The Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary group that controls most of western and southern Sudan, declared its own government on April 16.¹ The declaration follows two years of a bloody civil war marred by the RSF’s genocide, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity towards the Massalit ethnic population in West Darfur, Sudan.² A UN panel estimated that in 2023 alone, the RSF killed between 10,000 and 15,000 people in El Geneina, a city in West Darfur with a high concentration of Massalit residents.² Outside of physical deaths, the civil war has created over 3.7 million internationally displaced people and over 800,000 Sudanese refugees across northern Africa.³

The new government’s arrival is not the only recent development in Sudan’s ongoing conflict. Just one month prior, on March 5, 2025, the Sudanese government filed proceedings against the United Arab Emirates (UAE) before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) alleging that the UAE violated the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide due to its backing of the RSF in Sudan.⁴ The filing claims that the United Arab Emirates has secured material and financing provisions for the RSF since at least 2023. Just a few days ago, a 2023 UN Panel of Experts report was leaked; damningly, it showed extensive patterns of cargo flights from UAE military bases to Chad, a notable conduit for RSF arms acquisitions.⁵ A complementary 2024 report from the same panel exposed trade routes from Chad to Darfur, the region that had been under siege by the RSF until late last month. Additionally, routes were also created between a new logistics base and eastern Chad and southern Libya in the “Desert Front” campaign, another venture that shows close ties to UAE cargo flights.⁵ Such findings indicate the United Nation is in an optimal position to find the United Arab Emirates at least partially liable for the large-scale funding and backing of the RSF’s genocide and crimes against humanity.

The relationship between the UAE and the RSF dates back many years, given the RSF took part in the Yemen Civil War as part of its foreign operations. At the time, many argued that the RSF’s presence in the civil war created the backdrop and training necessary for stronger political capacity within its home state of Sudan.⁶ Now, these arguments are playing out in real time. The profit the RSF gained by being a quasi-hired force in the Yemen Civil War now translates into sizable funds for its own national operations.⁶ Such extensive and well-known ties should facilitate a clear case of connection between UAE financing and RSF violence for the International Court of Justice. The ICJ should take advantage of this unique opportunity to recognize that war does not end at national borders.

Critically, an integral part of the case is the choice of court the Sudanese government filed within. The International Court of Justice settles disputes between nations, which explains its focus on condemning the UAE’s role rather than the RSF. However, one may now make a case that, since the RSF has declared itself a government within Sudan, there is an opportunity to utilize international recognition of the RSF’s political capacity to jump start legal suits—legal suites that would create space for building international coalitions on actions such as UN economic sanctions. While of course the RSF hopes to assert international recognition through its declaration of governance in Darfur, such actions—if they succeed in gaining the paramilitary organization some semblance of statehood—may in fact result in worsened condemnations and crackdowns against the violent political organization. Moreover, even if Sudan were to refuse to recognize the RSF government as legitimate, another state may use their own recognition to initiate filings. There is precedent here: two years ago, South Africa initiated ICJ proceedings against Israel on behalf of Palestine.⁴ Still, such proceedings could only occur if the new RSF government were to gain membership to the United Nations and consent to international laws like the Statute of the International Court of Justice—a highly improbable feat for the paramilitary organization that has been declared genocidal by a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council—the United States.⁷ If the RSF were to gain membership at the United Nations, its existence would generate interesting questions of how international law may be used to not only recognize states and facilitate their autonomy, but also how international state recognition may be weaponized to condemn actions by violent actors seeking international autonomy.   

Perhaps the most probable and efficient way that the current proceedings may utilize international law to create collective condemnation is through declarations of intervention. In International Court of Justice proceedings, states may file declarations of intervention to show support for the filing state. Sudan’s filing against the United Arab Emirates may provide a unique opportunity for Global South nations to coalesce around a new norm of non-intervention by wealthy, imperial states. While the UAE is not an overtly imperial state, its actions are fueled by desire to exploit the catastrophes of Sudan and create a power vacuum for wealth accumulation. If other nations—especially those that were also the recipients of interventionist funding by imperial states—were to file declarations of intervention, it would provide a unique opportunity for resistance within international law. Since many of the wealthiest imperial states are not members of the ICJ, including the United States and China, the case of Sudan vs UAE allows countries in the Global South to recognize their own shared experiences of financial intervention and proxy militaries and unite under a coalition of condemnation for a country more likely to be found guilty (or even enter the system in the first place). The UAE is without veto power, making any findings of the court legally binding under international law. Countries in the Global South should rally around such an opportunity to provide a united front and file declarations of intervention to condemn new structures of imperialism that threaten the countries of the Global South’s entrances on the world stage.

Sudan’s filing against the UAE creates new questions of intervention and financing regimes within international law. Countries in the Global South would be remiss to lose their opportunity to condemn the new underground financial interventions of external governments increasingly common in the “post-colonial” era. Additionally, such filings accompanied by new declarations of statehood foster questions of how international recognition of statehood may be manipulated to create international coalition building. Hopefully, such a case may make these questions part of a new push for solidarity against external actors’ roles in genocide and war crimes. It is time for the world to hold interventionists accountable for the destruction they sow—and that starts in the world’s court for justice.

Works Cited

1. Walsh, Declan, “Sudanese Paramilitary Group Declares Parallel Government as 400,000 Flee Offensive,” New York Times, published April 16, 2025.

2. Human Rights Watch, “The Massalit Will Not Come Home,” Human Rights Watch, May 9, 2024.

3. UNCHR | USA, “Sudan,” The UN Refugee Agency.

4. International Court of Justice, “Sudan institutes proceedings against the United Arab Emirates and requests the Court to indicate provisional measures,” ICJ, March 6, 2025.

5. Sudan Tribune Editors, “UN details RSF supply routes as leaked report spotlights UAE-Chad flights,” Sudan Tribune, April 16, 2025.

6. International Crisis Group, “The UAE: Squeezing out Islamists and Their Backers,” Intra-Gulf Competition in Africa’s Horn: Lessening the Impact, International Crisis Group, 2019.

7. Blinken, Antony J, “Genocide Determination in Sudan and Imposing Accountability Measures,” U.S. Department of State, January 7, 2025.