Armed Activities on the Territory of the Congo (DRC v. Uganda)

1. Introduction

DRC v. Uganda stands as one of the most practically consequential judgments ever delivered by the International Court of Justice on armed conflict between States. Its importance does not lie in doctrinal novelty alone, but in the way classical rules of public international law were forced to operate under conditions of extreme factual complexity: a regional war involving multiple States, proxy armed groups, contested territorial control, mass human rights violations, and systematic exploitation of natural resources. The case required the Court to confront how international law assigns responsibility when unlawful conduct unfolds over years, across porous borders, and through both direct military action and indirect support to non-state actors (ICJ, 2005).

At its core, the dispute concerned Uganda’s military involvement on the territory of the Democratic Republic of the Congo during the Second Congo War. The DRC alleged violations of the prohibition of the use of force, unlawful military occupation of parts of its territory, breaches of international humanitarian law and international human rights law, and large-scale looting and plundering of Congolese natural resources. Uganda, for its part, invoked self-defence and denied effective control over many of the armed groups responsible for abuses. The Court’s task was therefore not to narrate a war, but to isolate legally attributable conduct within a chaotic factual environment and to assess that conduct against multiple, overlapping legal regimes.

The stakes of the case extend well beyond Central Africa. DRC v. Uganda became a test case for how the ICJ handles evidentiary uncertainty, fragmented attribution, and omission-based responsibility, particularly the failure of an occupying power to prevent violations by forces under its control or influence. The judgment clarified how occupation law applies outside classic post–World War II scenarios and how human rights obligations continue to bind States acting extraterritorially during armed conflict (ICJ, 2005). It also confirmed that systematic resource exploitation in an occupied territory is not a peripheral issue but a central breach engaging State responsibility.

The case acquired renewed significance with the Court’s 2022 reparations judgment, which translated abstract responsibility into a quantified monetary award. That later phase transformed DRC v. Uganda from a liability judgment into a rare example of inter-State compensation for mass harm, including loss of life, destruction of property, and unlawful exploitation of natural resources (ICJ, 2022). The reparations decision exposed the limits of precision in post-conflict valuation, while also demonstrating the Court’s willingness to rely on global-sum assessments when strict proof is unattainable.

This article argues that DRC v. Uganda should be read as a single, integrated legal project rather than as two disconnected judgments separated by seventeen years. When examined holistically, the case offers a concrete model for how international law addresses unlawful force, occupation, and economic predation, while revealing the structural constraints that continue to limit accountability in inter-State litigation. The analysis that follows is deliberately example-driven and practice-oriented, treating the case not as a theoretical exposition, but as a working manual for understanding how responsibility is established, justified, and ultimately priced under contemporary public international law.

2. Background and procedural architecture of the Congo cases

The Congo litigation before the International Court of Justice cannot be understood as a single, linear dispute. It is better described as a fragmented judicial response to a regional war that involved several States, dozens of armed groups, and overlapping legal claims. The Court was not asked to adjudicate the Second Congo War as a whole. Instead, it was required to extract legally cognisable bilateral disputes from a multi-layered conflict environment and to assess only those aspects for which jurisdiction could be established and responsibility individualized. This procedural architecture decisively shaped both the scope of the case and the depth of the Court’s factual findings (ICJ, 2005).

The structure of the proceedings explains why the judgment focuses intensely on Uganda’s conduct, while leaving large portions of the conflict legally untouched. The case thus illustrates how international adjudication simplifies reality not out of analytical weakness, but because of jurisdictional and evidentiary constraints inherent to inter-State litigation.

2.1 The conflict setting the Court is actually adjudicating

The factual background of the case lies in the Second Congo War, which erupted in 1998 following the collapse of relations between the Congolese government and former allies Rwanda and Uganda. What followed was not a conventional interstate war with clear frontlines, but a fluid conflict characterized by shifting alliances, proxy militias, foreign troop deployments, and localized violence driven by ethnic, political, and economic motives. Several States intervened militarily on Congolese territory, often justifying their presence as defensive or stabilizing measures (Prunier, 2009).

The Court, however, was not adjudicating the war as a regional phenomenon. It was required to assess a narrower factual matrix: Uganda’s military presence and conduct on Congolese territory, particularly in the Ituri region, and Uganda’s relationship with armed groups operating there. This narrowing effect is critical. The judgment does not purport to allocate overall responsibility for the conflict, nor does it address the conduct of all intervening States. Instead, it isolates Uganda’s actions and omissions that were sufficiently linked to the DRC’s claims and supported by admissible evidence (ICJ, 2005).

This selective factual framing has important consequences. Many atrocities occurred in areas where multiple armed actors operated simultaneously, making precise attribution difficult. The Court therefore focused on patterns of conduct that could be legally characterized with confidence: the presence of Ugandan troops exercising authority, the establishment of military administration in Ituri. It repeated failures to prevent abuses and resource exploitation by forces operating under Uganda’s effective control or influence. The conflict setting, as adjudicated, is thus not the full historical record of the war, but a legally filtered version shaped by standards of proof and attribution.

2.2 The ICJ docket map: why Uganda reached the merits

The procedural history of the Congo cases explains why Uganda became the only respondent whose conduct was examined on the merits. When the Democratic Republic of the Congo initiated proceedings in 1999, it brought parallel applications against several States, including Uganda and Rwanda. These cases were legally distinct, even though they arose from the same conflict. Their divergent outcomes were determined not by the gravity of the allegations, but by the availability of jurisdictional titles (ICJ, 2006).

In the proceedings against Rwanda, the Court concluded that it lacked jurisdiction, largely because Rwanda had not accepted the relevant treaty compromissory clauses or the Court’s compulsory jurisdiction in a manner applicable to the dispute. As a result, the case against Rwanda was removed from the merits stage entirely. This outcome highlights a fundamental principle of international adjudication: substantive legality is irrelevant if jurisdiction cannot be established (Crawford, 2013).

