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Home Posts tagged "Yemen"

Drone Attacks on Saudi Aramco Oil Installations

Published on September 17, 2019        Author: 

Half of Saudi Arabia’s oil production has been stopped by air attacks involving drones and possibly cruise missiles on 14 September 2019. Houthi rebels in Yemen have claimed responsibility. United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has asserted by tweet that Iran is responsible because there is “no evidence the attacks came from Yemen” and Iran is behind “100” attacks on Saudi Arabia. The U.S. has since released satellite imagery showing immense smoke clouds. Unnamed American officials say 19 sites were struck. According to the BBC, on 16 September, ‘UK, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said it was not yet clear who was responsible for what he described as a “wanton violation of international law”’.

Regardless of who is responsible, the attacks are unlawful for a variety of reasons. For several of those same reasons and others, however, Saudi Arabia has no right to use military force outside its territory in a response. The limits on other states responding with military force or other forms of coercion are equally restricted. Lawful responses are available, ones that would avoid further ‘wanton’ law violations.

The important starting place of the analysis is with the fact that the Houthi rebels are not the government in effective control of Yemen, so they do not qualify as having authority to use military force on the basis of the one relevant justification in this case, United Nations Charter exception to Article 2(4), Article 51. The fact Saudi Arabia has been attacking them in Yemen does not give rise to their right to attack Saudi Arabia.

The most accurate characterization of the Houthis is as a belligerent party engaged in internal armed conflict or civil war from which all non-Yemeni armed groups—state or nonstate—are barred. Saudi Arabia has apparently based its participation in the Yemeni civil war on an invitation from Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi. Hadi, however, fled and thereby lost effective control or status as the government in March 2015. The conflict remains undecided with the Houthis holding the capital Sanaa as well as territory that is home to more than half the population. While Hadi continues to claim ‘international recognition’ plus Yemen’s seat in the United Nations, under international law, the government for purposes of authorizing force in self-defence must for practical reasons and reasons of self-determination be based on the effective control rule as applied in the Tinoco Claims Arbitration (1 U.N. Rep. Int’l Arb. Awards 369 (1923). Read the rest of this entry…

Filed under: EJIL Analysis, Self Defence, Use of Force
 
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Germany and its Involvement in the US Drone Programme before German Administrative Courts

Published on April 8, 2019        Author: 

On 19th March 2019, the German Higher Administrative Court for North Rhine-Westphalia rendered a highly interesting and important judgment. It addresses no less than the compatibility of US drone strikes in Yemen with international law, the role of domestic courts with regard to international law, and the scope – and limits – of judicial review in foreign affairs.

The case was brought by Yemeni claimants against Germany for its alleged involvement in the US drone programme. While Germany neither publicly supports nor actively participates in the US drone programme, it is nearly undisputed that the US Air Base in Ramstein, Germany, plays a vital role therein (see here). The Court held that, first, Germany is constitutionally obliged to ascertain that the US drone strikes conducted via Ramstein are compatible with international law. Secondly, in case the government finds the US practice to be legally contentious, German authorities have to take efforts in order to ensure that international law is complied with.

The full reasoning of the decision is not yet available in writing, but the press release (see here for an unofficial English translation) and the transcript of the oral pronouncement of the decision (see here) allow for some preliminary remarks. (Note that the Higher Administrative Court on the same day rendered a second judgment that concerned US drone strikes, albeit in Somalia (see here). This contribution, however, focuses on the “Yemen case”.)

The Facts

In 2012, Salem bin Ali Jaber, a Yemeni imam known for openly criticising Al Qaeda was invited to deliver a sermon at the local mosque of Khashamir, Yemen, where he attended a family wedding. In that course he was approached by three members of Al Qaeda requesting a meeting. Salem asked his relative, and local police officer, Waleed to accompany him. Shortly after the meeting commenced, US drones fired a series of four Hellfire rockets on the group killing both Salem and Waleed bin Ali Jaber as well as the three Al Qaeda members.

This prompted Read the rest of this entry…

Filed under: Armed Conflict, EJIL Analysis, Extraterritorial Application, International Humanitarian Law, Right to Life
 
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Bringing Psychological Civilian Harm to the Forefront: Incidental Civilian Fear as Trauma in the Case of Recurrent Attacks

Published on April 25, 2018        Author: 

Last month’s ballistic missiles’ barrage undertaken by the Yemen-based Houthi rebels against Saudi Arabia comes to be added to the almost 100 missiles that have been fired against the Kingdom since past November. With these missile attacks spreading fear (see also here the Jordanian condemnation of the attacks and the stress put on the terrorization of the civilians), they bring to the forefront the question of how recurrent attacks can impact on the affected civilians’ psychological health and whether such impact can have a legal significance for the legality of the undertaken force. The question of incidental civilian fear, namely the fear incurred to civilians absent any prior intentions from the attacker’s part, has been pertinent in the past in instances where aerial attacks have caused psychiatric disorders like PTSD to the affected civilians  (see here for the trauma incurred to Israeli civilians as a result of the Gaza rocket attacks and here for the PTSD suffered due to the U.S. drones policy), but has not been addressed so far systematically by courts. 

