ASER statement in the Barcelona conference June 30, 2026
Hola, i gràcies per la vostra invitació.
First of all, I would like to reiterate that our NGO’s mandate is to prevent the transfer of military and police equipment that could be used to commit or facilitate serious human rights violations. The term “Human Rights” encompasses all conventions relating to these rights, including the nine Core International Human Rights Instruments such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women… https://www.ohchr.org/fr/core-international-human-rights-instruments-and-their-monitoring-bodies
And that all the Human Rights are indivisible.
This coming November will mark 25 years since we decided, in Nairobi, to launch an international campaign to secure an arms trade treaty aimed at preventing serious human rights violations. In 90% of cases of the circumstances surrounding these violations showed that in more than, at least one weapon or the threat of the use of a weapon was involved. But once the process was underway at the United Nations, a few of us knew that the hardest part of our task would be his application.
In 2008, we pressed the French government—which held the EU presidency at the time—to transform the EU Code of Conduct into a common position, not to use it in the future and further reinforce this « Eurocentrisme » tropism, but to prevent EU representatives at the United Nations from making statements that would weaken the demands of NGOs; I will come back to this later.
But after the ATT came into force in December 2014, all the international NGOs withdrew. They didn’t withdraw entirely — they continued to communicate — but they stopped investigating transfers of military and/or law enforcement equipment, an essential part of the work we called « naming and shaming ». At the same time, mobilizing public opinion virtually disappeared from their agendas, making our advocacy work just as valuable as Don Quijote fight against the windmills.
This brief overview is intended to explain why we decided with ASER to pursue legal action IN 2018 about the implication of French arms in Yemen war. It was the first time in the French history. The disappearance of the fundamental work of mobilization and research has pushed us in this direction, drawing, on the one hand, on the ATT preamble : « that NGO can play in raising awareness of the object and purpose of this Treaty, and in supporting its implementation »
This preamble granted us the right to bring a case before a French administrative court, a right that is further reinforced—in our view—by Article 55 of the French Constitution, which states:
« Treaties or agreements that have been duly ratified or approved have, upon their publication, a higher authority than that of laws, subject, for each agreement or treaty, to its implementation by the other party. »
From that point on, our strategy consisted of four parts:
- Firstly: to keep alive the most powerful treaty for arms regulation, the ATT,
- Secondly: to bring together as many NGOs as possible; so that we could appear in court with a slightly more favorable balance of power than we could have achieved on our own;
- Thirdly: because there was already a movement, within the judiciary itself, about reducing the scope of an “acte de gouvernement”, We wanted also to encourage the judges to reflect about issues on arms transfers they knew little or nothing about,
- Fourthly : The lack of a legal remedy against the Prime Minister’s decisions regarding arms export licenses violates Article 15 of the Declaration des droits de l’Homme et du citoyen ; at last Paragraph 14 of the preamble to the 1946 Constitution provides that: “The French Republic, faithful to its traditions, abides by the rules of public international law
But we all know that national and international justice are about balance of power
Why the art 6 paragraph 2 & 3 ?
The UN Charter:
The requirement in Article 55 of the UN Charter that all Member States “shall promote…universal respect for, and observance of, human rights and fundamental freedoms for all” is reinforced by Article 56 of the Charter whereby Member States “pledge themselves to take joint and separate action in co-operation with the Organization for the achievement of the purposes set forth in Article 55.” When Member States negotiated the Arms Trade Treaty in 2012 and 2013 they agreed a set of Principles set out in the Preamble of the Treaty :
The Geneva Conventions of 1949 :
So, the obligations under the UN Charter are highly relevant to Article 6(2).
The same obligations applies to Article 1, which is common to the 1949 Geneva Conventions:
“Respecting and ensuring respect for international humanitarian law in accordance with, inter alia, the Geneva Conventions of 1949.”
The provision in Article 6 requires that all States parties must refuse to permit a potential transfer of all arms from within its jurisdiction, if the transfer « would violate» an international obligation of a relevant international agreement to which the transferring State is a party. The term « would violate » rather than « will violate » implies that the State must also consider existing treaty prohibitions of the direct consequences of authorizing the various forms of transfer (export, import, transit, transshipment and brokering) as defined by Article 2(2) of the ATT.
In 2019, we facilitated and produced a report explaining why Article 6—and not Article 7—of the ATT applied in the Yemen case: « Opinion of the International Legality of Arms Transfers to Saudi Arabia (10 December 2019) ».
Lessons learned :
First The decision to take the matter to court allowed us to establish a precedent in the history of the Fifth Republic, in which the judges rejected the government’s argument: « acte de gouvernement », obtained by our attorney Matteo Bonaglia, who is now one of the leading experts on the legality of arms transfers.
Second : in 2019, we obtained a ruling from a judge presiding over summary proceedings that establishes a link between « French arms transfers and the suffering of the Yemeni people », which is a restatement of Article 1 of the ATT.
Third : We must train NGOs on issues of international law as well as on tracking transfers of equipment for military and law enforcement use.
The government’s response:
We were blacklisted from all meetings at the Presidency and the relevant ministries, and we lacked solidarity
We were summoned by French intelligence agencies because we had used a classified document that had, in fact, been widely circulated by the NGO Disclose
In 2023, when we sought the suspension of a French firearms license for Israel – on the grounds that the Palestinian people were subjected to a system of apartheid, which constitutes a crime against humanity in the ICC – we temporarily failed.
But we failed, in particular, because other NGOs, which were not very familiar with the issue, took legal action without notifying us, which paved the way for the French government
In fact, the Council of State may have left some room for a request to suspend a license, but not for a few requests that, when taken together, amounted to a request for a blanket suspension.
We are still waiting for a date for our hearing before the Court of Appeals.
Positive feedback:
The courts no longer dispute our right to bring a lawsuit;
The ban on all Israeli defense companies from Eurosatory 2024 and on certain Israeli defense companies from Eurosatory 2026;
In 2025, the Commission Nationale consultative des DH, which reports to the Prime Minister, released a report addressing some of our grievances, primarily:
- The jurisdictional immunity enjoyed by these acts of government should be set aside when a fundamental right of constitutional or treaty origin is at stake.
- The inclusion in the regulatory section of the Defense Code of provisions equivalent to Articles 6 and 7 of the TCA
- Allow the courts to lift the defense secrecy classification when serious human rights violations are involved
We received some support from members of Parliament, but we needed more;
A presentation by ASER at a symposium held at the National Assembly, at the invitation of Representative Elsa Faucillon;
Finally, the clear need for a major awareness-raising campaign—in support of those already being carried out by NGOs on the ground—to compel the courts in arms-producing countries to enforce the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT);
Finally, we have two questions:
1 – Why didn’t the NGOs, which spent hundreds of thousands of euros to secure the TCA, didn’t use it in the legal action in the United Kingdom ?
In the annual conferences of states parti Germany UK France continually repeat the did a strong risk assessment, in case of crime against humanity this is not a risk assessment, this is a prohibition.
2 – So, where did the NGOs see the mention of an « overriding risk” in the text of Article 6§ 2&3 of the ATT ? Do the states have to do an « overriding risk » assessment in case of crimes of Humanity and Genocide ?