Uganda, by contrast, fell within the Court’s jurisdiction, enabling the case to proceed to a full examination of facts and law. This procedural asymmetry had significant implications. Uganda’s conduct became subject to detailed judicial scrutiny, while comparable allegations against other States remained legally unexamined. The resulting judgment, therefore, reflects not a comprehensive assessment of all foreign intervention in the Congo, but a jurisdictionally contingent account of responsibility.

This docket architecture also affected the evidentiary posture of the case. With fewer respondents before it, the Court could not rely on adversarial cross-claims among multiple States to clarify contested facts. Instead, it was required to reconstruct events through a combination of party submissions, United Nations documentation, and indirect evidence. The procedural pathway that brought Uganda to the merits stage thus shaped both the narrative density of the judgment and the form of responsibility ultimately attributed.

Understanding this background is essential for reading the case accurately. DRC v. Uganda is not a definitive legal history of the Congo war. It is a legally bound inquiry into one State’s internationally wrongful acts within a much larger and more complex conflict environment.

3. Jurisdiction, claims, and the litigation “shape” of DRC v. Uganda

The legal structure of DRC v. Uganda is inseparable from its jurisdictional foundations. Jurisdiction did not merely determine whether the Court could hear the case; it decisively influenced how the dispute was framed, which facts were developed in detail, and which legal questions were ultimately answered. The result was a case with a distinctive “litigation shape,” where responsibility was assessed through clustered claims rather than a single unified theory of wrongdoing, and where reciprocity and counterclaims played a limited but legally revealing role.

3.1 Jurisdictional basis and how it affected the merits record

The Court’s jurisdiction in DRC v. Uganda rested on Uganda’s acceptance of the ICJ’s compulsory jurisdiction under Article 36(2) of the Statute, combined with the absence of reservations that would exclude the dispute. This jurisdictional gateway allowed the Court to move beyond preliminary objections and engage fully with the merits, unlike parallel proceedings involving other States arising from the same conflict (ICJ, 2005).

This jurisdictional posture had two important consequences for the merits record. First, it enabled the Court to conduct a relatively expansive factual inquiry, unconstrained by the narrow treaty-based jurisdiction that often limits the scope of judicial reasoning in inter-State cases. The Court could assess Uganda’s conduct under general international law, including the prohibition of the use of force, customary rules on occupation, international humanitarian law, and international human rights law. This breadth explains why the judgment reads less like a treaty-interpretation exercise and more like a comprehensive responsibility assessment.

Second, jurisdiction shaped the evidentiary burden borne by the parties. Because the case proceeded on a unilateral application rather than a special agreement, the Democratic Republic of the Congo carried the primary burden of substantiating its allegations. This affected the density of factual findings. The Court was willing to draw conclusions where patterns of conduct were sufficiently corroborated, but it declined to rule on allegations that could not be linked with adequate precision to Ugandan forces or to Uganda’s failure to act (ICJ, 2005). The merits record is therefore uneven by design, reflecting jurisdictional permissiveness combined with evidentiary caution.

3.2 The claim-bundle (how the case is legally organized)

Rather than advancing a single overarching theory of illegality, the DRC structured its submissions as a bundle of interrelated claims. The Court largely adopted this organization, which can be grouped into five principal categories.

The first category concerned violations of the prohibition of the use of force and the principle of non-intervention. The DRC alleged that Uganda’s military presence on its territory lacked lawful justification and constituted an internationally wrongful act under the UN Charter and customary international law.

The second category addressed military occupation, focusing on Uganda’s control over the Ituri region. Here, the legal question was not merely presence, but whether Uganda exercised authority sufficient to trigger the law of occupation, along with the attendant duties to protect civilians and maintain public order.

The third category involved attribution and support to armed groups. The DRC argued that Uganda bore responsibility not only for acts committed by its own forces, but also for violations committed by militias operating with Ugandan support or acquiescence. This required the Court to engage with questions of control, influence, and omission-based responsibility.

The fourth category encompassed violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law. These claims covered killings, torture, destruction of property, and the recruitment and use of child soldiers. The Court treated these obligations as concurrently applicable, reinforcing the idea that armed conflict does not displace human rights responsibilities (ICJ, 2005).

The fifth category concerned the looting, plundering, and exploitation of natural resources. This strand was legally significant because it connected occupation law, economic exploitation, and State responsibility, laying the groundwork for later reparations claims.

This claim-bundle approach allowed the Court to assess each legal dimension separately while maintaining an integrated view of Uganda’s overall conduct. It also explains why some findings are highly specific, while others are framed in broader terms tied to failures of prevention.

3.3 Counterclaims and the reciprocity problem

Uganda responded to the DRC’s application by advancing counterclaims, alleging violations of international law by Congolese forces against Ugandan nationals and interests. These counterclaims raised the issue of reciprocity: whether wrongful conduct by one State can offset or neutralize responsibility for violations committed by another.

The Court’s treatment of counterclaims in DRC v. Uganda is revealing. While it acknowledged that international law permits counterclaims in principle, it approached them with caution and strict admissibility requirements. Only those counterclaims sufficiently connected to the subject matter of the original dispute were considered, and even then, they did not alter the Court’s assessment of Uganda’s primary responsibility (ICJ, 2005).

This approach reflects a broader judicial reluctance to allow reciprocity arguments to dilute findings of unlawful force or occupation. The Court implicitly reaffirmed that serious violations of peremptory or foundational norms are not excused by reciprocal breaches. In practical terms, this meant that Uganda’s counterclaims did not function as a balancing mechanism, but as parallel allegations assessed on their own merits.

