Humanitarian Law (Yemen) Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
Tom Brake
Main Page: Tom Brake (Liberal Democrat - Carshalton and Wallington)Department Debates - View all Tom Brake's debates with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
(7 years, 8 months ago)
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Mr Ellwood
My hon. Friend touches on quite a deep issue that reflects his knowledge and expertise in this area, to which I pay tribute. I spent some of the summer reading the works of Gertrude Bell, which I know he has studied. She illustrates, and learned over a long period, the complexity that we are dealing with in today’s Saudi Arabia. We have to understand and recognise that it is a conservative society which is being obliged and encouraged to move at a far faster pace than many other countries in the world, not least in the legitimacy of running a complex and sustained campaign of war.
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
The key test for the UK Government’s continued arms exports to Saudi Arabia in relation to international humanitarian law is whether there is a clear risk that those weapons might be used in the commission of a serious violation of that law. If the Government do not consider the repeated bombing of hospitals, schools and markets, and the designation of whole cities such as Ma’aran as war zones, a serious violation of humanitarian law, what does fall into that category?
Mr Ellwood
The right hon. Gentleman raises a number of events that have taken place and are being looked into by Saudi Arabia, but there is also a comparison with what happened with the United States, when a hospital was also attacked. The question is whether any nation puts its hand up and says that a mistake has been made or whether it tries to cover things up and say that they did not happen, which would be a breach of international humanitarian law.