ICJ Dismisses Sudan's Genocide Case Alleging the Emiratis Funded RSF Rebels

Africa News

The top United Nations court on Monday dismissed a case brought by Sudan accusing the United Arab Emirates of breaching the genocide convention by arming and funding the rebel paramilitary Rapid Support Forces in the deadly Sudanese civil war.

Judges found that the International Court of Justice lacked the authority to continue the proceedings. While both Sudan and the UAE are signatories to the 1948 genocide convention, the United Arab Emirates has a carveout to the part of the treaty that gives The Hague-based court jurisdiction.

“The violent conflict has a devastating effect, resulting in untold loss of life and suffering, in particular in West Darfur. The scope of the case before the court is, however, necessarily circumscribed by the basis of jurisdiction invoked in the application," Yuji Iwasawa, the court's president said, reading out the decision.

Both Sudan and the UAE are signatories to the 1948 genocide convention. The UAE, however, has a caveat to part of the treaty which legal experts said would make it unlikely that the case would proceed.

The UAE applauded the decision. “The court’s finding that it is without jurisdiction affirms that this case should have never been brought forward,” Reem Ketait, a senior official at the UAE’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told reporters after the hearing ended.

Around a dozen pro-Sudanese protestors gathered outside the court, shouting as Ketait spoke.

In March, Sudan asked the International Court of Justice for several orders, known as provisional measures, including telling the UAE to do all it could to prevent the killings and other crimes targeting the Masalit people. In a hearing last month the UAE argued the court had no jurisdiction.

Sudan descended into a deadly conflict in mid-April 2023 when long-simmering tensions between its military and rival paramilitary forces broke out in the capital, Khartoum, and spread to other regions.

Both the Rapid Support Forces and Sudan’s military have been accused of abuses.

The UAE, a federation of seven sheikhdoms on the Arabian Peninsula which is also a U.S. ally, has been repeatedly accused of arming the RSF, something it has strenuously denied despite evidence to the contrary.