About the author(s):
Tim van Zeeland is a LL.M. candidate in International Laws at Maastricht University, specialised in Human Rights and European Public Law, and holds a master’s degree in political sciences from the Université libre de Bruxelles.
1. Introduction
On 5 March 2025, the Republic of Sudan filed an application before the International Court of Justice (ICJ), claiming that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) had violated their obligations under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide by supporting the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), an armed group operating in Darfur and allegedly perpetrating genocidal acts against the Masalit People. Sudan argued that the connection between the RSF and the UAE was ‘so much one of dependence and control that it would be right, for [State responsibility] purposes, to equate [the RSF] to an organ of the [UAE], or as acting on behalf of the [UAE]’. Two months later, the ICJ however ruled that it manifestly lacked jurisdiction to entertain Sudan’s claims due to a reservation to Article IX of the Convention (through which States give jurisdiction to the Court over disputes pertaining to the interpretation, application, or fulfilment thereof) made by the UAE, therefore leaving unaddressed the question of the their potential responsibility in this case.
Notwithstanding these procedural hurdles, this contribution analyses the extent to which the UAE could be held to account in relation to the conduct of the RSF under the law of State responsibility.
2. Factual Background of the Case and Ties between the UAE and the RSF
Sudan has been the theatre of a renewed civil war since April 2023 when hostilities broke out between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the RSF, an armed group finding its origins in the Janjaweed militias used by the regime of Omar al-Bashir in the early 2000s. As categorised by War Watch, this conflict is non-international in nature. Yet, in addition to Sudan, reports of the United Nations Panel of Experts on Sudan (here and here), Human Rights Watch and other bodies (here and here), and other media outlets (here, here, and here) document a certain form of involvement of the UAE on the side of the RSF, the former relying on the latter as a proxy to pursue their objectives in the region.
Instances of State support to armed groups is not a new phenomenon (think of the Cold War era) and represents a dangerous occurrence in the realm of international relations. In fact, it is believed that almost two-thirds of armed groups active since 1945 have received resources from outside States. These forms of indirect intervention, as Eugénie Duss highlighted, constitute a key feature of contemporary armed conflicts with, among others: Ukrainian separatists supported by Russia; the Rwanda-backed M23 in Eastern DRC; or the Houthi in Yemen, sponsored by Iran. States have incentives to delegate the ‘dirty work’ to armed groups as this may reduce the political and economic costs of waging a war of their own and it allows them to maintain some plausible deniability over their involvement in the activities of those groups, and hence to avoid their obligations (and responsibility) under international law (here, here, and here). But at the same time, research suggests that such forms of intervention result in the escalation and protraction of conflicts, which ultimately causes more human suffering (here, here, here, and here).
Reports of the UN Panel of Experts highlight the various violations of international humanitarian law perpetrated by the RSF in Darfur, which include among others indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks on civilians, mistreatment of civilians (torture, rape, mass arrests and detention); forced displacement; or attacks on humanitarian assets and personnel. These, in turn, may amount to war crimes (here, paras 56–68; here, paras 25–38 and 45–50).
Alleged forms of UAE support to the RSF include the provision of weapons and ammunitions, shipment of military equipment (including fighter drones), training, and the recruitment of mercenaries. The Panel of Experts found that those allegations are credible. As a result, it may be that this support played a role in the exactions of the RSF. Since the UAE pursue their objectives through that group, the question of their potential international responsibility arises, and is analysed in the coming sections of this post.
3. Can the UAE Incur Responsibility for the Conduct of the RSF?
Under the Articles on State Responsibility (ASR), a State incurs responsibility in relation to a particular conduct if said conduct can be attributed to that State. When it comes to situations where a State supports an armed group, the most relevant grounds of attribution are found in Articles 4 and 8 ASR, and the respective interpretation thereof in the jurisprudence of the ICJ, namely in its Nicaragua and Bosnian Genocide judgements.
Article 4 ASR pertains in principle to organs of the State. Under normal circumstances, armed groups would not qualify as such as they usually do not form part of the State apparatus. However, in exceptional cases, armed groups may qualify as de facto State organs, provided some stringent requirements are met. For this to occur, the ICJ requires that the armed group finds itself in a relationship of ‘complete dependence’ vis-à-vis the State, which implies that the former lacks any real autonomy and is merely an instrument of the latter (Nicaragua, para 114; Bosnian Genocide, para 392). If this can be demonstrated, any conduct of an armed group engages the responsibility of its sponsor State (Nicaragua, para 114). If, however, the armed group retains ‘some real, but qualified, margin of independence’, attribution will fail on that basis. Such a relationship has so far only been found once in the case of Ukraine and the Netherlands v Russia before the European Court of Human Rights (paras 363–364).
Applied to the present situation, it is far from certain that this could be demonstrated. The support provided by the UAE to the RSF is purely material and does not seem to imply any form of subordination – absent further documentation. It may well be that the RSF remain autonomous and yet perpetrate atrocities thanks to the support of the UAE.
