A senior professor of international law at Yale Law School confirmed that the United States continues to sell arms and military equipment to the Saudi-led coalition used in the Yemen war as a clear example of human rights abuses.
The United States has provided billions of dollars in arms sales to countries participating in the Saudi-led coalition fighting a war against Yemen against the Houthi-Saleh alliance and contributing to one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world. Owna Hathawi, In a report, in collaboration with a number of Yale Law School students, at Just Security on the Internet.
Efforts to stop US aid to the Saudi-led coalition led by members of Congress who are targeting civilian victims of coalition air strikes failed. Recently, sales stalled when Senator Bob Corker (R. Tin), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, suspended the sale of lethal military equipment to all members of the Persian Gulf (including Saudi Arabia). Arabic), in an attempt to encourage them to settle internal disputes that have nothing to do with the conflict in Yemen. But Korker lifted the contract on February 8, opening the door for new sales again.
In June 2017, the United States announced a $ 750 million training program for Saudi military forces, paid by the Saudis, which included “topics such as avoiding civilians, the law of armed conflict, and command and control of human rights.” The United States also said it had received assurances from the Saudi government that it would seek to reduce civilian casualties. However, there is little evidence that the pace of civilian casualties has slowed down as a result. As noted in the first article in this series, the United Nations Panel of Experts on Yemen documented eight separate attacks on civilians in the second half of 2017.
In May 2017, in the midst of discussions on Congressional proposals to stop arms sales, the American Center for Human Rights (ABA) sent a report from law professor Vanderbilt Michael A. “Further sales under both the AECA and the Foreign Assistance Act [FAA] are required until Saudi Arabia takes effective measures to ensure compliance with international law and the president presents relevant testimony to Congress,” Newton told the Senate. The report recommended that Congress bring a joint decision under both AECA and FAA to stop the proposed rearming of weapons. The conclusions of the report seem to be justified.

Arms Export Control Act
AECA sets forth the Congressional reporting requirements for major military sales and the issuance of export licenses. AECA also limits how military aid is used. (3) “to prevent or impede the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the means of delivery of such weapons”; (4) “allow the recipient country to participate in regional arrangements or, Including the United Nations; 5 “for the purpose of enabling foreign military forces in less developed friendly countries to build public works and engage in other activities that will assist the economic and social development of these friendly countries.” Sales must be terminated if the President or the Congress determines that the receiving country uses military assistance for any purpose other than those mentioned in AECA. Such assistance may be resumed only when the President determines that the violation of the country has ended and that the State has provided satisfactory assurances to the President that such violation will not occur again.
Among the purposes authorized by AECA, the most reasonable use by Saudis of weapons purchased from the United States is “self-defense”. (Fugitive) President Hadi of Yemen requested the assistance of the Saudi-led coalition for the purpose of collective self-defense under Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations. However, the mere request does not terminate the investigation. The question is whether the Saudi-led coalition has acted, in fact, in accordance with Article 51 of the collective self-defense of Yemen.
Yemen has suffered from an “armed attack” by organized, non-state actors and thus has the right to self-defense against them. But the response to self-defense against an armed attack must be “necessary” and “relative” to the threat it poses. The principle of necessity is met when an act aimed solely at stopping or repelling an armed attack is sought, and when there are no peaceful alternatives available, such as diplomatic efforts. To determine whether the act of self-defense is proportional, counsel “examines the size of the defensive force in relation to the action directed against it.” The type of force used in self-defense does not require the same level. Type of force used in the attack, but must be “judged according to the nature of the threat being dealt with.”
The report of the ABA Center for Human Rights in May 2017 concluded that the use of the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen was not a legitimate self-defense because it violated necessity and proportionality. As necessary, the report concluded that “indiscriminate or indiscriminate targeting of civilians does not serve any legitimate military purpose” and therefore “the principle of necessity can not by definition be met”. With regard to proportionality, he explained that “systematic attacks on non-military targets did not deter legitimate threats and therefore did not meet the requirements of proportionality”.
There is, in our view, some danger here of importing the principle of proportionality in the law of war – which requires the absence of excessive civilian collateral damage with respect to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated – in analyzing the proportion of war fit – which requires that the size of the defensive force is proportional to the threat. However, if there were reportedly a large number of attacks on non-military targets, the ABA report was correct in concluding that these attacks were not necessary to respond to the threat posed by the Yemeni government recognized by the Huthis or Huthis. Alliance of the good, and does not fit with it. As a result, the ABA report seems likely to have a potential breach of AECA.

Foreign Aid Act

The ABA report likewise makes a strong case that the sale of arms to Saudi Arabia violates the FAA.  The FAA prohibits security assistance “to any country the government of which engages in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights.”  “Security assistance” includes “sales of defense articles or services, extensions of credits (including participations in credits), and guaranties of loans under the Arms Export Control Act.” Even putting to one side the actions of Saudi Arabia in Yemen, Saudi Arabia itself has a poor human rights record.
The US State Department’s Report on Human Rights in Saudi Arabia in 2016, prepared precisely to assist in determinations of eligibility for assistance under the FAA, found large numbers of human rights abuses. Most abuses found in the report were not connected to Saudi Arabia’s actions in Yemen, but the ABA report rightly notes that the FAA does not require a causal link between the violations of international human rights and provision of military assistance.
The challenge levied by the ABA report to the sale of weapons to the Saudi-led coalition under the FAA is substantial enough to require a considered response. Thus far, the US government has provided none.
Presidential Policy Directive 27
The US government’s continued sale of weapons to Saudi Arabia in the face of the ABA report and the UN Panel of Experts’ repeated findings of international humanitarian law violations is all the more striking given that the transfer of arms to the Saudi-led coalition appears to not only violate the AECA and FAA but also run counter to Presidential Policy Directive 27 on conventional arms transfers. That Directive was put in place in 2014 precisely to ensure that arms transfer decisions would meet the requirements of the AECA, FAA, and other applicable laws and regulations.  It states that one goal of US conventional arms transfer policy is “[e]nsuring that arms transfers do not contribute to human rights violations or violations of international humanitarian law.”
The Conventional Arms Transfer Policy requires, moreover, that proposed arms transfers take into account criteria including, “[t]he human rights, democratization, counterterrorism, counter-proliferation, and nonproliferation record of the recipient, and the potential for misuse of the export in question,” as well as “[t]he likelihood that the recipient would use the arms to commit human rights abuses or serious violations of international humanitarian law, retransfer the arms to those who would commit human rights abuses or serious violations of international humanitarian law, or identify the United States with human rights abuses or serious violations of international humanitarian law.”
The continued transfer by the United States of billions of dollars of weapons to Saudi Arabia for use in its military operations in Yemen – operations found by the UN Panel of Experts that have repeatedly violated international humanitarian law – appears to be directly related to this policy, as well as AECA and FAA