The limited role of counterclaims reinforces the asymmetric structure of the case. DRC v. Uganda is not a mutual accounting exercise between equal wrongdoers. It is a responsibility-driven inquiry in which jurisdiction, claim design, and evidentiary thresholds collectively determined how the law was applied to a complex armed conflict.

4. Merits I: Use of force, self-defence, and non-intervention

The first substantive pillar of DRC v. Uganda addresses the legality of Uganda’s resort to force and its prolonged military presence on the territory of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The Court’s analysis is notable for its methodological restraint. Rather than engaging in broad security rhetoric or regional policy arguments, it applies settled legal tests derived from the UN Charter and customary international law, assessing Uganda’s conduct against clearly defined thresholds of legality (ICJ, 2005).

4.1 Legal tests the Court applies

The Court began with the prohibition of the use of force under Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter, reaffirming its status as a cornerstone of the international legal order. Any departure from this prohibition requires strict justification. In this case, the only potentially relevant exceptions were self-defence under Article 51 or valid consent by the territorial State (ICJ, 2005).

Self-defence was treated as an exceptional and narrowly circumscribed right. The Court reiterated that its activation presupposes the occurrence of an armed attack of sufficient gravity. The existence of hostile acts or generalized insecurity is not enough. The attack must be identifiable, and the response must be necessary to repel it and proportionate in scale and effects (Gray, 2018). The Court also emphasized the temporal dimension of self-defence, requiring a close connection between the alleged attack and the defensive measures taken.

Alongside the use-of-force analysis, the Court applied the principle of non-intervention, which prohibits coercive interference in the sovereign affairs of another State. This principle captures military involvement that may not amount to an armed attack but nonetheless infringes territorial sovereignty and political independence. The Court treated non-intervention as an autonomous legal constraint, capable of being violated even where the threshold of armed attack is contested (Crawford, 2019).

4.2 Uganda’s justifications and why they fail (or partially fail)

Uganda relied primarily on self-defence to justify its military operations in the Congo. It argued that armed groups operating from Congolese territory had launched attacks against Ugandan targets, and that the Congolese authorities were unable or unwilling to suppress those groups. On this basis, Uganda claimed a right to use force across the border to protect its security interests.

The Court rejected this justification on evidentiary and legal grounds. First, it found no proof that the Democratic Republic of the Congo itself had launched an armed attack against Uganda or that the non-state actors in question were acting on behalf of, or under the control of, the Congolese State. In the absence of such attribution, the legal threshold for invoking Article 51 was not met (ICJ, 2005). The Court was careful to note that it was not denying the existence of security threats, but rather that those threats had not been shown to engage the responsibility of the DRC as a State.

Second, the Court concluded that Uganda’s response failed the requirements of necessity and proportionality. Even assuming the existence of cross-border threats, Uganda’s military operations were neither limited in scope nor temporally confined. The sustained presence of Ugandan forces deep inside Congolese territory, coupled with the exercise of authority in areas such as Ituri, went far beyond what could plausibly be characterized as defensive action (Ruys, 2014).

Uganda also invoked consent as a subsidiary justification, suggesting that its forces initially entered the Congo with the acquiescence of Congolese authorities. The Court accepted that some form of consent may have existed at an early stage but held that it was subsequently withdrawn or exceeded. Once consent ceased to operate, Uganda’s continued military activities lost any legal basis derived from it (ICJ, 2005).

4.3 What the holding does not decide

The Court’s findings on the use of force are deliberately circumscribed. The judgment does not articulate a general doctrine on self-defence against non-state actors, nor does it endorse or reject broader theories concerning action on the territory of an “unwilling or unable” State. Instead, the Court confined its reasoning to the insufficiency of Uganda’s evidence and to the disproportionality of its response in the circumstances of the case (ICJ, 2005).

The holding also does not assess the legality of other foreign interventions in the Congo during the same period. Responsibility is allocated solely with respect to Uganda, reflecting the bilateral and jurisdictionally bounded nature of the proceedings. As a result, DRC v. Uganda reinforces the prohibition of the use of force through careful application rather than expansive doctrinal innovation, leaving unresolved some of the most contested issues in contemporary self-defence discourse.

5. Merits II: Occupation of Ituri and the law of occupation in practice

One of the most legally consequential findings in DRC v. Uganda is the Court’s conclusion that Uganda was an occupying power in parts of the Ituri district. This determination shifted the legal framework governing Uganda’s conduct from general rules on the use of force to the far more demanding regime of occupation law. The importance of this finding lies not only in the classification itself, but in how the Court operationalized occupation law in a non-classical setting marked by indirect control, proxy forces, and fragmented authority.

5.1 Threshold: when presence becomes “occupation”

The Court rejected any formalistic approach to occupation. It did not require a declaration of occupation, the establishment of a comprehensive civil administration, or the absence of local armed actors. Instead, it applied a functional test rooted in effective control, consistent with the Hague Regulations and customary international law (ICJ, 2005).

Occupation was found where Ugandan armed forces exercised authority over territory and population, even if that authority was contested or exercised through local structures. In Ituri, Ugandan forces controlled strategic locations, influenced local administrations, maintained military superiority, and intervened decisively in local power struggles. The Court emphasized that the presence of violence or instability does not negate occupation; on the contrary, it may reinforce the need for occupation law to apply precisely because the occupier is in a position to affect the security environment (Dinstein, 2019).

Crucially, the Court dismissed the argument that Uganda’s lack of exclusive control prevented a finding of occupation. It held that effective control does not require total or uncontested authority. What matters is the capacity to substitute one’s authority for that of the territorial sovereign in key respects. This reasoning reflects a pragmatic understanding of modern conflict zones, where occupation often coexists with armed resistance and competing power centers.

