Arms Trade: Saudi Arabia

(asked on 3rd September 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department for International Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, with reference to the Written Statement of 7 July 2020, HCWS339 on Trade Update, whether the 13 July 2020 air-strike in Hajjah, Yemen, has been (a) evaluated under the revised methodology developed by her Department to consider whether or not it constitutes a possible violation of international humanitarian law and (b) classed as a possible violation of International Humanitarian Law.


Answered by
Ranil Jayawardena Portrait
Ranil Jayawardena
This question was answered on 14th September 2020

We are, of course, concerned by reports of civilian deaths as a result of airstrikes in Yemen.

The Written Ministerial Statement of 7th July 2020 gave details of the International Humanitarian Law (IHL) Analysis applied to allegations of breaches of IHL, as part of an overall assessment against Criterion 2c of the ‘Consolidated Criteria’, which addresses whether there is a clear risk that items might be used in serious violations of IHL.

Such IHL analysis is, of course, ongoing and considers credible incidents of concern that we are aware of. Assessments are carried out to determine whether it is possible that the alleged incident constituted a breach of IHL, or whether it is unlikely that it represents a breach.

Assessments use all available sources of information, including some that are necessarily confidential and sensitive. As a result, we are not able to provide details of individual assessments for national security reasons.

The United Kingdom regularly raises the importance of IHL – and of thoroughly investigating alleged violations – with Saudi Arabia.

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