A fierce advocate for the worldwide Arms Trade Treaty, the U.K. government has turned into one of the most “significant violators” of that same treaty as a result of its arms sales to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as it leads a coalition of smaller partners in the bombing campaign against Yemen.
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Oxfam said on Tuesday the United Kingdom was violating the International Arms Trade Treaty, which regulates the transfer of conventional arms to ensure there are no violations of international humanitarian law.
With the leadership in both parties have always been reluctant to seriously criticize the Saudi government, growing war crimes in Yemen and fear of a backlash has a number of Congressmen increasingly critical of the United States support for the bombing campaign.
“Despite Saudi visits telling us that they’re going to do better, we still hospitals and schools and factories being targeted”, he said.
The World Trade Organization is hosting the second conference on the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), which came into force in 2014 laying out new rules governing the worldwide arms market.
Oxfam will use the second conference of states party to the treaty in Geneva on Tuesday to criticise the government’s position on sales to Saudi Arabia.
He went on to express confidence that if it were not for the compliance of certain permanent members of the Security Council with Saudi Arabia’s excessive demands, the war in Yemen would have not continued for so long. The U.S. sold almost $6 billion in arms to the Saudi government in 2015. “It has misled its own parliament about its oversight of arms sales and its global credibility is in jeopardy as it commits to action on paper but does the opposite in reality”, she said, while posing the question: “How can the government insist that others abide by a treaty it helped set up if it flagrantly ignores it?”.
Saudi Arabia has been striking Yemen since last March to restore power to fugitive president Mansour Hadi, a close ally of Riyadh.
The UN has estimated that more than 6,000 people have lost their lives in the war while millions have had to leave their homes.
There have been repeated strikes on civilian targets.
The Saudi coalition has come under scrutiny for civilian deaths before.
A group of civil rights activists held a protest rally outside the Saudi Arabian embassy in Washington, D.C., to condemn the sale of USA arms to the Saudi regime and the unrelenting bombardment of the Yemeni people.
Saudi Arabia says it tries to minimize civilian casualties, but the United Nations says estimates more than 6,000 have died.
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“This proposed sale will contribute to the foreign policy and national security of the United States by helping to improve the security of a strategic regional partner which has been and continues to be a leading contributor of political stability and economic progress in the Middle East”, said a representative of the DSCA.
