Morocco

The European Commission recently presented several legislative proposals as part of its “Fit for 55” initiative, designed to accelerate the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. A Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) has been proposed as part of this initiative. The CBAM would be complementary to the EU’s Emission Trading Scheme (ETS), involving CBAM certificates issued to importers based on the integrated emissions intensity of the produc ...

The Sahel has become more prominent in policymaking circles because of its strategic importance and the urgent nature of the dangers that have become rife in the region. Unfortunately, countries in the Maghreb have been relatively sidelined in recent years despite their potential sizable role in stabilizing the region and spurring economic development. Therefore, the focus of this brief is to analyze the Maghreb’s outlook towards the Sahel, namely from the perspective of Morocco, Al ...

In order to close the financing gap in green technologies, finding new mechanisms to enhance the participation of the private sector, combined with that of the public sector, in financing sustainable and climate-resilient infrastructure is a must. In this context, some unlisted instruments are going to be needed to enhance financing of green infrastructure. Besides, the development of properly structured projects, with risks and returns in line with the preferences of the different ...

Over 25 years after the launch of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership (EMP) in the 1995 Barcelona Conference, the Mediterranean geographical area continues to be subject to the reflection and conceptualisation of the European Union (EU) with the aim of firmly establishing this strategic neighbourhood relationship and addressing the progress of the inherent challenges. Since then, several initiatives have marked the Euro-Mediterranean framework as stages on the pat ...

The Policy Brief ‘Pandemic, Preparedness, Morocco, and Africa’ by Uri Dadush provoked a personal reaction: Morocco may never be crowned football’s world champions, alas, but which nation, besides China, New Zealand, Israel, Japan, Denmark, Vietnam, organized its anti-COVID-19 offensive more digitally and in a more modern way than the Kingdom? Morocco’s bureaucracy is at times suffocating and unpleasant, its public hospital system stressed and underfunded. But today I can v ...

In the Western Sahara Advisory Opinion, formal questions specifically requested by the General Assembly were only on terra nullius and ‘legal ties’ at the time of Spain’s colonization of the Saharan Provinces. however, two other issues, which had not been specifically requested, were added to the formal question of ‘legal ties.” The additional issues concern the right to self- determination and ‘territorial sovereignty.’ The statements on additional issues have recently been referre ...

The self-declared Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic’s (SADR) declaration on the Guerguerat crisis, in November 2020, to terminate the 1991 ceasefire agreement and go to war with Morocco raises a problem regarding the legality of third States granting State recognition to the self-declared SADR. International law imposes an obligation on third States to not grant ‘premature recognition.’ Moreover, premature recognition would constitute illegal intervention in the internal affairs of t ...

The COVID-19 pandemic has hit the Moroccan economy hard, as elsewhere in the world. A collapse in external demand and a lockdown lasting more than three months have profoundly altered economic activity in Morocco, causing its first recession since 1995. The implementation of the confinement and social distancing measures was strict and came two weeks after the detection of the first cases of COVID-19 in Morocco on March 2, 2020. The lockdown was extended three times and lasted aroun ...

The data presented in this Policy Brief focus on the Moroccan population’s perception of the Covid-19 pandemic and the public policies designed to curb it. These data are derived from a survey conducted by the Policy Center for the New South based on 3 waves of public attitude surveys carried out by IPSOS Morocco in June, July and September 2020. This survey is part of the « Attitudes Towards Covid-19 » research program, conducted with a consortium of international academic partners ...

The word ‘occupation’ was used twice specifically to the Saharan Provinces in UN General Assembly resolutions in 1979 and 1980. Though the word has not been used by the General Assembly since, it has appeared in court rulings in the EU, the UK and South in a detrimental conclusion regarding Morocco’s sovereignty over the Saharan Provinces. This paper shall start with a consideration of international law in order: to differentiate occupation of a nonself- governing territory from occ ...

“Out of the Eurocentric box” This young planner and lecturer at the Departement of International Urbanism of the University of Stuttgart (Germany) spontaneously describes himself as a “Marrakchi, ambitious and curious” person. His birthplace and family’s influence matter a lot in his professional journey. Not only because the Red City is “an inspiring place for its history, architecture and culture”, but also because his grandfather was a well-established tile maker, who participat ...

Our Senior Fellow Rabi Mohtar has co-authored with our economist, Fatima Ezzahra Mengoub along other researchers a research paper entitled « A Water-Energy-Food Nexus approach for conducting trade-off analysis: Morocco’s phosphate industry in the Khouribga region » in Hydrology and Earth System Sciences Journal (Volume 24, Issue 10). The study objective was to develop and use the Water-Energy-Food Nexus Phosphate (WEF-P) Tool to evaluate the impact of Morocco’s phos ...

The right to self-determination was recently posited as one possible jus cogens norm. However, more than fifty years after jus cogens emerged in 1969, a standard test for identifying a norm as jus cogens has yet to be adopted. In 2019, the International Law Commission adopted the Draft Conclusions on jus cogens, together with the list of possible jus cogens norms . If the possibility of being shown to be false is not admitted when identifying a jus cogens norm, however, the identifi ...

The year 2020 is one of the most difficult years for the global automotive industry. The pandemic first appeared in a region of China known for its developed automotive sector. Initially, it was the South Asian manufacturers who first felt the impact of the shutdown in China before the pandemic shifted to Europe and the United States and before the disruption of value chains took on a global dimension. In Morocco, the sector has not remained immune to this turbulent context and its ...

The current pandemic has hit all countries hard, with severe repercussions at all levels. In economic terms, and given the scale of the damage, countries have reacted quickly by drawing on their available toolboxes. However, unlike in 2008, room for maneuver this time is much more limited and many countries have no choice but to go into massive debt to cope with the effects of the pandemic. For a country like Morocco, such a situation should lead the authorities concerned to study a ...

La femme représente la moitié de la société. Côte à côte avec l’homme, elle a toujours contribué au développement des sociétés lorsque les facteurs de conversion lui ont permis de mettre à l’œuvre ses potentialités pour parler simple. Aujourd’hui, cette catégorie de la société marocaine, et mondiale, subit de manière disproportionnée les répercussions de la crise de la Covid-19, sur plus d’un aspect de la vie en société. Ceci est particulièrement vrai lorsqu’il s’agit des domaines ...

En février 2020, j’ai publié un livre, « La mondialisation et nous », dans lequel j’ai analysé la place du sud dans les grands chamboulements que connaît cette mondialisation. Les mots clés des quatre chroniques contenues dans le présent cahier : vulnérabilité / fragilité / chamboulement / incertitude / imprévisibilité / sidération / régionalisation / relocalisation / santé / environnement / équité / réputation / épreuves / opportunités sont ceux qui sont revenus récurremment sous l ...

Héros méconnus de la lutte contre le Covid-19, les professionnels du secteur de la santé publique ont assuré leurs charges avec des ressources qui se sont avérées insuffisantes : le déficit de personnels spécialisés, amplifié par des problèmes de logistique, ont fortement porté préjudice à l’efficacité de leurs actions. Face à cette situation contraignante, nombreux sont les Etats qui ont appelé leurs armées en renfort, eu égard à leur expertise en matière de gestion des risques, me ...