Introduction
The uncontrolled international trade in conventional arms has long raised concerns about its devastating humanitarian and security consequences (Brehm, 2007). Scholars and practitioners stress that the arms trade directly undermines the enjoyment of human rights, and therefore constitutes an issue of grave concern (Hinds, 1997). In response, states have attempted to regulate transfers through resolutions, treaties, declarations, and codes of conduct (Brehm, 2008). Under international instruments like the 2013 Arms Trade Treaty and the 1949 Geneva Conventions, states may be held legally responsible for supplying arms to parties committing serious violations of international law.
In 2023 alone, European Union (EU) member states issued more than 33,700 licences valued at more than 298 billion euros, maintaining the Union’s position as the second largest global arms supplier after the United States (U.S.) (European External Action Service [EEAS], 2024). The European Parliament repeatedly emphasised that arms export must be carefully controlled, both as an integral element of the EU’s foreign and security policy and as a test of its credibility as a global human rights advocate (European Parliament, 2015). Yet EU member states continue to supply arms to conflict zones, contributing to widespread civilian suffering and serious human rights violations (Arms Trade Watch, n.d).
Despite EU-wide and international regulations, weapons continue to flow into conflicts, exacting an unbearable toll on civilian populations. This reality raises urgent questions about the responsibility and accountability of exporting states. Arms cannot be treated as neutral commodities, when their purpose is to cause destruction and coercion, and their circulation perpetuates armed conflicts, facilitating breaches of international humanitarian law, and even produces long-term ecological harms (International Committee of the Red Cross [ICRC], 2023; Amnesty International, 2025a).
This article examines the responsibility and accountability borne by EU states under international and regional law for arms transfers that contribute to grave breaches of human rights. After outlining the relevant legal framework, it analyses case studies on Yemen and Gaza to illustrate the EU’s failure to uphold its international obligations. Finally, the article considers the ethical and postcolonial dimension of European arms exports, situating them within broader patterns of global inequality and structural violence.
Legal Framework
The arms trade in the EU is regulated through a range of EU instruments, international treaties, and customary international law. These frameworks aim to prevent member states from contributing to human rights violations, war crimes and even acts of genocide (United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner [OHCHR], 2024). However, this section will show how, despite the existence of binding rules, the EU arms trade continues to exacerbate humanitarian crises.
At the regional level, the key instrument is the EU Common Position 2008/944/CFSP, the EU’s legally binding framework that establishes common rules governing the export of military technology and equipment. It sought to harmonise Member States’ arms control policies, and introduced minimum standards for assessing export licence applications (Immenkamp, 2018). Article 2 of the Common Position deems it necessary for the EU Member States to deny licences where there is a risk that exported arms may be used for internal repression, to prolong the armed conflict, or by governments and groups already identified by the United Nations (UN), EU or the Council of Europe as committing serious human rights abuses. However, the instrument has no sanctions for violation or enforcement mechanisms (Immenkamp, 2018). In practice, states continue to authorise exports to governments implicated in mass atrocities or war crimes, which raises questions over whether this framework is effective.
At the international level, the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) was the first instrument that attempted to establish universal standards for the global arms trade. It was initiated by the UN General Assembly in 2006 and entered into force in 2014, and now has over 100 state parties (European Union, n.d.). The ATT obligates the exporting states to assess whether weapons could be used to commit or facilitate violations of international law. As the ICRC (2023) stresses, the effectiveness and success of ATT depend on whether states apply it in good faith rather than subordinating it to political and economic interests.
These obligations are reinforced by Common Article 1 of the Geneva Conventions, which predates the ATT, and requires states to respect, and to ensure that other state parties respect, international humanitarian law. This has been interpreted by many as prohibiting arms transfers, given the substantial risk that these weapons could be used to commit International Humanitarian Law (IHL) violations (ICRC, 2016).
Nevertheless, the compliance of the instruments remains weak. Scholars note that arms exports remain relatively understudied in international law, hindering the development of legal instruments that effectively hold EU states accountable for worsening humanitarian crises for economic and political gain (Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law, n.d.). The persistence of EU arms transfers to conflict zones clearly suggests that while international and regional obligations exist, they are usually undermined by economic and political considerations.