5.2 Occupier’s obligations (operational duties)

Once occupation was established, Uganda became subject to a dense set of positive obligations. The Court identified these duties not as abstract humanitarian aspirations, but as operational responsibilities directly linked to the occupier’s control over territory.

First, Uganda was obliged to ensure public order and safety. This included taking reasonable measures to prevent violence against civilians, suppress lawlessness, and protect life and property. The Court made clear that the occupier’s duty is one of conduct, not of guaranteed outcomes. However, where an occupying power possesses the means to act and fails to do so, responsibility may arise (ICJ, 2005).

Second, Uganda was required to respect and ensure respect for international humanitarian law and relevant human rights norms. The Court reaffirmed that occupation does not displace human rights obligations, and that these obligations apply extraterritorially where a State exercises authority over individuals. This dual application reinforced Uganda’s responsibility for killings, mistreatment, and other abuses committed in occupied areas.

Third, the Court highlighted duties relating to property and natural resources. Occupation law prohibits pillage and imposes strict limits on the use and exploitation of resources in occupied territory. Uganda’s obligations extended beyond refraining from direct exploitation; they included preventing unlawful appropriation by members of its forces and by actors operating under its authority or tolerance (Benvenisti, 2012).

5.3 “Failure to prevent” as a liability engine

Perhaps the most innovative aspect of the occupation analysis in DRC v. Uganda lies in the Court’s reliance on omission-based responsibility. The Court did not limit Uganda’s liability to acts directly committed by its soldiers. Instead, it emphasized Uganda’s failure to prevent violations committed by militias and local actors operating in areas under Ugandan control.

This “failure to prevent” logic operates as a liability engine within occupation law. Once effective control is established, the occupier cannot avoid responsibility by pointing to the formal independence of local armed groups. If those groups operate in an environment shaped by the occupier’s authority, and if the occupier has the capacity to restrain them, inaction becomes legally relevant (ICJ, 2005).

The Court’s reasoning is grounded in the preventive nature of occupation law. The occupier’s primary obligation is not merely to abstain from wrongdoing, but to actively manage the territory in a manner that minimizes harm to the civilian population. Uganda’s tolerance of violence, failure to disarm militias, and inability or unwillingness to prevent widespread abuses were therefore treated as breaches in their own right.

This approach has lasting implications. It confirms that occupation law is not a passive framework triggered only by direct misconduct. It is a regime of responsibility based on authority, capacity, and omission. In DRC v. Uganda, this logic transformed factual control into legal accountability, ensuring that the occupier could not escape responsibility by governing through proxies or by allowing disorder to persist.

6. Merits III: Attribution, control, and support to armed groups

A central difficulty in DRC v. Uganda was how to assign legal responsibility for violence committed by a multiplicity of armed groups operating in eastern Congo. The Court was required to navigate between two extremes: treating all militia conduct as purely private violence, or attributing all abuses to Uganda by virtue of its military presence. Its solution was neither categorical nor abstract. Instead, the Court developed a fact-sensitive approach grounded in control, capacity, and omission, producing one of its most practice-oriented analyses of attribution in contemporary armed conflict (ICJ, 2005).

6.1 The control problem (effective control vs overall influence)

The Court approached attribution through the lens of effective control, consistent with its earlier jurisprudence on State responsibility. Under this standard, acts of non-state actors are attributable to a State only where that State exercises control over the specific operations in which the wrongful acts occur. Mere political alignment, financing, or general influence is insufficient on its own to trigger attribution of conduct as acts of the State (ICJ, 2005; Crawford, 2013).

In DRC v. Uganda, the Court declined to attribute all militia abuses directly to Uganda. It did not find evidence that Uganda exercised operational control over every act committed by armed groups in Ituri. This restraint is legally significant. The Court avoided lowering the attribution threshold in a way that would blur the distinction between State responsibility and responsibility of non-state actors under international law.

At the same time, the Court refused to treat Uganda’s relationship with local militias as legally irrelevant. It recognized that Uganda exerted decisive influence over political and military developments in Ituri, including through the creation, support, and manipulation of local power structures. While such influence did not automatically convert militia acts into acts of Uganda, it became legally relevant when combined with Uganda’s effective control over territory and its capacity to prevent abuses. The result was a layered responsibility model: limited attribution of conduct, paired with expansive responsibility for omissions.

6.2 Forms of support that matter legally

The Court distinguished carefully between different forms of support provided by Uganda to armed groups. Direct participation by Ugandan forces in hostilities and abuses engaged Uganda’s responsibility without difficulty. More complex were forms of indirect support, including training, arming, logistical assistance, political backing, and tolerance of militia activity.

The Court treated these forms of support as legally significant in two ways. First, where support was sufficiently integrated into Uganda’s military presence, it reinforced the finding of effective control over territory, thereby triggering the law of occupation and its associated duties. Second, support heightened Uganda’s obligation to prevent violations committed by the groups it enabled. The more a State contributes to the capacity of armed groups, the stronger its duty to restrain them becomes (ICJ, 2005).

Importantly, the Court did not rely on a single doctrinal label, such as complicity or aid and assistance, to structure its reasoning. Instead, it assessed support functionally, asking whether Uganda’s actions created or sustained conditions in which violations became foreseeable and preventable. Where the answer was affirmative, Uganda’s failure to act engaged its international responsibility, even if the underlying conduct was not directly attributable.

6.3 Evidentiary lessons for future cases

The attribution analysis in DRC v. Uganda offers several concrete lessons for future inter-State litigation involving armed groups. First, proof of generalized influence is insufficient. Applicants must demonstrate specific patterns of control, authority, or capacity linked to the territory or population where violations occurred. The Court was willing to rely on cumulative evidence, including military presence, command structures, and documented patterns of intervention, rather than requiring direct orders for each wrongful act.

