The agreement opens Spain’s withdrawal and administration by Morocco and Mauritania in their respective areas. Polisario is not a signatory and rejects its consequences.
In his 2002 legal analysis, the UN Legal Counsel will explain that the text transferred neither sovereignty nor administering-Power status to the other signatories. It did not alter the territory’s UN classification. Signature, administrative and military consequences, and settlement of final status must therefore be distinguished: the latter does not follow simply from a transfer between three governments.