Sudan on Thursday accused the United Arab Emirates of complicity in genocide at a hearing before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, Netherlands.

Sudan said the alleged genocide against the Masalit community in Darfur by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) would not be possible without the support of the UAE.

Khartoum laid out its oral argument as part of a public hearing into its case accusing the UAE of violating its obligations under the Genocide Convention.

Muawia Osman, Sudan’s acting justice minister, told the court that the “ongoing genocide would not be possible without the complicity of the UAE, including the shipment of arms to the RSF”.

“The direct logistical and other support that the UAE has provided and continues to provide to the RSF has been and continues to be the primary driving force behind the genocide now taking place, including killing, rape, forced displacement and looting,” said Osman.

Sudan’s army-allied government, which has been at war with the RSF since April 2023, accuses the paramilitary group and allied militias of perpetrating genocide, murder, theft, rape and forcible displacement. It says that these crimes were enabled by direct support from the UAE.

Last year an independent inquiry carried out by the Raoul Wallenberg Centre found that there is “clear and convincing evidence” that the RSF and its allied militias “have committed and are committing genocide against the Masalit”, a Black African group in the country.

West Darfur state was the site of intense ethnic-based attacks by the RSF and its allied Arab militias against the Masalit in 2023.

‘There can be no doubt that the Masalit people is currently being subjected to genocide’

– Eirik Bjorge, lawyer representing Sudan

“There can be no doubt that the Masalit people is currently being subjected to genocide, and that there is serious evidence that the UAE is failing to prevent this and is complicit,” Eirik Bjorge, a professor of law representing Sudan, told the court.

He said that the RSF had used heavy and sophisticated weapons, of which a key reported supply route was from Abu Dhabi via Amdjarass airport in Chad.

The UAE has built a field hospital near the airport in Chad, using the banner of the Red Crescent.

“But, tellingly, when the Red Cross sought to visit in order to understand what the UAE operation was doing under its protected banner, the officials were turned away for security reasons,” Bjorge said.

He cited Sudan’s general intelligence service, which had concluded that the field hospital was a “primary supply and support hub for the enemy”.

Bjorge added mercenaries, including Colombians who had been hired by UAE-linked companies, were recruited to fight for the RSF.

Khartoum has requested that the ICJ implements a number of provisional measures.

These include ordering the UAE to take measures to prevent: the killing and causing serious harm towards the Masalit, deliberately inflicting conditions to bring about the physical destruction of the group, and the imposition of measures that are intended to prevent births within the group.

It also called for provisional measures ordering the UAE to ensure that any armed units supported by it do not directly or publicly incite to commit genocide.

“There can, for present purposes, be no question that there is sufficient evidence that the UAE is not only failing to prevent genocide, but is also complicit in genocide,” concluded Bjorge.

The UAE has repeatedly denied supporting the RSF, and on Thursday said the case was a “cynical and baseless PR stunt”.

“Since the start of the war, the UAE has not provided any arms or related material to either of the warring parties,” Reem Ketait, an official at the UAE foreign affairs ministry, told judges in the Emirates’ oral response to Sudan.

Ketait said the field hospital in Chad, as well as another one in South Sudan, were set up to assist those fleeing the war.

“The idea that the UAE is somehow the driver of this reprehensible conflict in Sudan could not be further from the truth,” she said.

“This case is the most recent iteration of the applicant’s misuse of our international institutions as a stage from which to attack the UAE.”

Does the ICJ have jurisdiction?

Although the UAE is a party to the Genocide Convention, on which the case is based, it made a reservation to Article Nine of the treaty when it acceded to it in 2005.

That fact may lead the court to dismiss the case, according to Michael Becker, an international human rights law expert who spoke to Middle East Eye last month.

Article Nine of the convention allows dispute settlement before the ICJ when a state party violates the treaty. States are allowed to opt out of the provision in advance of signing the treaty.

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By making a reservation to the article, the UAE withheld its consent to this provision, said Becker. Many other states have opted out of this clause, including the US, China, Algeria, Bahrain, Morocco, Malaysia, Yemen and India.

Samuel Wordsworth, who specialises in international arbitration, addressed the jurisdictional issue as part of Sudan’s oral argument.

Wordsworth argued that reservations must be interpreted in good faith.

He said the UAE’s reservation on Article Nine was ambigious, and may be invalid due to it being incompatible the Genocide Convention’s object and purpose.

“Surely that critical role [to consider the immediate risk of genocide] could not be defeated by an ambiguously worded reservation such as now before you,” Wordsworth said.

“The court must consider whether the UAE’s notably elliptical reservation is intended to exclude jurisdiction over its own state responsibility for genocide, despite the apparently careful omission of those very words from its reservation.”

In the UAE’s response, Keitan told the court: “It is clear beyond doubt that there is no jurisdiction. We therefore call upon the court to remove the case from the general list.”

Mathias Forteau, professor of public international law and part of the UAE’s team, told the court that the UAE’s reservation was never previously rejected by Sudan, and therefore “Article Nine is prevented from effect in the case between both parties”.

“The Court can only act and maintain a case on its docket if both of the parties concerned admit to its jurisdiction. And as I have said very clearly, this is not the case today,” Forteau said.