The International Court of Justice has dismissed Sudan’s case alleging that the United Arab Emirates violated the Genocide Convention by supporting paramilitary forces in the Darfur region.
The court said Monday it did not have the jurisdiction to enact provision measures against the UAE, as Sudan had requested, and its judges voted to end the case.
The UAE was quick to celebrate the ruling. Reem Ketait, the Deputy Assistant Minister for Political Affairs, said in a statement that the decision is “a clear and decisive affirmation of the fact that this case was utterly baseless.”
“The Court’s finding that it is without jurisdiction confirms that this case should never have been brought,” Ketait said. “Quite simply, today’s decision represents a resounding rejection of the Sudanese Armed Forces’ attempt to instrumentalize the Court for its campaign of misinformation and to distract from its own responsibility.”
“The facts speak for themselves: the UAE bears no responsibility for the conflict in Sudan. On the contrary, the atrocities committed by the warring parties are well-documented,” Ketait said.
Sudan filed its case against the UAE in March, accusing it of arming the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), an accusation that the UAE had repeatedly denied. Sudan’s acting justice minister, Muawia Osman, told the court that “a genocide is being committed against the ethnic group of the Masalit in the west of our country,” with the “support and complicity of the United Arab Emirates.”
Since April 2023, two of Sudan’s most powerful generals – Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, who leads the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), and former ally Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo of the paramilitary RSF – have engaged in a bloody feud over control of the country which is split between their strongholds.
The ongoing civil war has caused one of the world’s worst humanitarian catastrophes and diplomatic efforts to bring the conflict to an end have failed.
Based in The Hague, Netherlands, the ICJ deals with disputes between states and violations of international treaties. Sudan and the UAE are both signatories of the 1948 Genocide Convention.