This is a major blow to Rabat’s claims to legal rights over the territory.

Western Sahara has been occupied by Morocco since its 1975 invasion of the territory after Spanish colonial control ended.

It is the subject of one of the world’s longest-running conflicts, between the Moroccan state and the indigenous Sahrawi.

The ECJ ruling addressed a case filed by the Polisario Front, the de facto government of the Sahrawi people in the Western Sahara refugee camps in Tindouf, challenging the status of two trade deals between Morocco and the EU.

In its judgment, the court broke from its previous policy of avoiding ruling on the legal status of Western Sahara by recognising the separate and distinct status guaranteed to the territory of Western Sahara under the Charter of the United Nations.

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