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Arms Trade: Saudi Arabia

Question for Department for International Trade

UIN 75225, tabled on 16 July 2020

To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, with reference to her Written Statement of 7 July 2020 on Trade Update, how many and what proportion of alleged incidents of violations of International Humanitarian Law (IHL) in Yemen examined by her Department under the revised methodology have been classed as possible breaches of IHL.

Answered on

21 July 2020

Assessments use all available sources of information – including some that are necessarily confidential and sensitive – so we are not able to provide details of the assessments.

Overall, there were a small number of incidents that have been treated – for the purposes of our analysis – as violations of International Humanitarian Law (IHL). However, these were isolated incidents that do not display any particular pattern, and our analysis shows that Saudi Arabia has a genuine intent and the capacity to comply both with IHL and the specific commitments it has made.

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