On March 27, 2025, the illusion of peace in South Sudan finally gave way. Security forces arrested First Vice President Dr. Riek Machar, one of the principal architects of the 2018 Revitalised Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in South Sudan (R-ARCSS), along with senior SPLM-IO ministers. Their homes and offices were sealed off in what the government described as a “security measure.” To the opposition, it was unmistakably a coup, a direct assault on the core tenets of the peace deal. Even if Machar were released, the unilateral nature of his arrest and the erosion of trust among parties would likely prevent a return to the original power-sharing framework.
In post-conflict settings, peace agreements like the R-ARCSS are not mere political compromises; they are carefully engineered architectures designed to neutralize the root causes of violence, exclusion, insecurity, elite mistrust, and institutional breakdown. These compacts rely on multiple interlocking pillars: power-sharing at level of governance, unified security arrangements, equitable resource governance, a clear constitutional transition, transitional justice systems, and collective oversight mechanisms. These elements are not standalone; they reinforce one another. Executive inclusion, for instance, is intended to guarantee that no faction is sidelined from decision-making, just as security integration seeks to dismantle parallel chains of command that might otherwise fuel fresh conflict.
What occurred in March 2025 struck at the very centre of this interdependence. The detention of Machar and the sidelining of SPLM-IO officials was not just a violation of one provision—it detonated the delicate equilibrium the agreement was built upon. With the exclusion of a key signatory party, the RTGoNU ceased to function as a consensus-based institution. The ripple effects are already evident: stalled security reforms, frozen constitutional processes, derailed transitional justice initiatives, and a paralysed oversight framework. In effect, the government now operates unilaterally, stripped of the political legitimacy and legal authority the agreement conferred. This is no longer a case of non-compliance; it is a collapse. And by any serious reading of treaty law and peace agreement jurisprudence, the actions of March 2025 constitute a material breach, severing the mutual obligations that once bound the parties and plunging the future of South Sudan’s transition into deep uncertainty.
What was the R-ARCSS meant to do?
When the R-ARCSS was signed in September 2018, it was supposed to be the final bridge out of a conflict trap and permanent transitions. After five years of brutal civil war, mass displacement, and repeated broken promises, the R-ARCSS was framed as a clean reset: an inclusive power-sharing pact that would reunite old enemies in one government, dissolve parallel armies into a unified national force, deliver justice for victims, and set the stage for free elections under a new, permanent constitution.
At its core, the agreement promised six things, each one bold, each one essential.
- Executive power-sharing: The agreement shared power among the parties within the arms of government and across all levels of governance. This ensured no group monopolized power and guaranteed representation across political divides.
- Unification of forces: The Agreement promised the unification of rival armed forces into a single national army. Through cantonment, joint training, and creation of the “Necessary Unified Forces” (NUF). The aim was to dismantle parallel militias and restore national cohesion under a unified command.
- Permanent constitution-making: The transitional period was designed to produce a new, inclusive constitution that reflects South Sudan’s diversity, conflict history, and aspirations.
- Transitional justice and accountability: To address wartime atrocities and promote reconciliation, the R-ARCSS included mechanisms such as a hybrid court for serious crimes, a Truth, Reconciliation and Healing Commission, and a Compensation and Reparation Authority. These institutions were intended to deliver justice, restore dignity to victims, and establish a moral foundation for sustainable peace.
- Electoral transition: The agreement’s transitional period was not indefinite. It set a clear endpoint: democratic elections to be held no later than 60 days before the end of the transition. These elections were intended to return power to the people and replace negotiated governance with constitutional legitimacy. T
- Implementation and oversight mechanisms: The R-ARCSS created robust institutions to monitor compliance and resolve disputes, chief among them the Reconstituted Joint Monitoring and Evaluation Commission (R-JMEC), CTSAMVM, and regional guarantors like IGAD and the African Union. These mechanisms were not cosmetic; they were supposed to be the teeth of the agreement, to ensure that no party could unilaterally alter terms or sideline others without consequence.
The R-ARCSS was, in many ways, a second chance, painstakingly constructed from the ruins of the failed 2015 deal. It recognized past mistakes: the dangers of incomplete military integration, the perils of elite-only agreements, and the need for stronger enforcement. Its architects knew that the stakes were existential. And so, the agreement was not vague or aspirational, it was exact. It listed percentages, deadlines, mechanisms, and fallback procedures. In writing, at least, it was the most detailed and ambitious roadmap South Sudan had ever seen.
