UK Faces Fresh Court Battle Over Deadly Arms Sales to Saudi Arabia
The Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) has launched a new legal challenge in the UK High Court, accusing the British government of fuelling civilian deaths through arms exports. The group claims UK weapons supplies to the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen’s brutal nine-year war have directly contributed to thousands of civilian deaths.
£23 Billion Arms Trade Under Fire
CAAT is targeting the government’s 2020 decision to resume arms sales, despite mounting evidence these weapons are used in war crimes. The campaigners say the UK’s deal with Saudi Arabia has cost more than £23 billion since the conflict began.
This legal fight follows CAAT’s 2019 win, where the Court of Appeal deemed continuing to license military exports to Saudi Arabia illegal due to the clear risk of war crimes.
Govt Ignored Court Ruling, Arms Sales Restarted
After the 2019 ruling, the UK temporarily halted arms exports. But a 2020 government review, led by then-trade secretary Liz Truss, controversially declared violations of international law “isolated incidents,” allowing arms sales to Saudi Arabia to resume.
Since then, UK arms exports to Saudi Arabia carried on despite the US imposing a partial weapons ban against the kingdom because of the Yemen war.
Human Rights Groups Slam Govt’s “Isolated Incidents” Claim
Campaigners and rights organisations have slammed the government review as a whitewash. Human Rights Watch’s Niku Jafarnia said:
“The abundant evidence of laws of war violations by the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen throughout the war shows that these violations are not simply ‘isolated incidents,’ as the UK government claims.”
Data from the Civilian Impact Monitoring Project reveals civilian casualties nearly doubled in the four months after UK arms sales resumed.
Jafarnia added: “The evidence is clear that Yemeni civilians have died and continue to die as a result of weapons sales authorised by the UK government. If the UK truly wants to uphold international law and condemn violations elsewhere, it must stop selling weapons to Saudi Arabia.”