Outside this scenario, the UAE could see their responsibility engaged if the RSF committed specific acts (hence requiring a case-by-case basis assessment) on their instructions, or under their direction or control (Article 8 ASR). The Commentaries to the ASR specify that those three terms are disjunctive, and that only one of them must be established. They note further that those must relate to the conduct which is said to amount to a violation of international law (Commentary to Article 8, para 7). These are generally understood as falling under the ‘effective control’ test developed in Nicaragua, according to which the State is responsible for the conduct of the armed group if it exercised effective control over the operation of the latter in the course of which the alleged violations occurred (para 115). In turn, the State must either instruct the armed group to commit certain atrocities, or exercise a very close form of operational control over those (Bosnian Genocide, para 406).
Analysing the available reports, it does not seem that the UAE could see their responsibility triggered on that basis either. None of the reports referred to above speak of instructions issued by the UAE in order to carry out – for example – indiscriminate attacks on civilians, nor that organs of the UAE exercised ‘effective control’ over those. It may be the case that the RSF acted upon the instructions of the latter, but these are generally difficult to demonstrate. This seems to be the conclusion for Human Rights Watch’s report “From Bogotá to El Fasher”, where nothing indicates UAE control over RSF operations. The responsibility of the UAE on that criterion is thus rather unlikely.
As can be seen from the above, attribution standards relating to armed groups as applied by international practice fail to consider situations where States are heavily involved in the activities of armed groups but nevertheless play an important role in the violations of international law committed by those. Absent proof of a particularly stringent form of control, the supporting State is likely to evade its responsibility in relation to the conduct to which it may have contributed.
4. End of the Story? Or Towards an Alternative Approach to State Responsibility?
In this author’s opinion, the above should however not preclude the possibility for the UAE – or for any other State – to be held accountable in relation to the atrocious conduct of their proxies which falls short of attribution but nevertheless maintains a certain connection with the support of that State.
In that regard, an interesting development could lie in the principles of ‘responsibility for aid or assistance’ enshrined in Article 16 ASR, as seems to be suggested by some commentators (for example here, here, and here). This provision establishes a form of ‘indirect’ or ‘derivative’ responsibility, where the State who aids or assists the recipient bears responsibility to the extent that its support has contributed to the violation of international law committed by the latter, but not for the violation itself (Commentary to Article 16, paras 1 and 10).
Based on the wording of this provision, responsibility for aid or assistance is limited to inter-State relationships, which therefore excludes its application to situations involving a State and an armed group. Yet, its underlying principles could be applied by analogy to such instances. For example, Austria relied on Article 16 ASR when it opposed the lifting of an EU arms embargo on the supply of weapons to Syrian opposition groups. In Bosnian Genocide, the ICJ seems to have opened the door to that possibility when it held that ‘[a]lthough this provision, because it concerns a situation characterized by a relationship between two States, is not directly relevant to the present case, it nevertheless merits consideration’ (para 420, emphasis added). More pertinent to this post is the direct reference to Article 16 as a basis for responsibility in two of the reports mentioned above (here and here). Could these elements be understood as a progressive move towards an alternative construction of responsibility when States act through armed groups?
Although it is beyond the scope of this post to delve into each of the requirements to be met for responsibility to operate on that basis, a State would, roughly speaking, incur responsibility if it knowingly provides aid or assistance which significantly contributes to the violations of international law perpetrated by the armed group it supports. This is distinct from responsibility based on attribution because the focus is on a relationship that is not one of control or dependence, but one that is mainly material.
If this were to be applied to the UAE and the RSF, the former’s responsibility could potentially be engaged in relation to the conduct to which they have contributed. As reported, Emirati weapons were transported to Sudan to the benefit of the RSF. When looking at the violations of international humanitarian law committed by that group, it may be that those arms played a significant role in the indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks on the civilian population. The multiple available data on these, as well as Sudan’s action before the ICJ should lead the UAE to know that their support favours the commission of those crimes. Consequently, the UAE could see their responsibility established in relation to all violations of international law to which those weapons significantly contributed. If this is systematically the case, the consequences in terms of international responsibility of the UAE could be more far-reaching compared to a finding reached on ‘control-based’ attribution standards.
5. Conclusion
Sudan’s failure in front of the ICJ did not resolve the question of UAE international responsibility. Existing attribution doctrine makes it difficult to treat RSF conduct as that of the UAE, even with substantiated allegations of extensive support. Yet, this difficulty exposes a broader challenge for international law. States may significantly contribute to the capacity of armed groups to commit atrocities without exercising the required levels of control for attribution to occur. A solution built on a rule similar to that of Article 16 ASR, shifting the focus from control to material assistance only could prove a useful tool to overcome this challenge. It could furthermore allow for a more accurate appraisal of responsibility in that the alleged wrongful conduct of the armed group is not made that of the State through attribution: both entities are responsible with regard to their respective contribution to such conduct, the armed group as principal and the State as an ‘accomplice’.