'Made in the UK, bombed in Yemen': Holding Arms Suppliers Accountable

After six years of war, Yemen remains the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. Thousands of civilians have been killed in targeted attacks, the majority in air strikes by the Saudi-led Coalition. Many more have died of hunger and disease as a result of the devastating humanitarian crisis caused by the war and the Coalition’s air and naval blockade of Yemen.

The UK is one of Saudia Arabia’s leading arms suppliers, along with the US. CAAT estimates that the UK has provided at least £18.9 billion worth of weapons to Saudi Arabia since the start of the conflict. Despite a large body of evidence of violations of International Humanitarian Law (IHL) by the Coalition in Yemen, UK and European arms supplies to Saudi Arabia and its Coalition allies.

In December 2019, a coalition of European and Yemeni groups, led by the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) and including CAAT, submitted a communication to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, asking them to investigate European government and arms company officials for potentially aiding and abetting war crimes in Yemen. British barrister, Karim Khan, took over as the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor on 16th June 2021, the third person to hold the role.

In advance of a decision from the ICC, this event will explore the complicity of European companies and governments for violations of IHL in Yemen, and look ask why six years into the world’s worst humanitarian disaster there has been no accountability for breaches of domestic and international law, and arms exports to the Coalition continue unabated.

To help understand and visualise this record of Coalition violations and European complicity, a new time map, launched on 22 June, has been developed by ECCHR and Forensic Architecture together with Yemeni Archive and Bellingcat. This interactive map exposes the patterns of indiscriminate attacks by the Coalition against civilians and civilian infrastructure in Yemen. Applying graphic and modelling techniques to information obtained from extensive field research, open-source investigation, and legal analysis, it provides information that aims to support both international and domestic prosecution authorities in investigating the criminal responsibilities of corporate and government European actors fueling the crimes in Yemen.

Platform: Zoom.

Language: English

Speakers:

Emily Thornberry MP, Shadow Secretary of State for International Trade, Department for International Trade

Ali Jameel, Researcher, Accountability and Redress Officer, Mwatana for Human Rights

Samuel Perlo-Freeman, Research Coordinator, Campaign Against Arms Trade

Omar Ferwati, Researcher, Forensic Architecture

The conversation will be faciliated by Katie Fallon, Parliamentary Co-ordinator, Campaign Against Arms Trade

Speakers Biogs:

Emily Thornberry has been the Labour Member of Parliament for Islington South and Finsbury since 2005. She has served as Shadow Secretary of State for International Trade since April 2020. She has previously held the position of Shadow Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (2016 - 2020) and Shadow First Secretary of State (2017 – 2020).

Ali Jameel is a former Researcher at Mwatana for Human Rights, and involved in investigations and reporting on weapon remnants and ICC communication. Currently he holds the role of Accountability and Redress Officer.

Samuel Perlo-Freeman is Research Coordinator at Campaign Against Arms Trade in London, UK, focusing in particular on UK military spending and procurement, and the role of arms industries in fueling conflict. He is also a Fellow of the World Peace Foundation, and a Senior Associate Researcher at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

Omar Ferwati is a researcher with Forensic Architecture. He was trained as an architect and his own research currently focuses on how civilians use architecture to survive urban conflict, particularly in Aleppo. He is also teaching at the University of Waterloo School of Architecture in Canada.

#StopArmingSaudi | @caatUK | www.caat.org.uk

Housekeeping

** A zoom link will be sent to attendees closer to the time via Eventbrite**

** This event - as with all our events, meetings and workshops - will follow the CAAT safer spaces policy **

** For more information about this workshop email events@caat.org.uk. **