The High Court in London ruled that British arms sales to Saudi Arabia may continue.
The Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) had sought an order to block export licences for British-made fighter jets, bombs and other munitions which it said the Saudi-led Arab coalition was using in a campaign against Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen's civil war.
[...] "Saudi Arabia has been, and remains, genuinely committed to compliance with International Humanitarian Law; and there was no 'real risk' that there might be 'serious violations' of International Humanitarian Law (in its various manifestations) such that UK arm sales to Saudi Arabia should be suspended or cancelled," the court said.
[...] CAAT said it would appeal against the decision, and the leader of the opposition Labour party, Jeremy Corbyn, heavily criticised the government for its trade with Saudi Arabia.
"The government continues to sell arms to Saudi Arabia, one of the most oppressive and brutal regimes, that finances terrorism and is breaching humanitarian law," Corbyn said.
Source: Reuters
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After repeated claims that Britain's reloading of the Saudi Arabian Royal Air Force's bomb bays does not mean Britain is at war with Yemen – where its ordnance are dropped – the government finally conceded that it is.
In a tense exchange with parliamentarians in a debate on the British sale of arms to Saudi Arabia, Alan Duncan, the government's Special Envoy to Yemen, said: "We are in conflict for a reason".
Duncan's admission officially confirms of what every sensible person has known since March 2015, when Saudi Arabia intervened in Yemen's civil war with an air campaign made possible by British planes and British bombs, and for which UK arms companies made £2.8bn in revenues in the first year alone.
To use the words of the UN envoy to Yemen, the "humanitarian catastrophe" precipitated by the Arab world's richest country bombing its poorest has been almost total.
[...] while NGOs and MPs in several parliamentary committees have been sharp in their criticism of the government for continuing to fuel this war, the government does nothing, meekly claiming over and over again there is no evidence of Saudi war crimes in Yemen and that Britain regularly "seeks assurances" from Saudi Arabia that it is not committing those crimes.
In March, the UK director of Human Rights Watch told the arms export control committee that he has personally handed evidence to the Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond, complete with GPS coordinates, of Saudi air strikes on civilian targets. This month Amnesty International sent photographs of British-made BL-755 cluster bombs partially exploded in recent months discovered in farmland near the village of al-Khadhra in northern Yemen.
[...] The government is wriggling because, under Britain's own arms export laws, it is illegal for it to sell arms to a state that is at a "clear risk" of committing international humanitarian crimes. Acknowledging the chorus of evidence of Saudi war crimes in Yemen would be tantamount to admitting Britain's complicity in them.
The truth is that the arms trade of a handful of private arms companies with Saudi Arabia is simply off limits to our country's democratic apparatus as well as its civil society.
Source: The Independent
(Score: -1, Troll) by jmorris on Friday July 14 2017, @01:49AM (10 children)
Isn't it amazing how everyone seems to accept the broken premise here? That Her Majesty's Government must ask the courts if it has it's permission to implement Foreign Policy. We see the same subservient behavior in all Western countries now, where the Executive (and often even the Legislative) functions are clearly and obviously inferior to the Courts and everyone thinks this is normal and sane. It isn't. The Courts are almost always the branch of government most divorced from the consequences of its policy decisions, most difficult for the People to exercise oversight, etc. Which of of course the exact reason the Progressives love using the Courts to implement policy the other branches would pay too high a price for attempting.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 14 2017, @02:00AM (6 children)
So, it's totally not a coincidence then that your ilk are padding the SCOTUS with right-wing nutters? Clearly that's just because "the other guy is doing it as well so we must retaliate", no? I mean, it's not like they're trying to implement some sort of policy over there, is it?
You need to lay of whatever you are smoking, man...
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Friday July 14 2017, @02:26AM (5 children)
I know the concept will go "whoosh!" right over yer head but there is an important difference. We seek to STOP the courts from making law, to roll back past abuses. Mind pointing to an example where the Right even WANTS the courts to invent a brand new law or "right"?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 14 2017, @03:13AM (2 children)
I would try, but I have no firm idea what "The Right" is to you. My best guess would be something that would otherwise be a crazy stereotype.
Here's a recently "invented" right: the right to record police officers in public performing their duty. I know what the warped stereotype I have in mind would say to that, and it's likely not far off the mark.
Do you see where I put the scare quotes in "invented" right? Can anybody tell me what the salient difference is between my choice and jmorris' choice? That's what's wrong with "The Right" these days, and that's why I can no longer see myself as a conservative.
It's ceased being right in a small letter sense.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Friday July 14 2017, @03:30AM (1 child)
The Rule of Law position on that would be that if recording is generally permitted at a particular place and time then the presence of an LEO wouldn't change that, barring a properly enacted law specifying otherwise. What other position is even possible if we envision courts as limited to applying already existing laws? And by the same process we must conclude that if the lawful legislative authority DID enact such a law, either blanket banning filming law enforcement activity or creating some executive process to restrict recordings, that policy decision would be beyond the power of a court to challenge; the court could only rule whether you had violated it or not. Whether the law is wise is not within the scope of a court to determine. Jury Nullification is of course an entirely different thing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 14 2017, @08:15AM
This has to be the most sustained argument ever put forth by the jmorris! So sad it is of the same quality of his isomorphic idiosyncratic assertions!
