A group of nonprofits have lost a legal battle to prevent Britain exporting fighter jet parts to Israel, after judges on Monday said the issue should be decided by the government rather than the courts.
Britain partly suspended arms sales to Israel in September last year, with the government halting 30 of 350 active licenses, after a review found the weapons and equipment “might be used to commit or facilitate serious violations of international humanitarian law.”
But it maintained licenses for items the British government said were not being used in the Gaza war, as well as for components for a multinational program to produce and maintain F-35 combat aircraft used by Israel and other nations. The government said that program was “integral to international security.”
Al-Haq, a Palestinian rights group based in the West Bank, and the London-based Global Legal Action Network, which campaigns on human rights and environmental issues, filed a legal challenge against the continued export of F-35 parts. They were supported by Amnesty International, Oxfam and Human Rights Watch.
During a four-day hearing at the High Court of England and Wales last month, lawyers representing the charities argued that the supply of F-35 components to Israel breached Britain’s duty to ensure respect for the Geneva Conventions, to prevent genocide, and to stop the sale of arms that could be used to attack civilians.
But the High Court, in its judgment on Monday, said it did not have the power to rule on whether Israel’s conduct in Gaza amounted to genocide or war crimes, and that decisions on whether to continue involvement in the F-35 program were for government ministers.
In a written ruling, Justices Stephen Males and Karen Steyn said that the issue they considered was not whether Britain should supply arms to Israel. Instead, it was whether “it is open to the court to rule that the UK must withdraw from a specific multilateral defense collaboration” that the government considered vital to British defense, because of the possibility that some components might ultimately be used in Gaza.
“Under our constitution,” the judges wrote, “that acutely sensitive and political issue is a matter for the executive, which is democratically accountable to Parliament and ultimately to the electorate, not for the courts.”
Lawyers representing the charities argued that the British government had concerns about the “potential impact on the U.K./U.S. relationship” if export licenses to the F-35 program were stopped, but the High Court said there was no evidence of those considerations playing a role.
The ruling comes amid an intense debate in Europe over the ethics of arms exports to Israel, as the country’s bombardment of Gaza and severe restrictions on humanitarian aid continue. More than 56,000 people have been killed in Israel’s campaign in the enclave following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attacks, including thousands of children, according to the Gaza health ministry. The ministry’s toll does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
Earlier on Monday, Norway’s biggest pension fund, KLP, said it would drop two companies from its investment portfolio for selling weapons and equipment used by the Israeli military in Gaza.
In a statement, the fund said that its decision was based on an assessment by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights that companies that “sell weapons, parts, components and ammunition to Israeli forces risk becoming complicit in serious violations of human rights and humanitarian law.”
The Israeli military has said that it “takes all feasible measures to mitigate harm to civilians” during its operations, including “providing advance warnings to civilians in combat zones whenever feasible.”
Britain is one of the largest arms exporters in the world, although the value of its exports to Israel is relatively low compared to that of the United States, at 18 million pounds (about $24.6 million) in 2023.
The British government regulates private companies’ sales of military or dual-use goods to other nations by requiring them to apply for licenses. For a license to be granted, officials must deem that the sale is compliant with international law.
A government unit was set up in October 2023 to verify Israel’s compliance with international law, the High Court ruling said, but it said the unit had been “hampered by the lack of reliable information” on events as well as “limitations in the extent to which the government of Israel was prepared to share information.”
Several legal challenges have been filed in the past accusing Britain’s arms export system of failing to properly assess or prevent the use of British-made weapons in war crimes and human rights violations, including over arms sales to Saudi Arabia for use in the Yemen conflict.
Following the ruling, the British government said in a statement that its decision-making had been “thorough and lawful,” and that the country “operates one of the most robust export control regimes in the world.”
It said that licenses were under continual review and added: “This government has worked to secure an immediate cease-fire in Gaza, the release of all hostages, a surge of aid into Gaza and opening a path to long-term peace for Palestinians and Israelis.”
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