Amjad Farid writes .. Sudan suits the UAE before the International Court of Justice: Why should the world pay attention to this case

By Amjad Farid Al-Tayeb- on March 6, 2025, the International Court of Justice announced that the Republic of Sudan had filed a lawsuit against the United Arab Emirates, accusing it of collusion in committing the crime of genocide, based on Article 36 (1) of the court’s statute, and the ninth article of the Convention on the Crime of Genocide and Punishment of Genocide.

The lawsuit is based on Sudan’s accusation of the UAE of providing continuous support to the Rapid Support Forces, a military militia that leads a bloody struggle for power since the outbreak of the Sudan war on April 15, 2023. The lawsuit is based on documented violations committed by these forces, the most prominent of which is the massacre that occurred between May and June 2023 and has been killed more than 15 thousand civilians from the Al -Masalit tribe in Darfur, in addition to the displacement of approximately 500 Thousands of people into the Chadian lands – a repetition of the Darfurian conflict in the early Apostles, when the Janjaweed militias, the organizational predecessor of the Rapid Support Forces carried out similar crimes of ethnic nature under the umbrella of Omar al -Bashir Islamic regime.

Sudan accuses the UAE of violating the genocide agreement by enabling the Rapid Support Forces to commit acts classified as genocide, foremost of which is the Masalit massacre.

The lawsuit is based on documented criminal evidence, including the report of the Raul and Naberg Center for Human Rights for the year 2024, and another report from Human Rights Watch entitled “Al -Masalit will not return to their homes”, both of which document patterns of systematic killing, sexual violence, and the broad burning of villages in West Darfur, all directed against the Masalit community, in line with the definition of extermination Collective contained in Article Two of the Convention. The satellite images analyzed by the Yel University Humanitarian Research Laboratory also shows widespread damage to civilian population gatherings. The United Nations report on the collective graves discovered after the rapid support attacks is reinforced by the credibility of these evidence.

Survival testimonies describe how rapid support fighters targeted Al -Masalit specifically based on their ethnic background, chanting racist phrases while killing civilians, including children – while it can be considered explicit evidence of the availability of intention to genocide. In January 2025, the US State Department announced the classification of rapid support as genocide, a description that came late from the Biden administration, but it is consistent with the available evidence.
The role of the UAE in this issue is not the subject of controversy, but it is a closely documented fact – and the facts are pronounced on its own. The Security Council experts team, which is charged with Resolution 1591 (2005), which imposes an armament ban on the Darfur region, stated in its report issued in January 2024, that there is “reliable evidence” proving the UAE’s involvement in providing rapid support forces with weapons, through a base in the Umm Jars area in Chad.

Data of flight tracking and satellite images, which the conflict Observatory – a research authority funded by the US State Department – analyzed, showed that there is a “almost certain degree” that the UAE transferred weapons to the Rapid Support Forces. Reuters also revealed 86 flights between the UAE and Umm Jars in the period from April 2023 to mid -2024, three quarters of which were carried out by airlines previously linked to weapons smuggling networks. In another investigative investigation, the New York Times revealed the presence of a secret base for the UAE running aircraft at Umm Jars Airport, close to the Sudanese border, and supporting the Rapid Support Forces. The investigation documented the use of Chinese -made “Wing Long” aircraft, which are being launched from a flight runway that was developed under the cover of a humanitarian project linked to the UAE Red Crescent Hospital.

Armed conflict analysis data shows that militia supported by drones causes much higher civil losses during the clashes in urban areas. On the other hand, the US Congress, Senator Chris van Holin and MP Sarah Jacobs, in 2024, attempted to block a $ 1.2 billion weapons deal to the UAE, because of her support for rapid support. In January 2025, they confirmed again, based on secret surroundings from the Biden Administration, that the UAE has not committed to its pledges to stop this support and is continuing to supply rapid support with weapons and equipment, a violation, according to estimates, to the death of more than 10,000 dead per month.
In light of the crackdown on the international justice system, which was recently manifested in the American sanctions imposed on the International Criminal Court, this lawsuit represents a real test of the ability of the international elimination of accountability of the in force in force, or its surrender to the pressures of politics and the obstacles of procedures.

In December 2023, South Africa filed a lawsuit against Israel before the same court, accusing it of genocide in Gaza, according to the same agreement. South Africa’s lawsuit has had clear support from several countries from the global south, which included: Algeria, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Ireland, Jordan, Maldives, Mexico, Namibia, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Slovenia, Spain, and Venezuela, through legal statements or diplomatic support. That moment was the peak of the South Solidarity Solidarity.

South Africa, in its case against Israel, relied on its moral legacy against racist and colonialism. For Sudan, despite his lack of such a symbolic balance, its current crisis represents a focused image of the major challenges that post -colonial countries suffer: from the erosion of sovereignty, to the external actors ’liability, the collusion of political elites, and the increase in external interference. The current conflict – including huge human suffering, collective displacement, systematic ethnic violence, and the destruction of state institutions – created one of the largest humanitarian and political crises in the world. It is not just an internal conflict, but rather the result of international neglect, regional manipulation, and the continued marginalization of Africa in the international system. Ignoring support to Sudan at this separate moment not only undermines a legal lawsuit, but also threatens the principles of international solidarity and reproduces the imbalances of global justice, as justice is harnessed to serve the powerful, while it is withheld from the weak.