But in short, this reflects the stupidity of the Right, they think that right is what declared by courts, instead of the truth that courts declare what is truth, based on argument, precendent, and something that jmorris will never understand, reason. Law is ethics with rational establishment, dudes! jmorris is on the losing side of history, logic, reality, reason, and the chocolate/vanilla divide. I'll just leave that here.
Look, justice and truth are not the outcome of a fight, just because you win a culture war does not mean your are right! I mean, just look at Pat Buchanan and Newtered Gringrich! Losers! Cuckholder Conservatives who are relativists when it comes to morals! And some of them (all?) are Catholics? The Pope should be ashamed, or get busy with the old excommunication stick!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 14 2017, @08:46AM (1 child)
The right not to have scary trans people in their public toilets?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 14 2017, @09:45AM
Different queens. Only the Northern Jurisdiction. Keep calm, and do not look to the right, or left.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday July 14 2017, @02:00AM
Ah, sure. The govt is more controllable by the citizens than the principles and laws.
"Don't trust the justice system, trust the govt!" argument.
'Cause it will be the govt to protect you when the govt will penetrate your ass!
Must be a weird place the planet you a living on.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by tfried on Friday July 14 2017, @07:55AM
Well, in the present case, the court ruled that the government has the right do this. But even if it had not, the solution is remarkably simple: Repeal the export laws to make clear that you totally do not mind who buys your arms, or what they are going to do with them.
Now, such a level of honesty might not be too popular, with The West(TM) still trying to pose as morally superior, and all. But possible? Absolutely.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by TheRaven on Friday July 14 2017, @08:15AM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Friday July 14 2017, @01:57AM
The $110b US arms sale to Saudi turns out to be fake news [businessinsider.com].
Not that it intended so, but seems US is acting more ethical than UK.
(grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Informative) by n1 on Friday July 14 2017, @02:31AM
Saudi Arabia in it's 'genuine commitment to compliance with International Humanitarian Law' is a country that still has public executions, including for crimes such as 'witchcraft' and homosexual acts... It also has a blanket ban on political demonstrations.
Also in the news this week...
Source: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/saudi-arabia-extremism-funding-arms-sales-government-a7837771.html [independent.co.uk]
Source: https://www.thenational.ae/world/mena/saudi-arabia-to-host-g20-summit-in-2020-1.382504 [thenational.ae]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 14 2017, @03:57AM
Guess what ideology the most aggressive and persistent terrorists adhere to.. Wahhabism. The country that proselyte (recruit) others into this belief by sponsoring mosques with the condition that they alone may select the Imam (priest) *drumroll* Saudi Arabia! So now we sell more weapons to them so they can remove Shias in Yemen which harbour circa ~30 percent not so into Wahhabism which terrorists are. Guess that may increase the supply of radicalized people.
And where will they execute their deeds?... in the UK. And supposedly there's not so official deliveries from SA to ISIS in Syria.
Then there's the ISIS bank, Qatar, also Wahhabism.
So all in all, the deal seems slightly self defeating. I'll hope they pay a really good price to make it worthwhile for us.
But as usual the higher ups takes the profits and the plebs gets rewarded with being blown into pieces or as of lately run over.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday July 14 2017, @05:17AM (5 children)
"...the infidel will sell us the explosives to blow him up with."
Seriously, what the actual fuck? Why would a Western democracy sell arms to a country that is hell-bent on removing it from the face of the earth?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 14 2017, @05:43AM
💷
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 14 2017, @06:14AM
It's called profit and privatized well profit, and socialized expenses and consequences. But when shit hits the fan. The profit enables a person to shield themselves from the consequences.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by RamiK on Friday July 14 2017, @08:03AM
Because selling weapons to barbarians earns you hundreds of years of barbarians fighting each other instead of you.
compiling...
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Friday July 14 2017, @08:25AM
Several reasons. The obvious one is money, and the people benefitting are the ones most in a position to move to a different country if it all goes wrong. Then there's the fact that Britain is pretty far down Saudi Arabia's list of enemies and a lot of countries that we're not particularly fond of are higher up, so having them all fighting is in our interest (this has basically been British foreign policy since Queen Elizabeth I). Then there's the more murky question of where exactly do you draw the line? China and the US are both weaker on human rights than we'd like them to be, but cutting of trade with them would hurt us a lot more than it would hurt them. Should we stop arms sales to the USA because the Chilcot Report has now shown that the war in Iraq was illegal under UK law? The obvious answer might be 'yes', but consider that Britain is only able to maintain a strong military without being overly dependent (Trident aside) on foreign countries by being able to amortise the cost of weapons systems development through exports.
Back directly on topic: note that the court has simply said that it is legal for the government to permit arms sales, not that it is in any way a requirement that they do. The government is able to reverse this decision and may be forced to do so when they finally publish the report that was due last year and is expected to name Saudi Arabia as a major sponsor of international terrorism.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by epitaxial on Friday July 14 2017, @12:59PM
Money talks.