The importance of taking into account incidental civilian fear amounting to trauma as a legal consideration is highlighted by studies (see also here, here, here and here) which have shown how trauma symptoms emerging from exposure to warfare can persist long after hostilities end. These studies have also demonstrated how the more the attacks augment in number and frequency, the more likely it is for the affected civilians to be diagnosed with psychiatric disorders. Translated in the proportionality balance terms the laws of war endorse, this means that the more serious the incurred harm, the higher the chances for the attack to be unlawful. 

At the same time, the emergence of trauma as a result of such attacks is not meant to serve as a veto but as a vetting parameter for the continuation of the operations. The idea is not for such trauma-related fear to be a ground altogether for the cessation of any military operations or for their ban. Rather such fear can constitute the basis for an operational adjustment to such a degree that temporary gaps between each attack or alterations in the operational mode (i.e. flight altitude or order of targeting pre-selected targets so that two targets in close vicinity are not targeted immediately one after the other) will lessen the attacks’ impact on the civilians’ psyche, permitting the latter to take respites and not leading to a situation where the trauma symptoms will be accumulated, evolving into a psychiatric disorder. Read the rest of this entry…

Filed under: Armed Conflict, Use of Force
 
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Arms Exports to Saudi Arabia in the High Court: what is a “serious violation of international humanitarian law”?

Published on April 3, 2017        Author: 

As readers will be aware, the UK High Court is presently considering a high-profile case challenging UK arms exports to Saudi Arabia. Arguments in the judicial review proceedings brought by Campaign Against Arms Trade were heard in February and judgment is awaited.

Although brought under English law, the case potentially implicates various international law questions. This post focuses on the interpretation of the expression “serious violation of international humanitarian law” (“IHL”) which the government appears to be advancing in the case. By narrowing the concept to include only war crimes, its position has significant implications for the international law regulation of the arms trade in general. This post will argue that the proposed definition should be rejected.

For further information on this and other international law issues arising in the case, the claimant has posted much of the open documentation produced by both sides on its website. This post draws heavily on those documents, and on the author’s notes of the open hearings.

The Issue Before the Court

The claimant challenges the government’s decisions to continue granting licences (and not to suspend existing licences) for arms exports to Saudi Arabia. That challenge is based primarily on alleged breaches of IHL by Saudi forces involved in the ongoing armed conflict in Yemen. Criterion 2(c) of the UK statutory guidance applicable to arms exports (the “Consolidated Criteria”) prohibits granting a licence “if there is a clear risk that the items might be used in the commission of a serious violation of international humanitarian law”. The claimants argue that given the evidence of previous breaches, the government should have concluded that such a clear risk existed. Read the rest of this entry…

Filed under: Armed Conflict, Arms Control, EJIL Analysis, International Humanitarian Law, International Law and Domestic Law, Study of International Law, Treaty Law
 
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The Jus ad Bellum and the Airstrikes in Yemen: Double Standards for Decamping Presidents?

Published on April 30, 2015        Author: 

A democratically elected president has lost control of his country and fears for his safety. He flees and seeks refuge in a more powerful neighbouring State. He writes a letter as the legitimate President, inviting his host State to take military action against the insurgents who have forced him into exile. The host State does so. Will such a situation meet with condemnation or support from the international community? Does it depend on whether the President’s name is Yanukovych or Hadi, and the intervening State is Russia or Saudi Arabia?

Russia’s Sputnik news agency has been quick the draw the parallels between the Russian intervention in Ukraine in 2014 (the jus ad bellum aspects of which have previously been discussed on this blog, including by myself – see here, here and here) and the continuing Saudi-led intervention in Yemen in 2015, seeking to highlight the divergent reaction to two seemingly very similar situations to skewer alleged Western hypocrisy. In contrast, the US State Department’s spokesperson, Marie Harf, denied the parallels between the two cases when quizzed about the issue at a press briefing:

QUESTION: … People have been asking why is it that the president, the Yemeni president, who fled from his capital, remains legitimate in your eyes.

HARF: Well, I think —

QUESTION: Whereas, like another president who fled. (Laughter.) […]

. . .

HARF: It’s completely different.

QUESTION: My question is the same. The similarities between the two cases are striking.

HARF: In that there aren’t many? […]

QUESTION: There are a lot, I think, but anyways —

HARF:Okay. We can agree to disagree.

This blog post is a tentative exploration of the issues raised by a comparison of the two cases. Are there clear standards for identifying the government of a State, for the purpose of determining who can validly consent to military action on the State’s behalf, or are these standards malleable enough that powerful States can produce whatever legal outcome they want? Read the rest of this entry…

Filed under: Government, Use of Force
 
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