Attribution and legal assessment

Ethiopia controls the launch zones

None of the launch areas identified in this report is an ungoverned space. Asosa Airport is an installation of the Ethiopian National Defence Force (ENDF) undergoing a military upgrade. Bahir Dar Air Base is an Ethiopian Air Force base. The Gizen take-off point lies 65 km from the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, in a border zone that Ethiopia guards as vital national infrastructure; the Menge camp lies 101 km from the dam. Convoys of dozens of trucks, hundreds of tents, construction machinery passing daily through Asosa and cargo aircraft landing at its airport cannot escape the notice of the State that controls the ground. Ethiopia knew and could not but know what was being launched from its territory.

Every pathway of responsibility leads to Ethiopia

Denial is not an answer

Ethiopia has dismissed Sudan's evidence as baseless and has accused Sudan of supporting armed opposition to the Ethiopian Government.²⁴ Neither response engages with the evidence. No explanation has been offered for the take-off coordinates in the recovered flight computer, for Akıncı aircraft flying from Bahir Dar, for the ground-control station at Asosa or for the RSF camp at Menge. A counter-accusation would not justify the use of force against Sudan: international law knows no defence of reciprocal wrongdoing. Sudan's door to verification remains open; Ethiopia has chosen not to walk through it.

Use of force and aggression

Article 2(4) of the Charter of the United Nations prohibits the use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any State. Armed drone strikes against Sudanese cities, military positions and infrastructure, launched from Ethiopian territory, are uses of force against Sudan.

General Assembly resolution 3314 (XXIX), the Definition of Aggression, lists among acts of aggression:

• Article 3(f): the action of a State in allowing its territory, which it has placed at the disposal of another State, to be used by that other State for perpetrating an act of aggression against a third State; and
• Article 3(g): the sending by or on behalf of a State of armed bands, groups, irregulars or mercenaries which carry out acts of armed force against another State, or its substantial involvement therein.

The International Court of Justice has recognised Article 3(g) as reflecting customary international law, and has held that arming and training armed groups for use against another State constitutes a use of force.²⁵ In Armed Activities on the Territory of the Congo, the Court found that a State's military, logistical and financial support to irregular forces operating in a neighbour's territory violated both the prohibition of the use of force and the principle of non-intervention.²⁶

Non-intervention and the duty of vigilance

The Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations (resolution 2625 (XXV)) obliges every State to refrain from organising, instigating, assisting or participating in acts of civil strife in another State, or acquiescing in organised activities within its territory directed towards the commission of such acts. Since Corfu Channel, every State is bound not to allow knowingly its territory to be used for acts contrary to the rights of other States.²⁷ Unlike a State unable to control remote frontier areas, Ethiopia exercises full control over the airfields and the security zone from which these attacks are launched.

African Union law

The Constitutive Act of the African Union establishes the prohibition of the use of force or threat to use force among Member States (Article 4(f)) and non-interference by any Member State in the internal affairs of another (Article 4(g)). The African Union Non-Aggression and Common Defence Pact (Abuja, 2005) defines aggression, in Article 1(c), to include allowing a State's territory to be used for aggression against another State and the provision of support to armed groups and mercenaries that carry out hostile acts against a Member State.

International humanitarian law

The attacks documented in this report struck civilians, hospitals, homes and objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population, in violation of the principles of distinction and proportionality (Additional Protocol I, Articles 48, 51, 52 and 54) and the corresponding rules of customary international law. Ethiopia, a party to the Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols, is bound by Common Article 1 to respect and to ensure respect for international humanitarian law. A State that provides the launch platform for attacks on civilians does the opposite.

Consequences

Ethiopia's internationally wrongful conduct entails the obligations to cease it, to offer appropriate assurances and guarantees of non-repetition, and to make full reparation for the injury caused (Articles 30 and 31 of the ILC Articles on State Responsibility).

The Republic of Sudan will seize the competent organs. It will lodge a formal complaint against the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, and against every other State found to have participated in, financed or facilitated these attacks, before the United Nations Security Council, the African Union Peace and Security Council and all competent international and regional bodies. Sudan's recourse to these mechanisms is an act of legality, not a renunciation of its rights: should they prove unable or unwilling to enforce international law, Sudan will exercise in full its inherent right of individual self-defence under Article 51 of the Charter.