Saleh Hasan - Court of Appeal Hearing

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL, PALESTINIAN CHALLENGES THE GOVERNMENT'S POLICY ON ARMS EXPORTS TO ISRAEL

Tomorrow, 21 October 2008, the Government will face a challenge to its arms exports policy in a case brought by a Palestinian individual, Saleh Hasan, represented by Public Interest Lawyers in cooperation with Al-Haq, a Palestinian human rights organisation based in Ramallah.
The case challenges the Government's grant of export licences for the sale of weapons to Israel, in particular the Government’s failure to give reasons for decisions to grant licences even though such decisions may carry a life-or-death significance for Palestinians attacked with weapons containing British-supplied parts, which included, at the time of lodging the claim in 2006, components for combat helicopters, aircraft radars, air-to-surface missiles and airborne electronic warfare equipment. Special licences were also approved for the sale to Israel of components for military training aircraft, naval radars, naval communications equipment, and optical sensors for unmanned air vehicles. These licences also did not include components made by British companies in US assembled Apache helicopters and F-16 bombers sold to Israel from the US.
As a result of the original claim, the Government provided justifications for the original decisions which were challenged. On 19 November 2007 Mr Justice Collins in the High Court ruled that, although Saleh Hasan clearly has a sufficient interest to bring the case, to “routinely give the information which has been given in this case, it would involve a considerable amount of extra work.” The judgment did not recognise a duty on the Secretary of State for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, now Peter Mandelson, to provide reasons for these key decisions, pointing principally to the role played by the Parliamentary Quadripartite Committee in reviewing them. However, the same Committee, not in a position to go beyond merely recommending that the Government change its policy, had already stated in its 2007 Review of Strategic Export Controls that:

“In our view a significant part of the problem is the opaque manner in which these exports are presented and the obfuscating and frustrating terms in which the Government seeks to justify its decision to grant, or withhold, licences. When an interested party notes, for example, the export of armoured vehicles to a government with a poor human rights record it is entirely understandable that he or she is concerned that the export may be used for internal repression. When a question is put to the Government the habitual reply is: all applications are considered on a case by case basis against the Consolidated EU and National Export Licensing Criteria. Any licence which we assess is inconsistent with the Criteria will be refused. The answer provides no information..”

That the sale of arms to Israel is prohibited under international law is clear from the International Court of Justice's Advisory Opinion of 9 July 2004: Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and from the well documented human rights abuses carried out by Israel against the Palestinian people. In his most recent report to the UN General Assembly, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, Richard Falk, gave the following example of the situation in the Palestinian Occupied Territories:

“The Special Rapporteur has received reports under oath from non-Palestinian observers of the situation in Nablus. The reports prove that Israel has used force continuously against the civilian population of Nablus without even claiming justification on the basis of prior resistance activities. From 26 June until late July of 2008, the Israeli Defense Forces carried out a series of nightly military operations in Nablus that led to the killing of at least two young Palestinians, the arrest of dozens of men, women and children and the confiscation and destruction of property, and generated an atmosphere of fear. Those military actions have taken place without any explicit charges brought against the residents of Nablus. The damage included the destruction of property belonging to several charitable organizations, including schools, clinics and an orphanage that had been providing necessary services to the population in Nablus.”

It is essential that the Court of Appeal recognise that the British Government must give reasoned decisions in this sensitive context, and not wait for the lodging of judicial review before providing it.

Phil Shiner of Public Interest Lawyers, said:

"It is critically important that the Government follow their own criteria which requires them to be assured that arms exports will not be used against Palestinian civilians. The Government refuses to say how they have met that test, yet these decisions may be a matter of life-and-death for Palestinian civilians. If the phrase ‘open government’ is to mean anything, decisions to allow arms exports to israel must be reasoned before the public. This is but one aspect of a wider state responsibility that the UK state has for human rights violations perpetrated by the Israeli government in the Occupied Palestinian Territories."


Public Interest Lawyers was established in 1999. Since its formation the practice has taken on some of the most significant public law cases of recent times. The practice focuses on the following domestic areas: Public, Human Rights, Environmental, Planning and Urban Regeneration Law. Internationally, we practise Public, Human Rights, Humanitarian and Environmental Law.

For more information about PIL go to: www.publicinterestlawyers.co.uk