Canadian Arms and Yemen

 Through Court proceedings, the claimants were granted access to a Memorandum of Information that provided some clarity on the reasoning for the government’s licencing decisions.

The claimant has been able to bring a case against the government based on domestic law, however has been denied standing to raise the argument of a violation of Common Article 1 of the Geneva Conventions before Canadian administrative courts.

The merits of licensing decisions have not been scrutinised in detail by the courts in any of the challenges to date. The court has instead focused on whether the government properly exercised discretion and took all relevant factors required by law into consideration.

Canada became a State Party to the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) in 2019, at which point it updated national legislation to directly incorporate the ATT assessment criteria into national law, and bring itself in line with its ATT obligations. However, at the time of proceedings, Canada was not a state party to the ATT. 

The misuse of Canadian-manufactured equipment has been considered by the Courts as justiciable and could give rise to a form of remedy. The misuse of similar non-Canadian manufactured equipment is treated as non-justiciable.