Galvanising the African Union’s Role on Sudan

Galvanising the African Union’s Role on Sudan

By Caitlan Lloyd, REDRESS

This article is part of the Sudan edition of our Just Reparation newsletter, which brings together perspectives from practitioners, advocates, and organisations working alongside survivors of torture and other serious human rights violations in Sudan. This special edition explores ongoing discussions, initiatives, and pathways towards securing reparation for victims of the conflict in Sudan.

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The UN Basic Principles and Guidelines recognise five forms of reparation that are owed to victims. Of these, guarantees of non-repetition – that is, measures to prevent the future recurrence of torture and other grave violations – rarely receive adequate attention. This is an especially pertinent failing in Sudan, where patterns of violence repeat in cycles across decades, driven by long-standing legal, institutional, political, social, and economic concerns. Any meaningful campaign to repair the harms suffered by victims must prioritise dismantling the systems that permit and incentivise violence as the principal means of doing politics in Sudan.

Meanwhile, it is three and a half years into the devastating ongoing armed conflict in Sudan. Now the world’s worst humanitarian and displacement crisis, the situation in Sudan has become emblematic of double standards, especially the unwillingness of States to confront key sponsors of atrocities if doing so may jeopardise their own trade and investment partnerships. Some cite the lack of effective global action on Sudan as a challenge to the relevance of the international legal order itself.

Against this backdrop, the African Union is, regrettably, yet to develop a distinct voice for accountability and peace in Sudan that is capable of influencing the country’s present and future. The African Union has a history in Sudan of documenting and monitoring human rights violations, analysing their root causes, supporting accountability efforts, and mediating conflicts. However, the array of actors now involved, the emergence of disparate mediation platforms, limited cooperation from the warring parties, and the African Union’s own architectural and resourcing limitations risk relegating it to only a bit-party player.

The situation demands creativity. If the African Union is to course correct, it should make more effective use of the unique assets it has. Chief among them is the rich jurisprudence of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, which has been receiving complaints from victims and making legal findings on responsibility for African Charter violations committed by the Sudanese authorities, dating back to abuses committed in the wake of the 1989 military coup led by former President Omar al-Bashir.

Since April 2023 alone, REDRESS has received five merits decisions from the African Commission on behalf of our Sudanese clients. These include crucial findings of torture and ill-treatment in four individual cases, as well as a landmark decision finding Sudan responsible for widespread and serious violations in a mass claim brought on behalf of civilians in South Kordofan and Blue Nile. In these and other cases, the African Commission has made detailed orders on non-repetition, highlighting specific legislative changes, institutional reforms, and other measures that Sudan should implement to address the structural impunity of its military and security establishment.

The formation of the Virtual Joint Fact-Finding Mission, led by the African Commission, is also a welcome development. Its October 2025 report makes strong findings on root causes, inclusive, survivor-centred reparations, security sector reform, hate speech, transitional justice, and the need for an African-led accountability mechanism that is complementary to the ICC. But in a situation so urgent, it is not enough for recommendations to lie dormant in lengthy decisions and reports.

A rudimentary study of peacemaking efforts in Sudan would extol the virtues of preparation, prioritisation, and identifying red line issues that, if compromised, would undermine the integrity and results of the process. Past peace processes have been plagued by varying combinations of inadequate participatory approaches, lack of leverage, frenetic timetabling, imbalanced bargains, and spoilers sowing division. But perhaps the most consequential failing has been the practice of so-called negative peace-making, where short-term peace has come at the expense of accountability, justice, and reparation. Not only has this failed to break the cycle of armed violence and military coups; it has also incentivised actors to use more violence to gain a greater share of power, wealth, legitimacy, and other benefits conferred as part of peace agreements.

The African Union has an opportunity to champion non-repetition and positive peace-making in Sudan. There is precedent for this. In December 2020, during the tenure of the ill-fated transitional government, a group of civil society organisations reached a settlement with Sudan regarding a complaint brought before the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child. The case concerned materially the same facts as the abovementioned case on South Kordofan and Blue Nile, but instead alleged violations of the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child.

The settlement reached in this case (which is well worth a read) is remarkable for the breadth of commitments to reparations made by the then-transitional government. This includes detailed undertakings on non-repetition concerning, for instance, the proper domestication of international crimes and vital reforms to Sudan’s laws on conflict-related sexual violence. While implementation was effectively aborted following the October 2021 military coup, the model itself is sound.

Despite the grave situation in Sudan, we should not lose sight of our goal – to disrupt the cycle. The African Union should support this goal by making non-repetition a strategic priority in its engagement on Sudan. It is credible, well-positioned, and has strong incentives to do so. If it is ultimately successful in disrupting the prevailing template in which justice, accountability, and reparation are relegated to a lower status in peace agendas, the African Union will have played a crucial role in securing Sudan’s future under a democratic, civilian-led government.

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