Second, omission-based responsibility lowers the evidentiary barrier without collapsing attribution standards. Where a State exercises effective control over territory, evidence of persistent violence combined with inaction can be sufficient to establish responsibility. This shifts the evidentiary focus from proving who pulled the trigger to proving who had the power to stop the violence and failed to do so (ICJ, 2005; Dinstein, 2019).

Third, the case underscores the importance of contemporaneous institutional documentation. Reports by international organizations, fact-finding missions, and peacekeeping operations played a critical role in establishing patterns of conduct and control. While such materials do not replace judicial proof, they can corroborate party submissions and support findings where direct evidence is scarce.

In sum, DRC v. Uganda refines the law of attribution without diluting it. The Court preserved the effective control standard for attributing conduct, while expanding the practical reach of State responsibility through failure to prevent. This combination reflects a realistic adaptation of attribution doctrine to modern conflicts, where States rarely act alone but often shape violence through support, tolerance, and omission.

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7. Merits IV: IHL and human rights violations—how the Court combines them

One of the most methodologically important aspects of DRC v. Uganda is the Court’s integrated treatment of international humanitarian law and international human rights law. Rather than treating armed conflict as a legal silo governed exclusively by humanitarian rules, the Court affirmed that multiple normative regimes may apply simultaneously to the same factual situation. This approach is not declaratory or rhetorical. It directly shaped how violations were identified, classified, and later translated into reparations.

7.1 Dual-track obligations in conflict settings

The Court proceeded from the premise that the existence of an armed conflict does not suspend a State’s human rights obligations. Where a State exercises authority or effective control over territory or individuals outside its own borders, it remains bound by applicable human rights treaties alongside its obligations under international humanitarian law (ICJ, 2005). The key connecting factor is not sovereignty, but control.

International humanitarian law provided the primary framework for assessing conduct occurring in the context of hostilities and occupation. It governed issues such as the protection of civilians, the treatment of persons taking no active part in hostilities, and the prohibition of pillage and destruction of property. Human rights law, by contrast, supplied a complementary layer of protection, particularly in relation to the right to life, the prohibition of torture and cruel treatment, and the protection of fundamental guarantees for individuals under the authority of Ugandan forces.

The Court did not attempt to hierarchize these regimes. It did not suggest that humanitarian law displaces human rights law, nor did it subsume humanitarian obligations into a human rights framework. Instead, it applied each body of law to the aspects of conduct it was best suited to regulate. This pragmatic dual-track approach allowed the Court to avoid artificial legal exclusions while maintaining doctrinal coherence (Milanović, 2011).

7.2 Core violations found (structured by conduct)

The Court identified a range of serious violations committed by Ugandan forces and by actors operating under Uganda’s authority or tolerance. These violations were structured around concrete categories of conduct rather than abstract legal norms.

First, the Court found violations involving the killing and mistreatment of civilians. Evidence demonstrated that civilians were killed, subjected to violence, and exposed to inhuman treatment in areas under Ugandan control. These acts constituted breaches of international humanitarian law and, at the same time, violations of the right to life and the prohibition of cruel and inhuman treatment under human rights law (ICJ, 2005).

Second, the Court addressed the destruction of civilian property. Villages and civilian infrastructure were destroyed without military necessity, engaging responsibility under humanitarian law rules protecting civilian objects. The same conduct also interfered with protected human rights interests related to property and family life.

Third, the Court identified violations connected to the recruitment and use of child soldiers by armed groups operating in the relevant territory. While such conduct was not always directly attributable to Ugandan forces, Uganda’s failure to prevent it in areas under its control engaged its responsibility. This finding illustrates how human rights norms concerning the protection of children reinforced humanitarian obligations in the Court’s analysis (Sivakumaran, 2014).

By structuring violations around observable conduct, the Court avoided conceptual overlap and made clear that the same factual act can breach multiple legal obligations without redundancy.

7.3 Remedy implications of “human rights framing” in an inter-State case

The Court’s reliance on human rights law had significant implications for remedies. Human rights framing broadened the range of legally cognisable harm beyond traditional battlefield damage. Loss of life, physical suffering, and long-term civilian harm became central heads of damage, rather than peripheral consequences of unlawful force (ICJ, 2022).

This approach also affected evidentiary standards at the reparations stage. Human rights violations are often assessed through patterns and systemic harm rather than through individualized proof of each incident. The Court’s willingness to recognize widespread violations supported the later adoption of a global-sum method of compensation, particularly for injury to persons.

Finally, the human rights dimension reinforced the idea that inter-State responsibility can encompass harm suffered by individuals, even though individuals are not parties to the proceedings. DRC v. Uganda thus confirms that inter-State litigation can serve as a vehicle for addressing large-scale human suffering, without transforming the Court into a forum for individual claims.

By combining humanitarian and human rights law in a disciplined, conduct-based manner, the Court in DRC v. Uganda demonstrated how overlapping legal regimes can be applied coherently in complex conflict settings, with direct consequences for responsibility and reparation rather than abstract doctrinal convergence.

8. Merits V: Natural resources, looting/plunder, and pillage economics

The natural resources dimension of DRC v. Uganda transformed the case from a conventional armed-conflict judgment into a precedent-setting examination of economic wrongdoing during occupation. Unlike many earlier ICJ cases, the Court did not treat resource exploitation as a marginal or politically sensitive allegation. It addressed it as a legally central component of Uganda’s responsibility, grounded in established prohibitions of pillage and in the positive duties of an occupying power. This strand of the merits later became decisive at the reparations stage, where economic harm proved more quantifiable than other categories of injury.

8.1 Legal characterization: from “exploitation” to internationally wrongful acts

The Court was careful in its legal characterization of Uganda’s conduct. It avoided vague or rhetorical references to “illegal exploitation” and instead translated economic activity into established categories of internationally wrongful acts. The key legal concepts were looting, plunder, and pillage, all of which are prohibited under customary international humanitarian law and occupation law (ICJ, 2005).

