GENEVA: Any transfer of weapons or ammunition to Israel that would be used in Gaza is likely to violate international humanitarian law and must cease immediately, UN experts warned today.
‘All States must ‘ensure respect’ for international humanitarian law by parties to an armed conflict, as required by 1949 Geneva Conventions and customary international law,’ the experts said.
‘States must accordingly refrain from transferring any weapon or ammunition – or parts for them – if it is expected, given the facts or past patterns of behavior, that they would be used to violate international law.’
‘Such transfers are prohibited even if the exporting State does not intend the arms to be used in violation of the law – or does not know with certainty that they would be used in such a way – as long as there is a clear risk,’ they said.
The experts welcomed the decision of a Dutch appeals court on 12 February 2024 ordering the Netherlands to halt the export of F-35 fighter jet parts to Israel.
The experts noted tha
t States Parties to the Arms Trade Treaty have additional treaty obligations to deny arms exports if they ‘know’ that the arms ‘would’ be used to commit international crimes; or if there is an ‘overriding risk’ that the arms transferred ‘could’ be used to commit serious violations of international humanitarian law. ‘European Union member states are further bound by EU arms export control law.’
‘The need for an arms embargo on Israel is heightened by the International Court of Justice’s ruling on 26 January 2024 that there is a plausible risk of genocide in Gaza and the continuing serious harm to civilians since then’, the experts said.
‘The Genocide Convention of 1948 requires States parties to employ all means reasonably available to them to prevent genocide in another state as far as possible.’
‘This necessitates halting arms exports in the present circumstances’, the experts said.
‘State officials involved in arms exports may be individually criminally liable for aiding and abetting any war crimes, cri
mes against humanity or acts of genocide,’ the experts said. ‘All States under the principle of universal jurisdiction, and the International Criminal Court, may be able to investigate and prosecute such crimes.’
‘International law does not enforce itself,’ the experts said. ‘All States must not be complicit in international crimes through arms transfers. They must do their part to urgently end the unrelenting humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza.’
Source: Palestine news & Information Agency – WAFA