But blueprints only matter if they’re followed. And six years on, what once looked like a roadmap now resembles a mirage. The promises remain on paper. The power has been concentrated. The army is still divided. The constitution is stalled. Justice is nowhere in sight. And the very actors who were supposed to walk together as co-owners of peace are now behind bars or in hiding.
That’s not just failure. It’s betrayal. Of the document. Of the process. And most of all, of the people who believed in it.
This unfolding crisis raises urgent legal and political questions about the status and survivability of the R-ARCSS. What exactly were the foundational guarantees of the agreement? Why does it matter who implements it? Can a peace accord still be considered binding if its core structure has been dismantled? And above all, has the agreement now crossed the threshold from fragile non-compliance to total collapse? What follows is a systematic unpacking of these questions, grounded in both the text of the agreement and the lived breakdown of its implementation.
- What are the key foundational pillars of the R-ARCSS, and which specific violations would constitute material breaches serious enough to trigger the collapse or invalidation of the agreement?
The R-ARCSS is not a loose arrangement of aspirations. It is a deliberately structured peace compact built around six foundational pillars. Each of these pillars addresses a core grievance that fuelled the country’s civil war: exclusion, insecurity, impunity, legal fragmentation, and elite mistrust. The agreement is held together not by goodwill alone, but by binding provisions that create interdependent political, military, and legal obligations. When any of these pillars are violated, particularly by one of the principal signatories, the agreement moves from crisis to collapse. Below is an analysis of the six most critical pillars and why their breach is not merely a setback, but a material undoing of the peace architecture.
- Power-sharing and executive composition: The first and most fundamental pillar of the R-ARCSS is its carefully negotiated power-sharing arrangement. Articles 1.1.1, 1.2.2, 1.4.4, 1.5, and 1.11–1.12 spell out the structure of the Revitalised Transitional Government of National Unity (RTGoNU), guaranteeing fixed quotas and a collegial executive. Article 1.7.2 explicitly designates Dr. Riek Machar as First Vice President for the full duration of the transitional period, a clause that is neither symbolic nor optional. This design reflects the consociational logic of the agreement: no side rules unilaterally; all key decisions require mutual consent. The March 2025 arrest and constructive dismissal of Dr. Machar and senior SPLM-IO ministers by the President is a clear violation of this structure. It represents a textbook “material breach” under Article 60 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, a violation that strikes at provisions essential to the agreement’s object and purpose. The RTGoNU, after such exclusions, no longer meets the legal definition set out in the agreement. All executive actions undertaken in this altered configuration become ultra vires, legally void. The agreement’s enforceability cannot survive when the very actors tasked with its implementation are forcefully sidelined.
- Security sector reform and army unification: No peace agreement can hold without a credible security arrangement. The R-ARCSS placed the unification of armed forces at its core, envisioning a new national army known as the Necessary Unified Forces (NUF), composed of former government, opposition, and other aligned troops. This was to dismantle parallel military hierarchies and prevent future conflict. Yet by 2024, security integration had not only stalled but it had also reversed. The cantonment process collapsed, training was delayed, and the government retained loyalist deployments in strategic areas such as oil fields, in direct violation of the ceasefire. Simultaneously, militias rearmed, including some splinter groups that emerged because of the failed integration. The implications of this breakdown are existential. Security sector reform is not a supporting clause; it is the backbone of post-conflict demobilization and trust-building. Its failure revives the logic of warlordism and remilitarizes political grievances. Historically, security collapses are the most visible and immediate signs of peace deal breakdowns, from Angola’s Lusaka Protocol to Sierra Leone’s Abidjan Accord. South Sudan is now following the same trajectory.
- Constitutional reform and legal continuity: Another critical pillar of the R-ARCSS is its roadmap for constitutional reform. Chapter VI mandates the reconstitution of the National Constitutional Review Commission (NCRC) and the drafting of a new permanent constitution to anchor democratic transition. This legal process was meant to turn temporary political arrangements into enduring institutions. However, repeated delays in reconstituting the NCRC, the absence of a constitutional draft, and the failure to hold inclusive consultations have paralyzed this pillar. In effect, the country continues to operate under an interim framework with no legal certainty about the post-transitional order. The absence of a permanent constitution undermines the legitimacy of all transitional structures. It weakens public trust, erodes accountability, and enables the indefinite extension of elite bargains. Most critically, it violates the legal sequence built into the agreement: security guarantees, followed by constitutional reform, followed by elections. When this sequence breaks, the entire edifice becomes politically unmoored and legally vulnerable.
