Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, if he will make representations at the meeting of the UN Security Council on 26 July 2016 for the establishment of an independent human rights monitoring mechanism in occupied Western Sahara and the refugee camps in that country.

The purpose of the UN Security Council meeting on 26 July is to assess whether MINURSO has returned to full functionality in accordance with United Nations Security Council Resolution 2285 of 29 April 2016, rather than to seek to alter the mandate of MINURSO. The UK does not therefore plan to raise human rights monitoring at this meeting, given that the current MINURSO mandate does not include a human rights element.