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Weapons for peace?  What to expect in 2021 from the EU’s new ‘peace facility’

1/11/2021

2 Comments

 
This is the fourth blog post in a series looking at an array of issues in 2021 related to weapons use, the arms trade and security assistance, at times offering recommendations.
Picture
Roy Isbister
Picture
Frank Slijper
Just before the close of 2020, EU member states’ foreign ministries reached agreement over the set-up of the European Peace Facility (EPF) to pay for "external action having military or defence implications". It is meant to "swiftly respond to crises and conflicts" and "to empower partner countries". Its initial focus is expected to be on Africa, however its potential reach is global. While only half the size of its original ask (due to some nervousness about the basic concept and larger budgetary constraints), the EPF still provides for € 5 billion to be spent over the next seven years, including on controversial ‘train and equip’ packages. By establishing this as an ‘off-budget’ facility, member states are circumventing EU treaties under which the EU budget cannot be used to provide arms. The type of arms envisaged as being suitable for transfer under the EPF include those frequently causing the most harm and most at risk of misuse and diversion in fragile contexts, such as small arms and light weapons (SALW) and their ammunition, armoured vehicles, etc.
 
Civil society organisations, including ours, have long argued against the EPF, as recent history suggests that providing weapons and ammunition to security forces in fragile states is more likely to exacerbate than solve local and regional conflicts. As we argued, along with twelve other organisations in a 2019 letter to the EU foreign policy chief, and in a November 2020 statement from 40 civil society organisations from around the world, we have seen little evidence that military-focused ‘train and equip’ efforts lead to improved peace, justice, and development outcomes. On the contrary, experience demonstrates that this type of military assistance can harm peace and development and rarely provides its intended leverage. It often fails to address the underlying drivers of conflict and can instead be counterproductive, leading to unintended consequences, such as the violent repression of peaceful civil society actions, furthering the impunity of military forces, fomenting military-backed violence and conflict, and corruption.
 
The initial focus of the EPF is likely to be in Africa, possibly in the Sahel, where Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger have set up a joint force known as the G5 with 5,000 troops to confront jihadists. Somalia and the Central African Republic have also been mentioned as potential beneficiaries.
 
Whereas German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas calls the EPF “a fundamental investment in peace and stability that will allow the EU and its partners to effectively and flexibly address international crises”, there is reason to be wary that the EPF will be used to advance the interests of EU member states more than and potentially at the expense of the security of the people affected by crises. Time and again we have seen examples of military aid transferred to further European geopolitical interests rather than in support of the human security needs of people in fragile states.
 
Recent statements by key European figures strengthen such fears. Speaking about the EPF in February 2020, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell stated: "We need guns, we need arms, we need military capacities and that is what we are going to help provide to our African friends because their security is our security. […] We are not going to grow, we are not going to invest, we are not going to create jobs without stability". In December 2020, President Emmanuel Macron of France (which has been a leading proponent of the EPF) said in a joint press conference with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi that he “will not condition matters of defence and economic cooperation on ... disagreements (over human rights).” While this was not in the direct context of the EPF, it nevertheless raises obvious and significant concerns about how the EPF will be used.
 
Beyond its fundamental conceptual failings, the EPF as it stands now also has numerous operational shortcomings. These include a lack of transparency, both in decision-making as well as public reporting; weak and permissive safeguards against ‘misuse’; a lack of meaningful involvement of local people affected by crises and insecurity (in support of whom EPF actions will ostensibly be undertaken), at any point in the process; and a weak due-diligence framework to ensure the Facility’s activities are conducted in accordance with international law.
 
Instead of establishing a strong framework of safeguards within the EPF itself to pritoritise the protection of civilians and their rights, member states have instead chosen to push decisions on these matters downstream, such that they will be decided politically for each assistance measure under the Facility. This means that maintaining high standards on arms transfers, strict application of international law and effective oversight will be vulnerable to political pressure and excessive secrecy.
 
The unresolved weaknesses of the EPF are risking the EU’s self-styled reputation as a force for good. However, little resistance to its adoption is expected from either the European Parliament or national parliaments, if they have a say at all. Therefore, as so often, it seems it will fall to civil society to hold member states to account.

Roy Isbister heads the Arms Unit at Saferworld, based in the United Kingdom, leading 
their work on conventional arms.

