Amid increasing apprehension regarding the potential of United States President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace to undermine international law and human rights, CSW is concerned by the joining of the board by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) government official and Chairman of Manchester City Football Club Khaldoon Khalifa Al Mubarak, in light of his government’s involvement in the conflict in Sudan.
Al Mubarak is a member of the Abu Dhabi Executive Council, a member of the emirate’s Supreme Council for Financial and Economic Affairs, and the founding chairman of its Executive Affairs Authority. In addition to Manchester City, he is the chairman of Melbourne City and Mumbai City football clubs.
He joins the Board of Peace on behalf of the UAE amid an increasing outcry over his country’s involvement in the conflict in Sudan, where there is credible evidence that it continues to provide military and financial support to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
The RSF has been in a conflict with the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) since April 2023 in which both sides have committed grave human rights violations. The militia is currently conducting what ICC Deputy Prosecutor Nazhat Shameem Khan has described as a ‘calculated campaign of the most profound suffering’ targeting non-Arab communities in particular that includes rape, arbitrary detention, executions and the creation of mass graves.
The war in Sudan has given rise to one of the most severe humanitarian crises in the world. Over the course of the conflict, at least 150,000 people have been killed, over 13 million have been displaced, and 30 million are estimated to be in urgent need of humanitarian assistance.
The Board of Peace itself purports to be an international organisation mandated to carry out peacebuilding functions under international law; however, it has been criticised as undermining international law and human rights and supplanting functions of the United Nations (UN).
On 14 January CSW launched a campaign calling on the English Premier League to hold Manchester City owner and UAE vice-president and deputy prime minister Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan to account for the country’s role in the conflict in Sudan. A petition addressed to the chief executive, board and member clubs of the Premier League has received over 1,000 signatures in its first week.
CSW’s Director of Advocacy Dr Khataza Gondwe said: ‘It is rather duplicitous of the UAE to be investing in international peacebuilding whilst it continues to fuel the conflict in Sudan, not to mention the deeply worrying impact the Board of Peace is likely to have on the international system and human rights framework. This further exposes the clear connections between Manchester City’s governance – and that of several other football clubs – and serious human rights concerns, underlining the need for the Premier League to hold club owners who are implicated in human rights violations to account.’
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