Human Rights Criteria in Arms Exports

Presentation by Mélanie De Groof in front of the European Parliament Subcommittee on Human Rights.

During the next 12 minutes I will focus my attention – and hopefully yours – on the human rights criteria, and the humanitarian law criteria, which EU Member States must take into account when they decide whether or not to grant export licences. Doing research on the topic of arms transfers in view of human rights and humanitarian law standards is an extremely interesting and important activity. Especially today. This is because over the last decade EU arms have been used either to commit human rights abuses or internal repression on several occasions. To illustrate, in the year 2008 the Belgian army supplied Bahrain with 50 armoured combat vehicles. In the context of the so-called Arab Spring, these vehicles were reportedly used against protesters... 

Credit: Ammunition captured during a counterinsurgency operation in Afghanistan. (PRC Embedded Mentoring Team - UK Ministry of Defence)