Looting and plunder were understood as the unlawful appropriation of property, including natural resources, without military necessity and for private or State benefit. Pillage, in particular, carries a specific legal meaning: it refers to systematic or large-scale appropriation of property in occupied territory and is prohibited regardless of whether it is carried out by individual soldiers, organized units, or actors tolerated by the occupying power. By grounding its analysis in these categories, the Court framed resource exploitation not as a development or governance issue, but as a direct violation of the laws of war (Dinstein, 2019).

The Court also rejected the idea that economic benefit must accrue formally to the State treasury to engage State responsibility. It found that acts of looting and plunder committed by members of the Ugandan armed forces, as well as by individuals operating with their acquiescence, were sufficient to constitute internationally wrongful acts attributable to Uganda. The emphasis was placed on unlawful appropriation and failure to prevent, not on formal accounting channels or official resource policy.

8.2 Occupation and resource duties

Once Uganda was found to be an occupying power in parts of Ituri, its obligations in relation to natural resources became significantly more demanding. Occupation law does not merely prohibit active pillage. It imposes a duty of stewardship, requiring the occupying power to administer public property and natural resources in a manner that preserves their value and prevents unlawful exploitation (Benvenisti, 2012).

The Court identified two distinct breaches. First, Ugandan forces directly participated in acts of looting and plunder, including the appropriation of minerals and other valuable resources. These acts constituted straightforward violations of the prohibition of pillage. Second, and more structurally important, Uganda failed to prevent widespread resource exploitation by armed groups and private actors operating in territory under its control. This omission-based responsibility flowed directly from Uganda’s authority and capacity as an occupier (ICJ, 2005).

The Court treated these duties as operational rather than aspirational. Uganda was not required to establish a perfect regulatory regime, but it was expected to take reasonable measures to suppress illegal exploitation where it had the power to do so. The persistence and scale of resource extraction in Ituri, combined with Uganda’s military dominance, made continued inaction legally significant. This reasoning reinforced the idea that economic governance is inseparable from security responsibilities in occupied territory.

8.3 Why this strand became central in 2022

The natural resources findings assumed heightened importance during the reparations phase, which concluded in 2022. Compared to other categories of harm, such as loss of life or macroeconomic damage, resource-related injury was more amenable to valuation. The Court could rely on estimates of extracted resources, market values, and patterns of exploitation to arrive at a compensable figure, even in the absence of precise transactional records (ICJ, 2022).

This relative quantifiability explains why the Court awarded a distinct sum for damage related to natural resources. The economic nature of the harm allowed the Court to move from abstract responsibility to concrete compensation without requiring proof of individual transactions or beneficiaries. The earlier legal characterization of pillage and failure to prevent thus became the foundation for a significant portion of the monetary award.

More broadly, this strand reflects a shift in how international law addresses conflict economies. DRC v. Uganda demonstrates that resource exploitation during armed conflict is not merely a background condition or a political grievance. It is a legally actionable wrong with reparative consequences. By treating pillage as a central violation rather than a peripheral issue, the Court signaled that economic predation in occupied territory engages full State responsibility, both at the level of liability and at the level of financial consequences.

9. Remedies and reparations: from 2005 liability to 2022 money

The remedies trajectory in DRC v. Uganda is unusual in ICJ practice because it spans two distinct judicial moments separated by seventeen years: a merits judgment establishing responsibility in 2005 and a reparations judgment quantifying compensation in 2022. Read together, they show how the Court moves from findings of internationally wrongful acts to monetary consequences under the law of State responsibility, while managing severe evidentiary constraints typical of mass-atrocity conflict settings (ICJ, 2005; ICJ, 2022; Crawford, 2013).

9.1 The 2005 reparations clause and its built-in ambiguity

In 2005, the Court concluded that Uganda was under an obligation to make reparation to the DRC for injury caused by internationally wrongful acts, invoking the standard rule that reparation must, as far as possible, wipe out the consequences of the wrongful act. The Court did not quantify compensation at that stage. Instead, it directed the parties to negotiate the question of reparations, with a built-in fallback: if they failed to agree, the Court would determine the form and amount of reparation at a later stage (ICJ, 2005).

That procedural design carried an ambiguity that later proved decisive. The judgment established liability across several categories (use of force, occupation-related breaches, IHL and human rights violations, resource pillage), but it did not specify (i) an evidentiary standard for valuing each category, (ii) a concrete methodology for aggregation, or (iii) a timeline for negotiation. The clause therefore functioned as a legal bridge rather than a remedial blueprint, leaving the valuation problem structurally unresolved (ICJ, 2005; Crawford, 2013).

9.2 Why negotiations collapsed and what the DRC claimed

Negotiations predictably stalled because the valuation task was politically and technically hard. Post-conflict recordkeeping was limited; harm was dispersed across time and geography; several perpetrators operated simultaneously; and many alleged losses were not tied to a single, documentable transaction. Under these conditions, the DRC pursued claims at a scale reflecting the gravity of injury, while Uganda resisted both the causal reach of the claims and the methods used to quantify them (ICJ, 2022).

The DRC’s approach combined several heads of damage: injury to persons (death and physical harm), destruction of property, looting and exploitation of natural resources, and broader macroeconomic loss attributed to the conflict and occupation period. Uganda contested causation and attribution, arguing that many harms were caused by actors not under Uganda’s control, that the DRC’s figures were not sufficiently substantiated, and that some claimed categories (especially macroeconomic loss) were too remote or too speculative for compensation in inter-State responsibility terms (ICJ, 2022; Crawford, 2013).

