French arms sales: the government no longer stops despite war crimes in Yemen

Today, Tuesday, May 7, 2019, the independent media Disclose informs us that the Saudi flagged cargo ship Bahri Yabun is due to arrive tomorrow, Wednesday, May 8, in Le Havre to load Caesar guns produced by Nexter, a company owned by the French government.

If this information is accurate, for Action Sécurité Ethique Républicaines (ASER) – which has filed an urgente procedure in its appeal pending before the Paris Administrative Court – the French goverment will be in flagrant breach of Article 6 (paras 2 and 3) of the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty (ATT).

Indeed, since 2016, the first reports of United Nations experts and NGOs have regularly denounced serious violations of international human rights law and the 1949 Geneva Conventions. It is no longer a question of risks of use (Article 7) but of potential uses of French weapons (Article 6(3)).

The French government would therefore continue to violate its international commitments « in full knowledge of the facts » at a time when the report of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) speaks of more than 230,000 deaths to come for this conflict at the end of 2019[1].

Neither the French Head of Government, Edouard Philippe, nor the Head of State, Emmanuel Macron, can ignore the reports of the United Nations and NGOs that regularly denounce serious violations of international human rights law and the 1949 Geneva Conventions.

The repeated negations of the Minister of the Armed Forces Florence Parly contrast with the evidence of the war revealed by Disclose: French weapons are involved in war crimes in Yemen.

It is unacceptable that on our behalf the French government is adding war to war in this way, against all the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council since 2016 on Yemen.

ASER has special ECOSOC consultative status at the United Nations
ASER is a member of the International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA)

[1] if the war keep the same intensity : http://www.arabstates.undp.org/content/rbas/en/home/library/crisis-response0/assessing-the-impact-of-war-on-development-in-yemen-.html