The UN’s highest court is to hear an urgent application by Sudan on Thursday accusing the United Arab Emirates (UAE) of violating the international genocide convention by arming paramilitaries with the aim of wiping out a non-Arab ethnic group in West Darfur.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) says it will hear Sudan’s application for emergency measures to stop the arms transfers. The UAE says it will seek the summary dismissal of the case as “nothing more than a cynical publicity stunt”.
The United States decided unilaterally in January that the Rapid Support Force (RSF) paramilitaries – locked in a brutal war against the Sudanese Armed Forces since 2023 – were guilty of genocide and ordered sanctions against commander Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo.
Since then, the Washington-based NGO, Human Rights Watch, has urged the US state department to share its evidence with a UN fact-finding mission on Sudan and with the International Criminal Court (ICC) which investigates individual culpability.
Although it arises from the same conflict, which has uprooted more than 12 million people and killed tens of thousands, according to UN statistics, the ICJ case focuses specifically on RSF attacks on the Masalit ethnic group who traditionally inhabit western Sudan and eastern Chad.
In particular, the RSF is alleged to have besieged the western Sudanese city of El Geneina, where densely populated refugee camps and districts in which the Masalit had taken shelter were repeatedly attacked with rockets and mortars.
Survivors told Reuters that Masalit boys were “targeted for killing” while young women were “targeted for rape” as the Arab militia went on “killing sprees” in which members of the tribe were “shot, stabbed, and burned to death”.
In its application to the ICJ, Sudan claims the RSF has been guilty of “genocide, murder, rape, sexual violence, forcible displacement, and violation of human rights.”
It alleges: “All such acts have been perpetrated and enabled by the direct support given to the rebel RSF militia and related militia groups by the United Arab Emirates.”
It called on the UAE to “ensure that any irregular armed units which may be directed or supported by it, and any organisations or persons that may be subject to its control, direction or influence, do not commit any acts proscribed by the 1948 Genocide Convention.”
The UAE, however, has dismissed the allegations. Its foreign minister, Anwar Gargash, in a post on X, said “Sudan’s priority should be to achieve a ceasefire in this absurd and destructive war – and to address the massive humanitarian catastrophe it has caused.”
Instead, he added, the Sudanese army was pursuing “feeble media manoeuvres to justify its rejection of peace and the political path.”
After hearing the two sides, the ICJ judges will take time to decide whether or not emergency measures are appropriate.
However, the court has no power to enforce its judgments although they are binding under international law.
In March 2022, for instance, the ICJ ordered Russia to halt its assault on Ukraine and was ignored.
Similarly, in May 2024, its twin demands that Israel halt its military offensive in Gaza, and that Hamas release all Israeli hostages, were ignored.
Against that backdrop of judicial impotence, Human Rights Watch now appears to regard the US as the only geopolitical player with the power to end the bloodshed in Darfur by putting “more pressure” on the parties.
It says the state department’s view that the RSF has been responsible for genocide should be “the first step towards redefining US policy in Sudan with accountability and civilian protection at its centre.”
