping force should monitor human rights. The U.N. Security Council’s annual resolution extending the mission Western Sahara, whose language has remained virtually identical over the last three years, is no longer subject to negotiation: Parties to the conflict are instead focusing on influencing the reports the U.N. secretary-general sends to the Security Council.

Increasingly, the United Nations has a narrow space to navigate, balancing Morocco’s insistence that MINURSO stick to its military observation mandate with the pro-independence Polisario’s demands that the mission focus on monitoring a future self-determination referendum and reporting on Western Sahara’s welfare and human rights issues. Seeking a middle-of-the-road solution, the U.N. has pled for open-source situation analysis and an expanded range of interlocutors. This stops short of a full-blown political mandate for MINURSO, but the call offers a limited response to fill a dangerous vacuum and prevent further polarization on the ground. However, the U.N.’s attempt to portray its mandate as a provider of independent information about the Western Sahara territory has pushed Rabat on the defensive, fearing this could be a back-door revision of the MINURSO mandate.

Although the U.N. has backed away from its initial call for a standing, continuous and impartial monitoring of human rights (though not explicitly located within the current U.N. Mission), and has instead called on parties to strengthen cooperation with existing U.N. human rights reporting bodies and mechanisms, Rabat remains concerned.

The United Nations is openly frustrated with Ambassador Christopher Ross’ inability to interact independently with civil society actors in the territory. Together with its stated concerns about indigenous Saharans’ perceived exclusion from the negotiating process, this may have led Morocco to partially suspend cooperation with the U.N., including the mediator’s shuttle diplomacy. Furthermore, Algeria is now worried about the new direction the U.N. is taking. Increasingly, Algeria realizes that a full-blown human rights mandate for MINURSO will replicate exactly the sort of negotiation format that it has steadfastly avoided in the Western Sahara conflict. Algeria claims it is not a party to the conflict, as the dispute is for the Polisario and Morocco to negotiate. However, any comprehensive human rights monitoring in Western Sahara and the refugee camps will make Algeria – as a host country to Sahrawi refugee camps – the direct interlocutor of Morocco, instead of the Polisario, thus necessitating that Algeria formally come the negotiating table.

In this context, the U.N. is now content to limit its stand on human rights monitoring to its repeated call for Morocco and the Polisario to cooperate with current U.N. human rights mechanisms and procedures. This amounts to a face-saving preservation of its facilitator role so long as there is no clear outlet for Morocco’s and Algeria’s staged frustration at the lack of progress in searching for a suitable forum to reframe the dispute.

While Morocco may have taken satisfaction in the U.N.’s rolled-back role on human rights and MINURSO’s expanded political mandate, Algiers has taken comfort in the U.N. Security Council resolution’s persistent language that “welcomes the parties’ commitment to continue the process of preparation for a fifth round of negotiations.”

Meanwhile, there is no clear negotiation forum, no substantive discussion on autonomy and self-determination, and no genuine appetite for a solution from either party to the dispute or key diplomatic stakeholders. The status of the territory has entered a fragile phase that requires bold steps.

In the first place, the U.N. mediator’s role should be redefined in light of the need for impartial reporting on the current political developments in the territory and refugee camps.

Second, the human rights situation should be assessed through innovative mechanisms, perhaps by placing a human rights reporting system outside of the U.N.’s formal human rights procedures and having a rapporteur directly answerable to the U.N. Security Council (which should please Morocco) and supported by MINURSO (which should please the Polisario and Algeria). This could offer a compromise solution in the future, as pressure “to do something” on human rights may increase.