Arkms review license#

She said the government had completed the review ordered by the Court of Appeal, and had determined that any violations of international law were “isolated incidents”. Then, on 7 July 2020, the Secretary of State for International Trade Liz Truss issued a written statement to Parliament.

This case was due to be heard in November 2020.

However the government refused to accept the Court of Appeal judgment and was granted permission to appeal to the Supreme Court. The government applied the same restrictions to licences to its coalition partners, UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait and Egypt, for use in Yemen.Īs a result of our action, hundreds of millions of pounds of arms sales to the Saudi-led coalition were put on hold. It found that it was ‘ irrational and therefore unlawful’ for the Secretary of State for International Trade to have granted licences for the export of arms to Saudi Arabia for use in Yemen without making any assessment as to whether violations of International Humanitarian Law had taken place.Īs a result of this landmark decision, the government was ordered to retake all decisions to export arms to Saudi Arabia in accordance with the law and to stop issuing new arms export licences to Saudi Arabia. More that three years later, on 20 June 2019, the Court of Appeal ruled in CAAT’s favour. Parliament’s International Development and Business, Innovation and Skills Committees, Sept 2016 Stopping arms salesĬAAT’s first Judicial Review was formally launched in March 2016. This constitutes a breach of our own export licensing criteria. Given the evidence we have heard and the volume of UK-manufactured arms exported to Saudi Arabia, it seems inevitable that any violations of international humanitarian and human rights law by the coalition have involved arms supplied from the UK. Instead, the government has done everything it can to maintain its relationship with Saudi Arabia, the UK’s biggest arms customer. UK rules prohibit exports in such circumstances, but the government refuses to stop the sales. Since 2015, bombing by the Saudi-led coalition has targeted schools and hospitals, food supplies, weddings and funerals, with UK weapons playing a central role. The government has refused to stop arms sales to Saudi Arabia, despite overwhelming evidence of violations of International Humanitarian Law in Yemen. The hearing is expected to be held some time in 2022. On 20 April 2021 CAAT was granted permission for its legal challenge to proceed to the High Court. On 26 October 2020 CAAT filed a new Judicial Review application into the legality of the UK government’s decision to renew arms sales to the Saudi-led coalition that is bombing Yemen.

Arkms review license#

The UK government continues to license the export of weapons for use in the war in Yemen.