UK ARMS
LICENSING
Update: Hearing on UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia
The UK Government will be in the High Court on 31st January 2023 defending its decision to continue the sale of arms to Saudi Arabia. The action is being taken by the campaigning organisation Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT). The Global Legal Action Network (GLAN) will be there as our team is assisting Yemeni human rights organisation Mwatana for Human Rights to intervene in the case and provide the High Court with extensive evidence of violations of international humanitarian law by Saudi Arabia’s airstrikes.
The UK is a major supplier of weapons to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia – in fact, it is widely accepted that the Saudi-UAE-led coalition could not conduct its air campaign in Yemen without the UK's support. All arms sales are made under licences issued by the Secretary of State for International Trade who must refuse to grant a license if there is a “clear risk” that the weapon might be used in a serious violation of international humanitarian law.
The UK-based organisation Campaign Against Arms Trade secured a historic victory in 2019 after their challenge to continued arms sales was successful on appeal. As a result of the court’s order quashing the government’s licensing decisions the UK government has to make a fresh decision on whether to licence more arms export to Saudi Arabia. But in July 2020 the UK resumed weapons exports and a second round of judicial review proceedings were initiated to once again challenge these exports on the basis that this decision contravenes UK export controls.
Our Interventions
On 11 August 2019, GLAN and Mwatana submitted substantial information on patterns of unlawful airstrikes directly to the UK's Secretary of State for International Trade, along with a legal letter from our solicitors setting out why the case for the immediate suspension of arms sales to Saudi Arabia. The objective was to ensure that this submission gave the government everything it needed to accurately assess the risk of future violations – in particular by providing detailed witness evidence and comprehensive photographic documentation of attack sites and munition remnants collected on the ground in Yemen by Mwatana. In April 2021 Mwatana was granted permission to intervene in CAAT’s new judicial review proceedings against the government’s July 2020 decision to resume issuing arms licences. Mwatana's intervention has been coordinated and assisted by GLAN: read more.
GLAN and Mwatana have identified specific patterns of attack and failings by the Saudi-led Coalition’s accountability mechanism, the Joint Incident Assessment Team (JIAT). In particular, the intervention highlighted many instances in which, despite conclusive evidence to the contrary, JIAT concluded that the Coalition had not attacked the locations in question. Mwatana will be making oral arguments to the judge on these points in the High Court hearing taking place 31 January to 2 February 2023.
Documents
Factual submission to future UK Committee on Arms Export Controls (19 May 2020)
Legal submission to future Committee on Arms Export Controls (19 May 2020)
Evidence file submitted to Secretary of State (11 August 2019)
Media
Partner
Other Resources
To illustrate the need for scrutiny of the government's actions, GLAN and Mwatana released airstrike evidence on 19 May 2020, in conjunction with a call for the urgent instatement of a full Parliamentary Select Committee on arms licensing. Read the op-ed on Open Democracy by Mwatana’s Bonyan Jamal and GLAN’s Dearbhla Minogue here.
To assist with the proper analysis of the evidence against international legal standards, GLAN also released an international humanitarian law (IHL) overview. This document introduces the core principles of IHL and applies them to the detailed evidence compiled by our organisations.
All of the documents can also be downloaded from the documents section of this page.
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