- Electoral transition: The R-ARCSS commits South Sudan to hold national elections no later than 60 days before the end of the transitional period. These elections are meant to mark the conclusion of the power-sharing phase and the restoration of democratic legitimacy. But elections are not just dates on a calendar; they are dependent on a series of prerequisite actions: security reform, constitutional clarity, the passage of electoral laws, and a credible voter registry. As of mid-2025, none of these conditions has been met. The National Elections Act remains stalled, the Political Parties Council is non-functional, and insecurity prevents meaningful civic engagement. Election timelines have been extended without a clear plan, converting the transition into open-ended incumbency. This failure corrodes the public legitimacy of the transitional government. In peace agreements, delayed elections signal a refusal to relinquish power and violate the promise of political renewal. Without electoral transition, the peace deal becomes a mechanism of elite self-preservation rather than a path to democracy. It becomes, in essence, a broken contract.
- Transitional justice and accountability: The R-ARCSS contains some of the most detailed transitional justice provisions in any African peace agreement. Chapter V mandates the establishment of a Hybrid Court for South Sudan, a Commission on Truth, Reconciliation, and Healing (CTRH), and a Compensation and Reparation Authority. These mechanisms are designed to address the legacy of mass atrocities and to foster national healing. Yet years after signing, none of these bodies are operational. No legislation has been passed, no commissioners appointed, and no meaningful steps taken toward accountability. Victims of war crimes remain without justice, while perpetrators continue to hold public office. This inaction sends a clear message: impunity persists. Transitional justice is not a footnote to peace; it is its moral spine. Its failure demobilizes public support for the agreement and signals to armed actors that crimes carry no cost. Once impunity takes root, the agreement loses its social legitimacy and risks becoming a hollow elite pact, resented rather than respected.
- Implementation, oversight, and mutual consent: Finally, the R-ARCSS is built on principles of consensus and collective oversight. Article 1.4.4 and Chapter VIII require that decisions be made collegially within the Presidency, and that regional bodies like IGAD and RJMEC monitor implementation. These mechanisms serve as the “teeth” of the agreement, deterring violations and resolving disputes. But these mechanisms have been systematically undermined. Executive decisions are increasingly made unilaterally. The SPLM-IO has been excluded from cabinet deliberations. Appointments and dismissals have occurred without consultation. Meanwhile, oversight bodies have been weakened or ignored. The consensus model, so central to the agreement’s logic—has been abandoned in practice. When mutual consent disappears, power-sharing devolves into power-hoarding. What remains is no longer a transitional unity government, but a de facto one-party administration. This violates both the letter and spirit of the agreement, rendering it not only politically unrecognizable but legally void.
Each of these six pillars is essential, not optional, for the survival of the R-ARCSS. They function as a collective architecture: political inclusion, military integration, legal reform, democratic transition, accountability, and mutual oversight. Violation of one weakens the others; violation of several collapses the entire framework.
It is the contention here that all six pillars underpinning the R-ARCSS have now been materially breached. One breach might have strained the system; breaches across the board have broken it. What remains is not a peace framework under duress, but one that has already collapsed in law and in fact. The consensus that once anchored the transitional government has unravelled, leaving behind a hollow structure stripped of legitimacy, enforceability, and internal coherence. While some may argue that the agreement could persist in a diminished form, it is my contention that the cumulative breaches and unilateral actions have rendered its foundational framework inoperable, and consequently, the R-ARCSS is no longer a living agreement; it is a dead letter.
- Why does it matter who implements the R-ARCSS—if the agreement itself is binding, shouldn’t its implementation be valid regardless of which individuals or parties are in place?
The question of who implements the R-ARCSS is not a procedural afterthought, it is central to the legal design and enforceability of the peace agreement. The R-ARCSS does not imagine implementation as an open, interchangeable process. Rather, it establishes the RTGoNU as the specific institutional mechanism for delivering the agreement’s terms. Article 1.1.1 explicitly defines the RTGoNU as the principal body responsible for executing all obligations, with its composition clearly structured around a power-sharing formula among the IG, SPLM-IO, SSOA, OPP, and FDs. This is not just a method of governance, it is a binding pact of mutual recognition, participation, and legitimacy.
