# The Hague court throws out Sudan’s genocide case against the UAE
*2025-05-05* — The International Court of Justice has dismissed Sudan’s case against the United Arab Emirates, ending a bid by Khartoum to force the Gulf state to answer allegations that it helped fuel the war in Darfur.
The ruling did not decide the substance of Sudan’s allegations. Instead, the court said it lacked jurisdiction to hear the dispute after the UAE relied on a reservation it entered when signing the UN Genocide Convention. In practical terms, the judges concluded that the reservation prevented Sudan from using the treaty to bring the case before the court.
That distinction matters. Sudan had asked the Hague-based court for emergency measures, arguing that the UAE was violating the convention by supplying weapons to paramilitary forces. The UAE rejected the complaint and said the court was not legally competent to rule on it. The judges sided with Abu Dhabi on that procedural question.
The ruling leaves Sudan without the immediate legal avenue it had hoped to use, but it does not amount to an exoneration of any actor involved in the wider conflict. The ICJ explicitly said it remained deeply concerned about the humanitarian disaster unfolding in Sudan and noted the devastating effect of the violence, particularly in West Darfur. The court also stressed that states remain responsible for acts attributed to them that breach international obligations.
That caveat leaves the underlying war, and the allegations around outside support for armed groups, politically live even as this specific case is closed at the ICJ. Since April 2023, Sudan has been consumed by a brutal power struggle between army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and paramilitary commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo. Aid agencies describe the conflict as the world’s worst displacement and hunger crisis, with famine officially declared in five regions according to a UN-backed report.
The timing of the ruling is also significant because the conflict has widened in recent days. The UN says North Darfur has become a flashpoint, with heavy civilian tolls reported in a matter of weeks, and the army said the RSF struck Port Sudan on Sunday, the first attack on the government seat in the country’s two-year war.
For now, the court’s message is narrow but consequential: international law can still be invoked in Sudan’s war, but this particular case could not proceed through the Genocide Convention route. Sudan will have to look elsewhere if it wants to pursue accountability at the world’s top court.
IO Digest Desk
