On 17th July 2026, Lawyers for Lawyers (L4L), together with the Sudanese Defenders Center for Legal Aid (SDCLA), the International Observatory for Lawyers at Risk (OIAD), and the Sudanese Lawyers Network, submitted a joint report for the fourth cycle Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of the Republic of the Sudan. The review will take place during the 54th UPR Working Group session in January–February 2027.
Background and scope of the submission
This submission is based on desk research and direct input from Sudanese legal practitioners. It documents the catastrophic impact of the ongoing armed conflict on the legal profession, focusing on the following thematic areas:
- The independence and functioning of legal institutions;
- Threats, intimidation, and reprisals against lawyers—including extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, and arbitrary detentions;
- Access to legal representation in the context of armed conflict.
Failure to implement previous UPR recommendations
The submission highlights a complete disregard for previous human rights commitments. During its 3rd cycle UPR review in January 2022, the Sudanese Government supported 26 recommendations intended to guarantee a safe environment for human rights defenders and lawyers, ensure freedom of expression, and foster access to justice. Following the October 2021 military coup and the outbreak of war in April 2023, these commitments remain entirely unrealized.
Erosion of judicial independence and institutional collapse
The ongoing armed conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has systematically dismantled the rule of law. Emergency legislation and decrees enacted since late 2021 have granted regular military forces and intelligence agencies expansive powers to arrest, search, and detain civilians without judicial oversight.
Across conflict zones like Khartoum, the Darfur states, Kordofan, and Gezira, the civilian judicial infrastructure has collapsed. Legal institutions and courts have been bombed, looted, or rendered non-functional, and the deliberate burning of judicial records and land registries has severely compromised the integrity of the legal system.
Furthermore, Sudan lacks a functioning, self-governing bar association. Following the arbitrary dissolution of the elected Bar Association Council via a 2023 decree, core regulatory and licensing functions were assumed by an unelected admissions committee operating out of Port Sudan. This has left legal practitioners completely unprotected from external state interference.
Legislative restrictions and barriers to effective legal representation
The legitimate exercise of legal representation has been actively criminalized. Where judicial processes still operate, civilians and lawyers are routinely diverted to special, terrorism, and “security cell” tribunals.
The report highlights multiple legislative and systemic barriers squeezing the profession:
- Unlawful Professional Sanctions: In December 2025, the unelected Port Sudan admissions committee summarily suspended or revoked the practicing licenses of 31 human rights lawyers without notice, investigation, or a right to appeal, under the pretext of political association.
- Weaponization of Criminal Law: Lawyers defending individuals accused of collaborating with opposing factions are routinely arrested and prosecuted under vague national security provisions—such as Articles 50 and 51 of the Criminal Act 1991 (undermining the constitutional order and waging war against the State)—which carry the death penalty.
- Denial of Access: Security and military forces systematically deny defense lawyers access to detention facilities, conceal the identities of detainees, and bar counsel from inspecting prosecution case files.
Attacks, threats, and persecution of lawyers
Sudanese lawyers have paid with their lives and liberty for upholding defense rights. Between April 2023 and January 2026, the Emergency Lawyers group reported that at least 16 of its members were killed and 32 arbitrarily detained:
- Extrajudicial Killings: Human rights lawyers Mohammed Ahmed Kudia, Khamis Arabab, and Khidir Sulieman Abdelmageed were assassinated in Darfur by armed militias and RSF members following explicit death threats tied to their legal defense work.
- Enforced Disappearances: Prominent practitioners, such as Khaled Omar Al-Sadiq, have been violently abducted from their homes by armed forces without warrants, their legal files confiscated, and held incommunicado in undisclosed facilities.
- Targeted Prosecutions: Human rights defense lawyers like Montaser Abdullah and Abubakr El-Mahi have been placed under surveillance, detained incommunicado, physically beaten, and prosecuted on capital charges simply for demanding access to court files or presenting evidence that contradicted state narratives.
Recommendations
The submitting organizations urge UN Member States to put forward the following recommendations to the Government of Sudan:
- Conduct prompt, independent, and impartial investigations into all extrajudicial killings, assaults, and threats against lawyers, ensuring perpetrators are held accountable.
- End the practice of enforced disappearance and arbitrary detention of legal practitioners, and guarantee the immediate release of all lawyers held for exercising their professional duties.
- Ensure that civilians are tried exclusively before ordinary civilian courts, and immediately cease the use of special, emergency, and military cells to prosecute lawyers and their clients.
- Re-establish an independent, self-governing bar association free from military or executive interference, and reinstate all practicing licenses revoked without due process.
- Guarantee all detainees prompt and confidential access to a lawyer of their choosing, strictly respecting legal professional privilege and international fair trial standards.
Read the full report here.