In this context, the composition of the RTGoNU is not a matter of convenience; it is constitutive of the agreement’s legal identity. The inclusion of all parties is not merely symbolic, it is foundational. The legitimacy and enforceability of the agreement depend on this carefully negotiated political balance. If any party is excluded, particularly through unilateral actions such as dismissal, it does not merely disrupt the process; it dismantles the framework itself. Unilateral dismissal of a key actor, such as the SPLM-IO, amounts to a fundamental breach of the R-ARCSS. It violates the principle of collective responsibility embedded both in the agreement and in international treaty law governing material breach. This is not hypothetical. In post-conflict peace agreement jurisprudence, excluding a signatory without their consent has consistently been treated as a repudiation of the entire agreement.
Viewed through constitutional theory, particularly the lens of consociationalism as such a unilateral exclusion undermines the internal legitimacy of the unity government. It breaks the principle of parity and mutual veto that holds the power-sharing structure together. In consequence, the R-ARCSS cannot be validly implemented under these conditions. It becomes materially breached, drawing international scrutiny, the risk of sanctions, and giving the excluded party legal and moral standing to withdraw, suspend participation, or pursue remedies.
Moreover, even without outright exclusion, incomplete composition of the RTGoNU, where one or more designated parties or officeholders are absent or non-functional, has equally serious legal consequences. The agreement assigns specific executive and legislative roles to each signatory, not as political favours, but as legal safeguards. These roles are the anchors of legitimacy and compliance. An RTGoNU operating without its full complement cannot reflect the consensus architecture envisaged in the R-ARCSS. Legally, such implementation is ultra vires, beyond the authority of the law, as it no longer constitutes the RTGoNU envisioned by the agreement.
Any action taken by an incompletely constituted RTGoNU, be it lawmaking, institutional reform, or election preparation, risks being null and void ab initio, lacking both procedural validity and political legitimacy. Continued non-compliance may even trigger anticipatory breach, where the agreement’s future obligations become unenforceable due to present violations. The consequences of such breakdowns are not speculative; historical parallels from Sudan’s post-CPA deadlock and Zimbabwe’s GNU collapse show a clear pattern of renewed conflict, donor withdrawal, and institutional failure following the breakdown of inclusive governance mechanisms.
Thus, the who is not secondary; it is decisive. Both unilateral exclusion and incomplete composition are material breaches. They legally delegitimize the transitional government, invalidate actions taken under its authority, and lay the groundwork for declaring the agreement no longer valid, unless immediate corrective action is taken.
The legal meaning of “responsibility” and “composition” under the R-ARCSS makes this point even sharper. The agreement was never designed for discretionary or flexible implementation. Article 1.2.2 mandates that the RTGoNU implement the agreement and restore peace. This responsibility is indivisible. No party is allowed to selectively apply the agreement, discard core elements, or exclude others without violating the pacta sunt servanda principle (that treaties must be honoured) and breaching the duty of good faith in international law.
The power-sharing ratios in the agreement are not negotiable symbols. They are conditions precedent for legitimacy. Article 1.4 establishes a five-vice-president structure. Articles 1.11 and 1.12 allocate ministerial positions across parties with a precise 55/27/10/5/3 formula. Article 1.9.1 mandates collegial decision-making, which depends on full party participation. Removing a bloc or governing without one breaks this architecture entirely and constitutes a textbook material breach under Article 60 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties.
Importantly, the supremacy clause in Chapter 8 of the R-ARCSS elevates the agreement over any conflicting domestic laws. This means no national decree or constitutional argument can override the composition or responsibilities defined in the agreement. Any such unilateral action is legally null ab initio, void from the outset.
So, who implements the R-ARCSS matters because the agreement was built on the premise that peace and legitimacy depend not just on what is implemented, but by whom. It is a closed, interdependent system in which actors, roles, and representation are inseparable from the obligations themselves. To ignore this is to unravel not just the peace process, but the very legal foundation of South Sudan’s fragile post-conflict statehood.
3. If the R-ARCSS provides a clear procedure for replacing the President and Vice Presidents, why does the arrest, dismissal, and unilateral replacement of the First Vice President, especially from within his own party, pose such serious legal and constitutional challenges?
