News & Briefings
The latest updates from our newsroom.
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Sanctioned By the African Union, South Sudan Has Lost Its Floor and Votes. Paralysed For The Upcoming AU Summit
South Sudan enters this month’s high-level summits in Egypt as a diplomatic ghost, stripped of its right to speak or vote following a February decision by the African Union to enforce rigid financial sanctions. Unless Juba clears arrears estimated between $3 million and $6 million, the world’s youngest nation faces a total administrative freeze and the loss of its membership rights by 2027.
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South Sudan Government's Policy Stagnation Fuels Another UN Sanctions Extension
Every uninvestigated atrocity, every warlord integrated into the state payroll without accountability, strengthens the hand of those in New York and other capitals who argue that sanctions must not only continue but be tightened. Washington maintains that any influx of weapons into a fractured polity where commanders have repeatedly turned arms on civilians would inevitably escalate internal strife. Juba’s envoys, tasked with making the case for relief, are left with a brief devoid of deliverables, forced to rely on appeals to sovereignty that sound increasingly hollow when the sovereign in question cannot control its own military or protect its own citizens.
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Juba Retreats from Unilateral Peace Deal Amendment After Western Pressure
South Sudan's cabinet abandoned a controversial plan to weaken the legal authority of the 2018 peace agreement following severe international backlash. The reversal preserves the deal’s status as the supreme legal framework ahead of the country's planned 2026 general elections.
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Kenya’s Judicial Service Commission Pushes for Data-Driven Accountability of Judges
The Kenyan Judiciary is transitioning to a transparent framework that mandates the publication of individual performance data for judges to ensure constitutional accountability. This shift requires court leadership to prioritize metrics like case clearance rates and public perception to maintain the institutional record.
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SOUTH SUDAN JUDICIARY MANDATES ENGLISH FOR COURT JUDGMENTS: A DRAMATIC LEGAL PIVOT TOWARD THE EAST AFRICAN COMMUNITY
All judges in the Republic of South Sudan shall write their judgments in English with effect from 1st June, 2026, the Chief Justice declared.
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Kenyan Court Deals Blow to Bank of South Sudan as Millions are Seized for State Debt
In a dramatic ruling that underscores the vulnerability of sovereign assets, the Kenyan Court of Appeal has paved the way for a landmark legal battle over central bank independence—even as it admitted the specific funds at the heart of the dispute have already vanished.
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The South Sudan Blood Oil Trial in Sweden Nears Its Judgment
After a historic three-year legal battle, corporate executives face a definitive reckoning over their alleged complicity in a brutal resource war. Stockholm prosecutors have concluded their closing arguments, seeking multi-year prison sentences for two former Lundin Oil executives accused of aiding and abetting war crimes in Sudan between 1999 and 2003, before South Sudan’s independence.
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South Sudan’s Defiance of the ACHPR Ruling Illegally Profits Terab Radio 87.6 FM
In its latest ruling, the African Commission condemned South Sudan for state-sanctioned land grabs, but Juba had already turned the illegally seized site into government-backed radio 87.6 Terab FM, hosting ministers and laundering the violation into a private asset for Mading Ngor Akec.
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ACHPR Ruling on South Sudan Nationality Case Sets New Precedent for African Citizenship Rights
The African Commission ruled South Sudan’s arbitrary stripping of a high-level official’s nationality—leaving her stateless—violated the African Charter’s dignity clause, and setting a new precedent for citizenship rights in Africa.
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AU Peace and Security Council Reiterates Call for the Release of First Vice President Riek Machar
Following its 1343rd meeting held on April 30, 2026, AU Peace and Security Council Calls for the Release of First Vice President Riek Machar from Detention in Juba.
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D.C. District Court Rejects South Sudan’s Motion to Strike, Ordering May 8 Response to QNB’s Evidence
Judge Timothy denied the Bank of South Sudan’s motion to strike, permitting Qatar National Bank’s late-filed statement of facts to remain on the record, in a high-stakes $1 billion enforcement battle involving sovereign default and allegations of state control.
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How Michael Makuei Nearly Torched South Sudan’s Peace Accord
In a high-stakes gamble that bordered on institutional suicide, Justice Minister Michael Makuei Lueth attempted to dismantle the very legal framework that grants South Sudan’s government its authority. By branding the 2018 peace agreement “originally defective” and moving to bypass mandatory international oversight, Makuei didn’t just trigger a constitutional crisis—he attempted a "legal coup”. The maneuver has backfired, leaving the transitional government in a state of terminal paralysis, rejected by its own submissive parliament and stripped of its remaining domestic and international credibility.
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South Sudan Embarks on Recruiting More Judges, More than a Hundred Interviewed So Far
South Sudan is filling more than 100 judicial vacancies under a 2008 obsolete legal framework. While the government frames this recruitment as a necessary expansion ahead of the December 2026 elections, the process is unfolding without the institutional reforms mandated by the 2018 peace agreement. This vacuum of oversight suggests the new bench may serve as a political instrument of the executive rather than an independent arbiter of the rule of law.