The United Nations’ top court has dismissed Sudan’s case against the United Arab Emirates, ruling it lacks jurisdiction to hear allegations of Emirati involvement in genocide amid Sudan’s ongoing civil war.
Sudan filed the case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, accusing the UAE of supplying weapons to the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which has been engaged in a violent conflict with the Sudanese army since April 2023.
The UAE has categorically denied the accusations, branding Sudan’s legal action as “political theatre” intended to deflect attention from its own role in the conflict that has claimed tens of thousands of lives.
On Monday, the ICJ ruled it “manifestly lacked jurisdiction” to adjudicate the matter and dismissed the case. Reem Ketait, deputy assistant minister for political affairs at the UAE foreign ministry, welcomed the decision. “This ruling is a clear and decisive affirmation that the case was entirely baseless,” she stated in remarks shared with AFP.
Prior to the ruling, Ketait had criticized Sudan’s legal move as a “cynical attempt to divert attention from their own brutal record of atrocities against Sudanese civilians.”
When the UAE acceded to the UN Genocide Convention in 2005, it included a reservation that limited its exposure to legal action by other states under the treaty’s dispute provisions.
The conflict in Sudan, triggered by a power struggle between army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, has spiraled into one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. Aid agencies report mass displacement and widespread hunger, with famine officially declared in five regions.
North Darfur remains one of the hardest-hit areas, with at least 542 civilian deaths reported in just the past three weeks, according to the United Nations.
Though it threw out the case, the ICJ expressed grave concern about the humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in Sudan. “The violent conflict has a devastating effect, resulting in untold loss of life and suffering, in particular in West Darfur,” the court noted.
During last month’s hearings at the ICJ’s Peace Palace, Sudan’s acting justice minister Muawia Osman argued that the UAE’s support for the RSF—including alleged arms shipments—was central to enabling what Sudan claims is ongoing genocide.
In response, Ketait countered that Sudan’s claims were “at best misleading and at worst pure fabrications,” calling the case yet another misuse of international legal institutions for political purposes.
