First Administrative Challenge against the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister of Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation

Violation of the EU Common Position

The substantive arguments put forth by the claimants to object to the licensing decision focused on the Egyptian Navy’s direct involvement in alleged IHL and IHRL violations in Yemen, including its involvement in the naval blockade and attacks against refugee boats.

In light of this, the claimants argued that the Minister’s initial conclusion that ‘there are no indications that the goods to be exported are related to the observed human rights violations or internal repression’ was in contravention of the terms of the EU Common Position.

Standing

The claimants submitted that they are entitled to bring this case before the District Court of Noord Holland as interested parties under domestic law. General Administrative Law Act, Article 1.2(3)

It was submitted that this criterion allows for legal entities whose interests are of a general and collective nature to challenge a government decision.

Decision of the District Court

The District Court did not accept the claimant’s submission that they could bring a case on the grounds of their ‘general and collective interest’ in the licence and dismissed the claim as inadmissible due to a lack of standing.

The court held that EU law, the Union Customs Code Regulation, was applicable to the case, instead of Dutch law on this matter, namely the General Administrative Law Act.

Unlike under domestic law, in the Union Customs Code Regulation only parties who can show they are ‘directly and individually’ affected by an administrative decision can bring a case before the court, and it was concluded that the claimants did not meet this criterion.

Decision on Appeal 

On appeal before the Court of Appeal, the claimants maintained their argument that they did meet the requisite criteria to have legal standing under both domestic (General Administrative Law Act) and EU law (Union Customs Code Regulation).

As the contested licence had already expired by the time the appeal was heard in court, the claim was immediately dismissed as moot and the court did not rule on the issue of standing.

This meant that the claimants had to initiate a new challenge in order to discuss this matter in court.