U.N.’s top court to rule on Sudan’s request alleging Emiratis funded Sudanese paramilitary forces

U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres makes comments on the security situation in South Sudan, in New York City, U.S., March 28, 2025. REUTERS/Caitlin Ochs/File Photo
| Photo Credit: Reuters

The top United Nations court will rule on Monday (May 5, 2025) on a request from Sudan to issue emergency measures against the United Arab Emirates, in a case accusing the UAE of breaching the genocide convention by arming and funding the rebel paramilitary Rapid Support Forces in Sudan’s deadly war.

In March, Sudan asked The International Court of Justice for several orders, known as provisional measures, including telling the UAE to do all it can to prevent the killing and other crimes targeting the Masalit people.

The UAE called the filing a publicity stunt and, in a hearing last month, argued the court had no jurisdiction.

“The case is baseless both legally and factually. The UAE is not involved in the war, and this case is yet another attempt by the Sudanese Armed Forces, one of the warring parties, to distract from its own responsibility,” Reem Ketait, a senior official at the UAE’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said in a statement ahead of 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 say makes it unlikely that the case will proceed.

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 and a U.S. ally, has been repeatedly accused of arming the RSF, something it has strenuously denied despite evidence to the contrary.