According to the Court of Appeal, the NGOs' appeal is inadmissible under administrative law and therefore it was rejected. The NGOs are far from satisfied with the dismissal, but are pleased to finally have clarity: an NGO must challenge an arms trade license in civil court.

For a long time, it was unclear whether a human rights organisation could challenge an arms trade licence in court, and, if so, to which court they should turn.

Human rights and weapons trade

In 2002, a number of NGOs, amongst which PAX and Stop Wapenhandel, challenged an arms trade licence in civil court. The civil judge presiding over the case decided that civil court was not the correct forum and the licence should have been challenged before an administrative judge.

In 2015, the PILP-NJCM, PAX and Stop Wapenhandel appealed the granting of an arms trade licence by the Dutch government to Egypt. According to these organisations, the licence should not have been granted; the government has not, or has insufficiently, taken the human rights situation into consideration, nor has it fully considered Egypt’s involvement in the Yemen blockade.

When granting arms trade licences, the Netherlands is obliged to conduct an investigation into the human rights situation and respect for international law in the destination countries. According to the PILP-NJCM, the government has not sufficiently conducted this investigation. PAX and Stop Wapenhandel think the arms trade licence is harmful to the situation in the Middle East.

Faulty decisions

In this long-running case, the NGOs went to court four times within two years. The organisations feel it should be possible to have a discussion about a licence’s legality where the government is licensing arms trade whilst human rights are at stake. Still, their cases were declared inadmissible. The new Dutch Customs legislation, based on the Union Customs Code, would render administrative law inoperative in legal proceedings such as these, because the NGOs are not ‘directly and individually’ affected by the delivery of arms.

The NGOs cannot agree with this decision as, among others, administrative law still allows for similar legal proceedings started by arms dealers and the government. Furthermore, because European law rendered inoperative sections of the Dutch administrative legislation that would have allowed the organisations to challenge the licence.

The NGOs are disappointed to have lost this case on procedural grounds. Because the case was dismissed for this reason, the judge did not discuss the substantive arguments against this specific arms trade licence. Still, it is of importance that we now have clarity: NGOs that want to challenge an arms trade licence must turn to the civil court.