The breakdown is best understood as a collision between two realities: the DRC’s need for aggregate valuation in a mass-harm setting and Uganda’s insistence on a granular proof model. The case then returned to the Court because the negotiated pathway embedded in 2005 did not generate agreement (ICJ, 2005; ICJ, 2022).

9.3 The 2022 reparations judgment: heads of damage and outcomes

In 2022, the Court converted the earlier responsibility findings into quantified compensation. It identified and assessed distinct heads of damage and reached a total award of US$325 million, structured across three compensated categories and one rejected category (ICJ, 2022).

(a) Damage to persons (US$225 million).

This head addressed loss of life and physical harm. The Court accepted that the injury was massive and that exact individual-by-individual proof was impossible. It treated the 2005 findings on unlawful conduct and Uganda’s responsibilities in occupied areas as sufficient to establish compensable injury at scale, while still requiring a rational evidentiary basis for the amount (ICJ, 2022; OHCHR, 2010).

(b) Damage to property (US$40 million).

This covered destruction and loss of civilian property. The Court again emphasized that the evidentiary record could not support a transaction-level reconstruction of losses across the conflict zone. It nonetheless accepted that property harm was a foreseeable and legally cognisable consequence of the violations established in 2005 (ICJ, 2022; ICJ, 2005).

(c) Damage related to natural resources (US$60 million).

This addressed unlawful exploitation, looting, and pillage-type losses connected to Uganda’s conduct and failure to prevent exploitation in areas under its control. The Court’s 2005 findings on resource-related wrongdoing supplied the liability base; the 2022 task was valuation under uncertainty (ICJ, 2005; ICJ, 2022; Dinstein, 2019).

(d) Macroeconomic damage (rejected).

The Court declined to award compensation for macroeconomic loss, treating the DRC’s evidence and causal theory as insufficiently direct and too speculative for judicial quantification in this setting. The rejection shows the Court’s line-drawing: acceptance of aggregate valuation for certain harms does not imply acceptance of economy-wide models where multiple causal factors cannot be disentangled with adequate confidence (ICJ, 2022; Crawford, 2013).

The Court also addressed how and when payment must occur, adopting an instalment structure and providing for consequences in case of delay, reflecting a remedial design meant to be executable rather than purely declaratory (ICJ, 2022).

9.4 The “global sum” method and equity

A defining feature of the 2022 judgment is the Court’s reliance on a global sum approach for quantification. Instead of calculating compensation by aggregating proven individual losses, the Court set lump-sum amounts for each head of damage, justified by the scale of harm and the impossibility of full precision. This method is not a departure from the law of reparation; it is presented as a pragmatic way to implement it when strict proof is structurally unattainable (ICJ, 2022).

The Court balanced two competing imperatives. One imperative is fidelity to legal causation and proof: compensation must correspond to injury caused by Uganda’s internationally wrongful acts. The other is remedial realism: demanding complete precision would function as a denial of reparation in mass-harm contexts. The global-sum technique operates as an evidentiary compromise aimed at avoiding both extremes—unsupported figures and impossible exactitude (ICJ, 2022; Crawford, 2013).

Equitable considerations appear in the Court’s reasoning as part of valuation and reasonableness rather than as a free-standing power to decide purely on fairness. The Court’s approach remains anchored in law, while using reasoned approximation to reach an amount it considers defensible on the record (ICJ, 2022; Crawford, 2013).

9.5 Evidence sourcing: UN documentation and the OHCHR Mapping Report

Given the nature of the conflict and the passage of time, the evidentiary base inevitably included institutional documentation. The Court relied on the parties’ submissions and expert material, but it also drew support from United Nations sources that documented patterns of violence, displacement, and conflict-related abuses in the relevant period. Such documentation matters in two ways: it can corroborate that harm occurred at scale, and it can help the Court assess the plausibility of valuation assumptions when direct evidence is incomplete (ICJ, 2022; UN, 2001).

The OHCHR Mapping Exercise Report (2010) is particularly significant as a comprehensive institutional account of serious violations in the DRC across the period most relevant to the case. While not a judicial finding of individual criminal responsibility, it provides structured documentation of incidents and patterns of harm, which can support an understanding of scale and context when courts confront mass-atrocity environments and imperfect records (OHCHR, 2010). The Court’s use of this type of source reflects a broader reality: inter-State reparations for conflict harm often depend on credible institutional fact-patterns because battlefield documentation is partial and post-conflict reconstruction of proof is inherently limited (ICJ, 2022; Milanović, 2011).

Overall, the remedies phase of DRC v. Uganda shows a Court trying to keep reparation legally disciplined while remaining operational in a mass-harm setting. The 2005 judgment established responsibility and deferred valuation. The 2022 judgment built a workable quantification architecture using global sums, constrained heads of damage, and institutionally supported evidence, producing a rare instance of inter-State compensation for conflict-related human and economic injury (ICJ, 2005; ICJ, 2022).

10. What DRC v. Uganda changes for doctrine and practice

The combined merits and reparations judgments in DRC v. Uganda have altered the practical landscape of inter-State responsibility for armed conflict. The case does not revolutionize doctrine through new legal tests. Its significance lies in how established rules were applied under conditions of mass harm, evidentiary scarcity, and prolonged delay. For doctrine, the case clarifies what international law is prepared to recognize and compensate. For practice, it signals how future applicants and respondents must structure evidence, claims, and expectations when litigating large-scale conflicts before the ICJ.

10.1 Inter-state reparations for mass harm: a new “baseline”

Before DRC v. Uganda, inter-State reparations for armed conflict were largely aspirational. Responsibility was often declared, but compensation remained theoretical, deferred, or diplomatically negotiated without judicial quantification. The 2022 judgment establishes a new baseline: mass harm can be compensated judicially even when individual losses cannot be reconstructed with precision (ICJ, 2022; Crawford, 2013).