The distinction between temporary incapacity and vacancy is the constitutional scaffolding that holds together executive legitimacy and the stability of a transitional governance arrangement. In modern constitutional design, these two categories serve discrete but essential functions. Temporary incapacity is grounded in the imperative of governmental continuity: the office itself remains intact, though the occupant is momentarily unable to perform its functions. Vacancy, on the other hand, concerns the legitimacy of succession: the officeholder is permanently unable or unavailable to serve, and the legal order must identify a successor and transfer full powers.
Failing to distinguish between the two risks plunging a fragile state into crisis. Ambiguity invites either paralysis, where no actor is clearly authorised to govern, or usurpation, where interim actors exceed the bounds of lawful authority. In post-conflict settings, especially those governed by negotiated power-sharing pacts like under R-ARCSS), such ambiguity can unravel the very consensus on which peace was built.
Article 1.7.5 of the R-ARCSS says that the position of the principals can become vacant “for any reason.” On the surface, this seems straightforward. Arrest could easily fall under that broad wording. But to reach a sound legal conclusion, it’s not enough to just take the words at face value. You also must apply established legal principles of interpretation to avoid absurd or unfair outcomes.
First, the context matters: this isn’t just a bureaucratic rule in a regular law. It’s part of a peace agreement meant to protect political balance, not to reward power grabs. Second, legal interpretation must support the purpose of the provision, which in this case is to keep the presidency functioning and inclusive. Detaining the First Vice President indefinitely, without trial or clarity, clearly undermines both peace and effective governance. Third, general legal principles say that no one should benefit from their own unlawful actions. So, the government can’t create a vacancy by unlawfully arresting someone and then use that as an excuse to replace them.
The 2018 peace agreement (R-ARCSS) was written to close the loopholes that helped sink the earlier 2015 deal. Unlike the vague language in the 2015 ARCSS, which allowed parties to replace the First Vice President “for any reason”, the 2018 version removes any doubt. Article 1.7.2 is clear: Dr. Riek Machar is to serve as First Vice President for the entire transitional period. It doesn’t refer to “a nominee” of the SPLM/A-IO, it names him personally. That means the President has no legal authority to dismiss or replace him at will.
Despite this clarity, the government appears to be repeating a familiar playbook. Back in 2016, they ousted Machar and installed Taban Deng Gai, sparking a return to war. Now, they’re using similar tactics: backing defectors from SPLM/A-IO, detaining Machar under shaky claims of ties to the White Army, and floating Stephen Par Kuol as replacement. But the legal context has changed. The 2018 agreement is far stricter. It says only the original top leadership of the SPLM/A-IO, those in place when the agreement was signed, can select a replacement. That leadership list was officially submitted to IGAD and hasn’t changed. Any splinter group formed later has no legal standing to make such a decision, no matter how many internal meetings or government decrees support it.
The reason the agreement spelled out Machar’s name, and locked replacement power within the original SPLM/A-IO leadership, was to prevent another 2016-style crisis. It was a stability mechanism. It recognized that in South Sudan’s fragile political setup, who appoints a leader is just as important as who gets appointed. If you change the person, or worse, change the people who get to choose that person, you’re shifting the power balance and effectively rewriting the peace deal without consensus.
- If Article 1.6.2.4 of the R-ARCSS gives the President the power to appoint the First Vice President, and if the Transitional Constitution also grants similar powers, why would it be considered a violation for the President to appoint someone other than Dr. Riek Machar, especially if that person also belongs to the SPLM/A-IO?
While Article 1.6.2.4 of the R-ARCSS does state that the President appoints the First Vice President, this clause cannot be read in isolation or interpreted using the logic of a unitary presidential system. The R-ARCSS, unlike the 2011 Transitional Constitution (TCRSS), does not conceive of the presidency as a single, centralised authority. Instead, it reimagines the executive as a collective organ, a power-sharing mechanism composed of multiple co-equal Vice Presidents, each representing a specific party to the conflict. This structure is not procedural, it is political and legal, designed to maintain parity among factions and prevent dominance by any one group.