Frank Slijper leads the Arms Trade project at PAX, based in the Netherlands.
2 Comments

Court Action to Implement the Arms Trade Treaty

12/19/2016

2 Comments

 
This is the fifth blog post in a series looking at an array of issues in 2017 related to weapons use, the arms trade and security assistance, at times offering recommendations.
Picture
Roy Isbister
In the United Kingdom (UK), a major feature of the first quarter of 2017 will be the High Court hearing at the start of February on the legality or otherwise of continued UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia in the light of Saudi violations of International Humanitarian Law (IHL) in Yemen. In June 2016, The Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT) was granted permission to seek judicial review of the UK government’s arms export licensing decisions with regard to Saudi Arabia. In the past 18 months, the UK has licensed more than £3.3 billion of arms exports to Saudi Arabia, a significant proportion of which has comprised Paveway IV bombs and Typhoon combat aircraft for use by the Royal Saudi Air Force (RSAF).

This comes against the background of intense conflict in Yemen. A 10-State Saudi-led coalition began its military intervention in Yemen in March 2015, after Houthi rebels, in alliance with former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, took control of the capital Sana’a and ousted current President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi. The Houthi-Saleh alliance swept south to take control of key cities including Aden. The country was quickly engulfed by violence, marking the end of a fragile political transition process.

From very early on in the Saudi-led bombing campaign, regular reports began to emerge of airstrikes on critical civilian objects, residential areas, and large gatherings of civilians, including Mazraq IDP camp, and relief supplies warehouses, attacks on the Old City of Sana’a. These regular attacks against civilians and civilian objects, along with the use of cluster munitions (which the UK Government may be on the verge of acknowledging for the first time), the designation of entire cities as military targets, and other practices collectively demonstrated a pattern of violations of IHL. The Houthis have also committed apparent IHL abuses, firing artillery and missiles at civilian areas in Saudi Arabia and in Yemen. All other parties to the conflict appear to have similarly committed violations of IHL.

On the basis of the scale of problems related to bombings in Yemen, in December 2015, Saferworld, with Amnesty International and Oxfam, sought a legal opinion from Matrix Chambers. The opinion found that the UK government had “misdirected itself in law” on continued arms sales to Saudi Arabia.  Citing Article 6.3 of the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), Matrix concluded the Government had knowledge that its arms would be used to breach IHL, and that therefore such sales were prohibited. Matrix further concluded, having examined a series of potential breaches of IHL by the RSAF, that even if the “knowledge test” for prohibiting sales under Article 6.3 was not met, the standard of “overriding risk” that UK arms would be used to commit serious violations of IHL had been met, and any reasonable risk assessment would conclude that sales to Saudi Arabia of any controlled equipment at risk of being used in the conflict in Yemen should be stopped.

When CAAT moved for judicial review, the Government sought to quash the hearing on the grounds that it had access to information not available to the UN or the public that explained Saudi actions as consistent with IHL. However the judge, in insisting that were grounds for judicial review and that the hearing should be expedited, said there was abundant evidence of breaches of IHL that the government had to take into account. He was particularly referring to UN reports citing many IHL violations.

The case will be extremely important. The UK Government has pursued an extremely narrow consideration of IHL in performing risk assessments for arms export licensing. Lawyers have advised that this is in line with a near twenty-year attempt by the UK and other Western governments to narrow the scope of IHL, rowing back on seventy years of international jurisprudence. Recognizing the importance of this case for all their years of campaigning work, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch will also be presenting arguments. All feel they can raise issues that the court needs to consider that make CAAT’s success more likely.

A defeat for the Government will clarify that the risk to IHL of arms transfers cannot be set aside due to other considerations, and will potentially help give meaning to the relevant articles of the ATT.  This may also have particular implications for other EU member states, as UK law is in addition subject to shared obligations under an EU instrument (the Common Position). 

The recent US decision to stop the supply of precision-guided weapons to the RSAF and to limit certain intelligence-sharing due to systematic and endemic failures in targeting will be a considerable boost to CAAT.  Under the US system, the President can send a ”signal” to the Saudi Government by refusing certain arms sales at the same time as continuing to support the Saudi air campaign by other means (e.g. by refuelling Saudi aircraft).  However the UK does not have this option.  For the UK, national law, the EU Common Position and the ATT all agree that whenever there is a clear risk that the arms in question might be used to commit or facilitate serious violations of international humanitarian or human rights law, a proposed transfer must be refused.  So if there are “systemic, endemic” problems with Saudi targeting in Yemen, all transfers of arms from the UK that might be used by the RSAF will have to be stopped.  Parliament is already asking why the UK is ignoring what the Obama administration has determined.  The court will undoubtedly ask those questions too. Hopefully, 2017 will begin with a UK High Court ruling that substantially strengthens the ATT.

Roy Isbister heads Saferworld’s Arms Unit.
2 Comments

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    The "Looking Ahead Blog" features comments concerning short- to medium-term trends related to the arms trade, security assistance, and weapons use. Typically about 500-1000 words, each comment is written by an expert listed on the Forum on the Arms Trade related to topics of each expert's choosing.

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