Second Administrative Challenge at the Council of State against the Walloon Government

The second administrative challenge also concerned several licences issued by the Walloon Government for arms transfers to Saudi Arabia and invoked the risk that they could be used in the commission of serious violations of international law in Yemen.

The claimant’s learnt of the existence of a series of licensing decisions to Saudi Arabia through a minister’s response to questions in parliament, however, were unaware of the specific details of the licences when they brought the claim. The claim was therefore framed very broadly: it sought to suspend or annul one or more decisions taken on an unknown date to issue licences with a view to the export of arms to Saudi Arabia.

It has since become known through proceedings that these contested licences were issued in December 2019 and concerned the export of small arms and ammunition by Belgian arms manufacturers FN Herstal and Mecar to Saudi Arabia, and the export of turrets by CMI Defence to Canada, where they would be mounted on armoured vehicles with Saudi Arabia as their final destination.

In contrast to the first challenge, the claimants were successful in filing this claim under the ‘extreme urgency’ procedure and the court suspended all contested licences.