Under the TCRSS, the President exercises broad, unilateral authority, including the power to appoint and dismiss Vice Presidents. That model reflects a unitary executive. But the R-ARCSS dismantles that model in favour of a consociational presidency, in which each party’s representation is not at the discretion of the President but anchored in a negotiated, treaty-based entitlement. The First Vice Presidency, specifically, is guaranteed to the SPLM/A-IO for the full transitional period. Article 1.7.2 goes further: it does not merely refer to the SPLM/A-IO’s right to nominate, it explicitly names Dr. Riek Machar as the designated officeholder. This specificity strips the President of the discretion to choose someone else.
So, while the President may formally “appoint” the First Vice President, that appointment is substantive only when it reflects the nominee of the SPLM/A-IO’s original leadership, as defined at the time of signing. The President’s role is ceremonial, he executes, not initiates, the appointment. Attempts to bypass this framework, even by choosing someone from within the SPLM/A-IO, undermine the agreement’s integrity, violate the principle of institutional parity, and amount to an unauthorised amendment of the peace deal.
Critically, Article 8.4 of the R-ARCSS makes clear that in the event of any inconsistency between the Agreement and the Constitution, the Agreement prevails. This is further reinforced by the fact that the R-ARCSS was ‘incorporated’, partly, into the Constitution via Amendment No. 6, effectively giving it constitutional force. Therefore, even if the Constitution seems to support broader presidential powers, those powers are now legally circumscribed by the R-ARCSS.
In short, the legal issue is not whether the President has the formal power to appoint, but whether that power is limited by the binding terms of a peace agreement designed to end a civil war. And under the R-ARCSS, it absolutely is. Any deviation from this framework, no matter how procedurally plausible, risks not just violating the agreement, but reigniting the very conflict it was meant to prevent.
- Has the R-ARCSS survived the cumulative violations of its foundational pillars, particularly regarding who implements the agreement, how power-sharing is structured, and what constitutes lawful succession, or have these breaches irreparably dismantled the agreement’s legal and political legitimacy, rendering it defunct in both letter and spirit?
Yes. The R-ARCSS has collapsed, legally, politically, and functionally.
At its core, the R-ARCSS was never just a ceasefire; it was a meticulously structured power-sharing contract rooted in six interdependent pillars: inclusive executive governance, security sector reform, constitutional transformation, transitional justice, economic equity, and credible oversight. Every one of these pillars has now been systematically violated, some violently, others through sustained sabotage. All those violations outlined above constitute violations of provisions essential to the object and purpose of the agreement, triggering legal grounds for its suspension or termination. Further, the principle of pacta sunt servanda, that treaties must be executed in good faith, has been shattered by the very party tasked with upholding it. Add to this the doctrine of supervening impossibility (Art. 61): with Machar under indefinite arrest and SPLM-IO offices raided, the institutional actors required to fulfil the agreement no longer exist in any operational sense.
In functional terms, the Revitalised Transitional Government of National Unity (RTGoNU), as defined by the agreement (Article 1.1.1), ceased to exist the moment one party unilaterally dismantled the consensus-based power-sharing arrangement. An RTGoNU without the SPLM-IO is not the RTGoNU envisioned in the R-ARCSS; it is a unilateral government masquerading as unity.
Politically, the consequences are equally damning. The collapse of cantonment sites, failure to deploy a unified national army, refusal to establish the Hybrid Court, delays in constitutional drafting, and indefinite postponement of elections have rendered every single timeline and milestone inoperative. These are not technical hiccups, they are breaches of core obligations, sustained over the years. The agreement’s normative backbone—justice, inclusion, accountability- has been gutted. Transitional justice institutions have never materialized. Election laws have stalled. Oversight bodies like the RJMEC have been politically defanged.
If legitimacy is derived from consensus, the current government has none. If peace depends on mutual guarantees, they no longer exist. If law is measured by compliance, the agreement has become desuetudinal, invalidated not by declaration, but by chronic non-execution.
In sum, every doctrinal lens, treaty law, constitutional theory, performance legitimacy, and comparative peace agreement jurisprudence converges on the same verdict. The R-ARCSS is no longer a living instrument. It has collapsed. The question now is not whether it can be salvaged, but how the international community and South Sudanese stakeholders should respond to the vacuum left in its wake.
- What are the legal and political implications of the collapse of the R-ARCSS for South Sudan’s transitional governance and peace process?