Case Study: Yemen
It has been nearly a decade since the Saudi Arabia-led military coalition, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), launched the aerial campaign ‘Decisive Storm’ in Yemen. While airstrikes might have stopped, their devastating consequences are still endured by the Yemenis (Amnesty International, 2016). Nearly 300,000 lives have been lost, and over 21 million people remain affected by the humanitarian crisis resulting from airstrikes and the coalition’s naval blockade (Amnesty International, 2024). The blockade, in particular by the Saudi government, caused the gravest humanitarian crisis in the world, leading to a shortage of food, medicine, and fuel (Arms Trade Watch, n.d).
The weapons used by the Saudi-led coalition were primarily imported from EU states (Arms Trade Watch, n.d). In 2016, the EU Parliament passed a resolution calling for an embargo on arms sales to Saudi Arabia. Although non-binding in nature, the resolution highlighted the need for member states to halt exports (Rankin, 2016). Again in 2017 and 2018, the call was repeated, by the Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) as famine threatened millions, and the aid entering Yemen was obstructed by the coalition (European Parliament, 2017; 2018). In 2018, again, the Parliament explicitly stated that the arms exported to the UAE and Saudi Arabia were in clear breach of the Common Position (2008/944/CFSP). In other words, the EU’s own legislature confirmed that member states were violating EU law.
International non-governmental organisations (NGOs), like Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and other international and Yemeni groups, also issued a joint statement calling for an immediate halt to arms sales. Amnesty International (2016) criticised the European Union’s involvement in fuelling destruction, while Human Rights Watch (2016) cited the UN’s finding that coalition forces used European-supplied weapons to deliberately target civilians. This removes any possible claim of ignorance by the EU exporters.
There is said to be extensive evidence that war crimes were being committed in Yemen. For instance, RWM Italia, a subsidiary of German arms manufacturer Rheinmetall AG, continued arms sales to the Saudi-led coalition despite claims of war crimes (European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights [ECCHR], n.d.). In fact, the EU states were already selling arms to Yemen’s government before 2015, when these weapons were used for internal repression (Human Rights Watch, 2011). The continuity of weapons supply highlights the systemic prioritisation of profit and geopolitical alliance over legal or ethical obligations.
Despite multiple resolutions and binding regulations in place, EU states have actively contributed to Yemen’s humanitarian catastrophe. This raises the question whether EU states can be held liable for complicity in war crimes in Yemen, given the abundance of evidence linking their export to civilian harm. The Yemen case study exposes the EU’s self-proclaimed title of human rights defender, when its foreign policy chooses economic and strategic interests over humanitarian considerations.
Case Study: Gaza
Since October 2023, the humanitarian crisis in Gaza has become one of the deadliest in recent decades. Over 61,000 people have died, and 151,000 have been injured in Gaza since Israel launched military operations claiming to eliminate Hamas and cut all passages sending aid into Gaza, 2.1 million people now face extreme hunger, and famine has been officially declared (British Red Cross, 2025). Beyond civilian casualties, Israel has systematically destroyed critical infrastructure, including refugee camps, hospitals, and schools, making daily life in Gaza nearly impossible (United Nations, 2025).
Israel’s action has received widespread condemnation from civil society organisations, and the international community. Some countries have even cut diplomatic ties with Israel for its indiscriminate targeting of civilians and infrastructure. The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Former Minister of Defense, Yoav Gallant (ICC, 2024). In addition, South Africa brought a case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), alleging acts of genocide and violations of the Genocide Convention. While the ICJ did not order a ceasefire request by South Africa, it acknowledged the possibility of genocidal actions by Israel (European University Institute, 2024).
Despite substantial proof of genocide allegations, EU states have significantly contributed to the worsening of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza by supplying arms and military equipment to Israel (Human Rights Watch, 2024). Germany, for instance, is the second largest exporter of weapons to Israel after the U.S., it sent almost 326.5 million euros worth of military equipment to Israel in 2023, which was ten times more than in 2022 (Human Rights Watch, 2024; Amnesty International, 2025b). Although Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz has recently declared a halt to the weapons export to Israel intended to be used for Gaza (Deutsche Welle, 2025), EU involvement has already materially impacted the conflict invisibly.
