- Tweeter
republish
Amnesty International has tried to find out more about the ethical practices of major arms dealers. The NGO regrets in a new report the lack of efforts of these companies to prevent their production contributes to human rights violations.
" Every year, companies supply large volumes of military equipment to the world's most violent and volatile regions. This equipment is often used illegally in conflicts marked by serious violations of human rights and humanitarian law . "
This is how the NGO Amnesty International attacks its latest study on the arms trade , saying that sellers are legally bound by UN and OECD agreements to monitor the use of these arsenals. .
The association, at the forefront of advocacy against arms sales, decided this time to go directly to companies. The NGO contacted 22 global European, American, Russian, Chinese, Israeli and Brazilian giants to understand what policies they were implementing to prevent their products from contributing to human rights violations.
The ethics of arms sellers
For these companies, communication is a sensitive subject. Of the 22 companies solicited, only seven accepted to answer: Airbus, BAE Systems, Leonardo, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Rolls-Royce, Saab and Thales. All of these companies supplied weapons used in the war in Yemen. On 3 September, a group of UN experts published a report in which he believed that the legality of these deliveries was "questionable".
Most of these companies, however, have various forms of codes of conduct or ethical commitments. They assured Amnesty: they are making efforts. " Airbus will always conduct business ethically, " " Leonardo supports human rights, " " Lockheed Martin is constantly striving to improve standards and controls for ethical business conduct, " or " Raytheon has a strong commitment to a great respect for human rights. "
On the side of Amnesty, however, the record is categorical: " No company has put in place serious policies or specific procedures when, for example, their trade involves parties to a conflict or governments facing political upheaval . No company has been able to cite concrete cases in which measures have been taken or deliveries and services suspended. The letters from the communicants, published as an appendix to the report, are, to say the least, laconic and unsupported.
This question, we asked the ethics manager of a large French group: can he give a concrete example of application of these commitments? While searching, he proposes this anecdote, already old: " NGOs went to see our bankers by saying : do you know that you finance cluster bombs ? The bankers came to see our financial department to say that they could not work with us anymore. We decided to stop making these weapons. Morally, it asked a question: are we assuming that such a bomb could reach years after a farmer who passes by ? So it took the bank to get involved so that the company asks questions.
It's the state's fault
In order to export arms, manufacturers must systematically obtain authorization from the States on which they depend. And it is on the latter that they hold the responsibility, of which they refuse to assume their share. In 2016, Roger Carr, president of BAE Systems stated, for example: " We will stop selling when the British government tells us to stop. "
Even a speech to the French ethics specialist we interviewed: " It's not up to companies to go to war and peace, education and poverty, slice this fiftieth anniversary suit and tie. It's up to the states to take care of that. The position is simple : close it. If the state has decided to sell, we will not say no. The company sells where it is told to do it . "
The closeness between these companies and the state is still significant, as Amnesty notes: " Although they are separate entities, the major arms manufacturers maintain very strong relations with the states in which they have their headquarters who are usually their main customers. In France, for example, the leaders of the biggest industries were heard by the elected officials in the same way as the chiefs of staff during the parliamentary debates on the law of military programming, which fixes the budgets of the defense.
Amnesty offers the arms industry a rather original source of inspiration: that of the pharmaceutical industry. While China, Thailand, the United States and Vietnam continue to use drugs to execute death row inmates, many giants in this sector have become accustomed to publicizing their position by publicly denouncing these practices and refusing the sale in case of doubt. We are still waiting to see Nexter, Airbus or Raytheon publicly worry about the use of their weapons in Yemen.
► Amnesty International's investigation: Armament companies, still lagging behind their obligations