The collapse of the R-ARCSS carries far-reaching legal and political consequences. First, legally, South Sudan is now operating outside the framework of the agreement that once conferred legitimacy on its transitional government. The unilateral arrest, dismissal, and replacement of the First Vice President, without the consent of his party or adherence to treaty procedures, has eviscerated the core principle of collective implementation. This act constitutes not just a breach, but a dissolution of the inter-party consensus that formed the foundation of the R-ARCSS.
Without the SPLM/A-IO’s active and consensual participation, the current government no longer reflects the entity defined in Article 1.1.1 of the agreement. This renders all subsequent executive actions ultra vires, beyond the legal authority of the framework, and exposes them to both domestic legal contestation and international repudiation. From a treaty law standpoint, the government has engaged in a material breach as defined under Article 60 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, effectively nullifying the legal enforceability of the agreement for all parties.
Politically, the collapse reverts the state to a pre-agreement vacuum. The transitional government loses its moral and legal claim to be a unifying structure, and the risk of a return to conflict, already evidenced by defections, armed mobilizations, and regional anxiety, rises significantly. With the consensus broken, legitimacy now derives from raw control rather than law or mandate.
Furthermore, the collapse of the R-ARCSS also collapses the credibility of the constitutional, electoral, and justice mechanisms that were meant to emerge from it. The transitional roadmap is legally severed, and institutions like the National Constitutional Review Commission (NCRC), the Hybrid Court for South Sudan, and the electoral board no longer have a functional or legitimate political spine to operate from. Their existence now depends on the discretion of the ruling faction, not the mandates of a consensus framework.
- Given the collapse of the R-ARCSS, what should be the immediate next steps for the parties to the agreement and the international community to salvage peace and prevent relapse into full-scale conflict?
The collapse of the R-ARCSS compels an urgent recalibration, not just of tactics, but of paradigm. For the domestic parties, especially the SPLM/A-IO and other excluded signatories, the immediate imperative is to establish a clear, united political front that does not merely demand inclusion but insists on a reset of the process. This means publicly withdrawing recognition of the current RTGoNU as a legitimate custodian of the agreement, suspending participation in its structures, and calling for a fresh, internationally mediated compact.
Such a front must also articulate an alternative roadmap grounded in legitimacy and public trust. Given the deep erosion of consensus and the collapse of the inclusive power-sharing model, a neutral technocratic administration, led by individuals without partisan affiliations, may offer the only viable bridge to a new transition. This interim arrangement should be time-bound, structured around enforceable benchmarks, and backed by robust international guarantees. Crucially, any new process must learn from the fatal flaws of the R-ARCSS: the personalization of power around elites, the outsourcing of enforcement to feeble regional guarantors, and the dangerous reliance on presumed goodwill in a context better suited to binding, structural safeguards.
For the international community, the lesson is clear: the R-ARCSS is no longer a viable peace instrument and should not be resuscitated in name only. Donors and guarantors must publicly acknowledge the collapse, terminate blind support to the current RTGoNU, and suspend all non-humanitarian funding until a legitimate, inclusive transitional authority is negotiated.
This is the moment to activate the full range of diplomatic and legal instruments that have, until now, remained underutilized. If the parties fail to restore the status quo ante, IGAD, the African Union, and the United Nations must step in to facilitate broad-based consultations toward a new political compact, one that includes a fresh transitional arrangement with clear timelines, enforceable benchmarks, and third-party oversight, potentially through a UN-mandated monitoring body. At the same time, international actors should urgently deploy an independent fact-finding mission to assess the political, humanitarian, and security conditions on the ground, and suspend recognition of any unilateral appointments made outside the framework of the R-ARCSS.
Finally, civil society, religious leaders, and diaspora actors must be empowered to play a lead role in shaping the new transition. The old elite-centric model has failed. If peace is to return to South Sudan, it will have to be built not around power-sharing among generals, but power redistribution to citizens.
In short: the R-ARCSS is dead. What is needed now is not resuscitation, but replacement anchored in new legal commitments, new political actors, and new accountability mechanisms. The cost of pretending otherwise will not be theoretical. It will be counted in lives.
The writer, Dr. Remember Miamingi, is a South Sudanese expert in governance and human rights, as well as a political commentator. He can be contacted via email at remember.miamingi@gmail.com
The views expressed in ‘opinion’ articles published by Radio Tamazuj are solely those of the writer. The veracity of any claims made is the responsibility of the author, not Radio Tamazuj.