Furthermore, Nicaragua brought a case against Israel, specifically challenging Germany’s role in facilitating violations through arms transfer and aid cuts to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and by supplying weapons to Israel that it is using to target civilians in Gaza (ICJ, 2024). This case highlights that the EU’s responsibility is not theoretical, but can be challenged in the international legal sphere.
NGOs such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have repeatedly warned EU states about the risk of complicity in war crimes, yet arms exports continue, revealing that economic and strategic interests will trump ethical and legal obligations. The Gaza case illustrates the systematic failure of EU legal frameworks, including the EU Common Position (2008/944/CFSP), the Arms Trade Treaty, and the Geneva Conventions. The ICJ’s provisional measures in the South Africa v. Israel case and the pending Nicaragua v. Israel case further highlight the double standard of EU states, balancing a self-proclaimed human rights defender title and economic gains from arms trade.
Ethical and Postcolonial Dimension of Arms Trade
Weapons bring so much destruction and violence, so they cannot be neutral commodities. When such items are made for killing and coercion, their becoming normal trade goods takes away their direct link to human suffering (ICRC, 2023). International law recognises this risk, under ATT and EU Common Position, states must diligently research the state to which they are exporting the arms to and then must deny exports where human rights violations occur, or risk of genocide is present. As discussed earlier, the EU Member States are in direct violation of their own policies when they continue to trade weapons with countries like Saudi Arabia and Israel. Yet in reality, these legal standards are not enforced. The ICRC (2023) notes that the success of the ATT depends on states political will and good faith, both of which lack when arms keep flowing into states where human rights abuses occur. EU arms trade enables necropolitical regimes, where populations are subjected to conditions of life like bombardment, occupation and famines, where the status of living dead can be conferred upon them (Mbembe, 2020). This shows how legal frameworks that speak of compliance and risk assessments are fictional, but Mbembe’s notion of necropolitics is a lived reality. EU arms sustain ‘death worlds’ where entire Palestinian and Yemeni populations are reduced to the status of the living dead.
Many Western scholars have suggested that foreign policy has shifted from a realist logic of pure interest to one guided by normative and ethical principles (Gelb and Rosenthal, 2003; Bulley, 2010). Some even claim that, since the end of the Cold War, policymaking has become infused with moral considerations that go beyond the pursuit of mere interest (Chandler and Heins, 2006). But evidently, the arms trade policies of many EU states demonstrate the opposite, by continuing to prioritise economic and strategic interests over ethical commitments. The export of arms to Gaza and Yemen not only contradicts Europe’s self-proclaimed role as a human rights defender, but also produces humanitarian consequences in the Global South. This is a continuation of the colonial legacy, whereas European powers once exercised control over direct domination, but presently benefit from crises and violence that their arms help perpetuate. Additionally, the European governments instrumentalise the gender equality rhetoric against non-European states, yet their own arms trade exacerbates gender-based discrimination in places like Gaza and Yemen (ECCHR, n.d.). This is a reflection of a colonial hierarchy, where non-European women’s suffering can only be acknowledged when it is politically convenient for European governments.
Conclusion
Despite clear obligations set for the EU under legal frameworks like the EU Common Position, ATT, and the Geneva Conventions, EU arms exports continue to violate the obligations. There is substantial proof of the EU’s arms export contributing to civilian deaths, infrastructure destruction, and humanitarian crisis in Yemen and Gaza. One of the issues of legal frameworks is that they lack enforcement mechanisms, so when economic and political interests trump legal obligations, states cannot be held liable. EU states have been ethically failing, as their self-proclaimed title of being human rights defenders does not align with their actions in the arms trade. The arms trade has perpetuated structural inequality and necropolitics in Yemen and Gaza, maintaining a hierarchy where non-European populations’ lives are devalued. In order to prevent harm through arms trade, there needs to be better legal enforcement mechanisms both internationally and regionally in the EU, alongside genuine ethical responsibility, and acknowledgement of historical and structural inequalities.
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