The baseline is not one of full restitution. The Court made clear that reparation in mass-conflict settings will be approximate and aggregate. What matters is not mathematical exactitude, but a rational relationship between established wrongdoing and compensable injury. By awarding compensation for deaths, property destruction, and resource exploitation while rejecting macroeconomic loss, the Court delineated the outer limits of judicially manageable harm (ICJ, 2022).

This has immediate doctrinal consequences. Future applicants now have a concrete example of how to frame claims for large-scale injury without collapsing under evidentiary impossibility. Respondent States, in turn, can no longer assume that lack of perfect proof will shield them from monetary consequences. DRC v. Uganda thus shifts inter-State reparations from symbolic liability toward enforceable financial responsibility.

10.2 Evidentiary governance: what the Court should do differently

The case also exposes weaknesses in how the Court manages evidence in complex armed-conflict disputes. The seventeen-year gap between liability and compensation reflects not only political delay, but procedural design. The Court left valuation to negotiations without providing methodological guidance, virtually ensuring failure (ICJ, 2005; ICJ, 2022).

One lesson is the need for earlier evidentiary structuring. In future cases, the Court could clarify at the merits stage which categories of harm are compensable and what type of proof will be required for each. This would align party submissions more closely with eventual remedial needs and reduce the later reliance on broad judicial approximation.

A second lesson concerns the use of experts. In DRC v. Uganda, expert material was uneven and often contested. More proactive judicial management of expert evidence—through clearer terms of reference or joint expert mechanisms—could improve the reliability of valuation without undermining adversarial fairness (Crawford, 2013).

Finally, the case highlights the value of institutional documentation. The Court relied heavily on United Nations material to contextualize harm and assess scale. While this approach is unavoidable in mass-atrocity settings, it would benefit from clearer articulation of how such materials are weighted relative to party evidence. Greater transparency in evidentiary reasoning would enhance the authority and predictability of future reparations judgments (Milanović, 2011).

10.3 Resource pillage and occupation: compliance and enforcement realities

Perhaps the most practically consequential shift produced by DRC v. Uganda lies in the treatment of resource pillage during occupation. By linking unlawful exploitation directly to monetary compensation, the Court reinforced that economic predation is not a secondary violation. It is a core breach with tangible financial consequences (ICJ, 2005; ICJ, 2022).

From a compliance perspective, the judgment raises the cost of occupying territory without effective governance. States that exercise control while tolerating resource exploitation face not only reputational damage, but quantifiable liability. This recalibrates the incentive structure of occupation, particularly in resource-rich conflict zones.

Enforcement remains limited by the structural constraints of international law. Payment depends on State compliance, and coercive mechanisms are weak. Yet the judgment alters the political economy of non-compliance. A quantified award transforms abstract responsibility into a debt that can be monitored, referenced, and invoked in diplomatic and institutional settings. In this sense, DRC v. Uganda does not solve enforcement deficits, but it narrows the gap between legal condemnation and practical consequences.

Taken as a whole, the case demonstrates how international law adapts incrementally to contemporary conflict. It does not eliminate uncertainty, nor does it guarantee full accountability. It does, however, establish workable standards for responsibility, evidence, and reparation in situations where earlier doctrine struggled to move beyond declaratory judgments.

11. Conclusion

DRC v. Uganda ultimately stands as a case about the operational capacity of public international law when confronted with large-scale violence, indirect control, and long-delayed accountability. Its importance does not lie in the creation of new legal rules, but in demonstrating how existing doctrines on the use of force, occupation, attribution, humanitarian law, human rights, and reparation can be applied coherently under extreme factual pressure. The judgments show that international law is not confined to abstract condemnation; it can generate structured responsibility and measurable consequences even in fragmented conflict environments (ICJ, 2005; ICJ, 2022).

At the level of liability, the case confirms that prolonged military presence coupled with effective territorial control triggers the full law of occupation, regardless of instability or the presence of proxy actors. It also reinforces that State responsibility does not depend solely on direct commission of violations. Authority, capacity, and omission matter. Where a State controls territory and enables armed actors, failure to prevent foreseeable abuses becomes legally decisive. This logic reshapes how responsibility is understood in contemporary conflicts dominated by indirect warfare and hybrid control (Crawford, 2013; Dinstein, 2019).

At the level of remedies, DRC v. Uganda marks a turning point. The 2022 reparations judgment establishes that inter-State compensation for mass harm is not merely symbolic. Aggregate valuation, grounded in reasoned approximation and supported by institutional evidence, is now a judicially endorsed response to evidentiary scarcity. The Court’s rejection of macroeconomic loss while compensating personal injury, property destruction, and resource pillage draws a clear boundary around what international adjudication can realistically price and what remains beyond its reach (ICJ, 2022).

The case also clarifies the legal status of conflict economies. Resource exploitation during occupation is treated not as a peripheral by-product of war, but as a central violation engaging both liability and financial responsibility. This has practical implications for future occupations, particularly in resource-rich territories, by raising the legal and economic costs of tolerating exploitation under conditions of control (Benvenisti, 2012).

At the same time, the case exposes structural limits. The long gap between liability and compensation, the reliance on global sums, and the absence of strong enforcement mechanisms all reveal the constraints under which the Court operates. DRC v. Uganda does not resolve these limits, but it narrows them. It shows that precision is not a prerequisite for responsibility, and that imperfect valuation is preferable to remedial paralysis in the face of mass harm (Crawford, 2013; Milanović, 2011).

Viewed as a whole, DRC v. Uganda should be read as a working model rather than a doctrinal endpoint. It offers future litigants guidance on how to structure claims, how to think about evidence under conditions of control and omission, and how international law translates violence and exploitation into legal and financial accountability. Its legacy lies not in doctrinal innovation, but in demonstrating that international law can still function as a system of responsibility, even when justice arrives late and only in approximate form.

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