Supporting this lawsuit for justice does not mean that it is aligned with the Sudanese government or its armed forces in its struggle with the Rapid Support Forces. Rather, this support should be built on the essence of the issue and its objective content. The UAE, with its cross -border influence networks, is supported by its oil financial weight and its strategic alliances with world powers, whether they are Western or non -Western, making their violations more dangerous and influential. And if it is left without accountability, it will continue to exploit regional conflicts – from Sudan to Libya, and from Yemen to Syria – and continues to undermine the sovereignty of the global southern countries in its pursuit of resources and influence. The inability of the countries of the south to take a decisive position towards what is happening in Sudan creates a vacuum, which will be exploited by other international actors in pursuit of military bases, looting resources, or strengthening their geopolitical positions. In such a context, silence becomes a form of collusion, and it may be used later as a weapon to undermine the remaining will of Africa and the global south countries in a broader manner in managing its affairs and fate, especially at a time when the concepts of justice, compensation and sovereignty belong to the front of the global debate.

Despite the strength of the arguments presented in the case, it is not free from problems. The human rights record of the Sudanese government and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) is not pure from impurities. According to the data of the “ACLED” project to monitor conflicts, the Sudanese armed forces committed 200 incidents that caused civilian casualties during the year 2024, compared to 1,300 incidents committed by the Rapid Support Forces in the same period. Although the military operations of the army are often depicted as a response to the rebellion, this does not justify the harm to civilians, and the army does not exempt from its legal and moral responsibility to reduce the damage and control the use of force.

In addition, the bureaucratic obstacles imposed by the Sudanese government contribute to the entry of humanitarian aid to the exacerbation of the crisis, at a time when the Sudanese tragedy has become the worst humanitarian catastrophe in modern history. Although international humanitarian organizations also bear part of the responsibility for their failure to adapt to the nature of the conflict and change their field methods, the restrictions imposed by the Sudanese authorities give them sufficient excuses to justify this default. Regardless of the justifications, these obstacles – even if they do not rise to the level of crimes committed by the Rapid Support Forces, which are their themselves obstructing humanitarian aid – weakened the moral position of Sudan, and negatively affects its image in international forums.

There is another procedural obstacle that threatens this issue, which is the reservation that the UAE registered on Article 9 of the genocide to prevent genocide when signing it, which is the article that the International Court of Justice authorizes the jurisdiction of deciding on disputes related to the interpretation or application of the provisions of the agreement. This reservation has sparked a lot of controversy in the legal circles, where a number of legal jurists believe that such reservations contradict the spirit of agreement, and give countries accused of genocide an unjustified immunity, which is undermined the basic purpose of the treaty.

Judge Abdo Kurma, who occupied a judge’s seat in the International Court of Justice between 1994 and 2012, expressed his ruling in this regard clearly, as he considered that such reservations contradict the goal and goal of the agreement, describing it as “political positions that do not produce a legal impact.” The legal jurist, Bayam Akhfan (international law professor at McGil University, is a similar result in his analysis of the precedents of the court, such as the case of “Croatia Against Serbia”, stressing that reservations about the ninth article weaken the effectiveness of the agreement and make it unsuccessful. Indeed, the International Court of Justice itself had issued a consulting opinion in 1951, in which it confirmed that the reservations about the multilateral agreements are not accepted unless it does not contradict its subject and its basic purpose, and it is in the case of this agreement: preventing and punishing collective genocide.

However, the precedents of the International Court of Justice are not going in this direction. In the 2006 “Armed Activities” case, between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda, the court accepted the preservation of Rwanda on the ninth article and decided not to compete with the case. Likewise, it did in a series of “legitimacy of use of force” that Yugoslavia raised against the United States and Spain in 1999, when the court considered that the reservations about the ninth article prevent it from exercising its jurisdiction.

However, what may enhance Sudan’s position is the unprecedented force of this issue, which extends from the analyzes of the aircraft to the aircraft to economic models that directly link the size of Emirati aid and the killing rates by the Rapid Support Forces. Sudan may be able to argue that the actions of the UAE, in this case, make its reservation not compatible with the primary goal of the agreement, which is to prevent genocide. This is an unprecedented argument since 1951, but it seems very appropriate in light of the ugliness of this conflict. However, the financial and diplomatic weight of the UAE and its global influence, especially in light of its $ 500 billion economy compared to only 34 billion for Sudan, makes this battle not starkly equal. The question now is: How long can Sudan alone stand up to a opponent of this size?

The UAE record in regional interventions – from Syria to Yemen to Libya – where groups responsible for the killing of more than 300,000 people have surrounded a dangerous level of impunity, and increases the importance of this lawsuit.

What is on the test of this issue is not only the fate of Sudan, but the future of international justice itself. This lawsuit represents the first official legal confrontation for the Emirates regarding its role in destabilizing regional stability, its foreign interference, and its sabotage behavior. And if this lawsuit is written, it may restore some credibility of the International Court of Justice and the International Justice devices as a whole. But this requires sincere international support, with the same moral and political momentum that has been carried out in the South African issue against Israel. And if the attention today does not turn towards Khartoum, Darfur and other regions of Sudan, then we establish a global system in which wealth and strength are above the law, and the victims of Sudan are left as secondary victims in a geopolitical game that is not packed with coffins or mass graves. The truthfulness of Sudan’s accusations and the size of atrocities imposes more than just closing the file for procedural reasons; They require a ruling in which justice meets the truth, in front of 15,000 graves without a witness.