Export Licences: High Court Judgment — House of Lords, 2019-06-20
Topic: International Affairs
Lindsay Granshaw (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I too thank the Minister for repeating the Statement The judges concluded that it was "irrational and therefore unlawful" for the Government to have made the export licensing decisions without making adequate assessment of whether past incidents amounted to breaches of international humanitarian law and whether measures subsequently taken meant that there was no longer a "clear risk" that future exports might breach such law. They said: "The question whether there was an historic pattern of breaches of IHL ... was a question which required to be faced" Does the Minister agree that this clearly and obviously must be the case? The pattern of serious violations did not simply need to be "taken into account", as the Divisional Court found; the Court of Appeal ruled that the pattern has to be properly assessed and considered. In other words, the question of whether Saudi Arabia has breached international humanitarian law has to be answered. Does the Minister not regard this conclusion as an extraordinary indictment—that the Government had not properly made such assessments, despite all the pressure on them to do so, not least in Parliament Does he note that the US Senate will be voting on more than a dozen resolutions today aimed at blocking the Trump Administration’s sale of weapons to Saudi Arabia? What is the view of the UK Government on that? Indeed, they say that others may come to other conclusions, but some of the same evidence may be available to them as well as to us The Government imply in the Statement that they are making adequate assessments—in which case, as part of that wider consideration, have they looked at what happened, for example, to Jamal Khashoggi? Are they taking note of the UN report, for example, which states that the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia should be investigated over his murder because there is "credible evidence" that he and other senior officials may be liable for the killing? The UN special rapporteur says that the death of the journalist was "an international crime". She says: "It is the conclusion of the special rapporteur that Mr Khashoggi has been the victim of a deliberate, premeditated execution, an extrajudicial killing for which the state of Saudi Arabia is responsible under international human rights law" We are here looking at international human rights law and the extent to which Saudi Arabia adheres to it Have the Government also noted the imprisonment and execution of dissidents, including minors? Have they noted that Saudi-led forces have hit civilians, hospitals, schools and school buses in Yemen? We have asked questions about these attacks and have been assured that the Government did not think that international humanitarian law was broken. How could they say that if it was not properly assessed Like the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, I note the decision of Germany and Denmark not to sell arms to Saudi Arabia. Again, I point to the evidence that they will be looking at, which will be similar to the evidence that we can see The Government are signing up to agreements on human rights—work led by the Dutch in the EU. How does this square with that? Does he recall that the International Relations Committee concluded that the UK Government were, if only just, on the wrong side in this matter—I note that the noble Lord, Lord Howell, is in his place Astonishingly, one strand to which the Government pay attention is Saudi Arabia’s public statements about its commitment to adhere to international humanitarian law. Surely the time has come to examine the evidence properly and in a disinterested way. If this is done, does the Minister not believe that the time has come to ban the sale of arms to Saudi Arabia?