Three Yemenis have won a partial victory in a lawsuit against the federal government. In the future, the federal government must actively examine whether US drone missions in Yemen, using the American military base in Ramstein, Palatine, violate international law. This was decided by the Higher Administrative Court (OVG) Münster.
The men claimed to have lost loved ones in their homelands, saying they feared for their own lives in the face of ongoing drone strikes. The partial success is remarkable. Ramstein's role in the US drone fight has been controversial for years. (Here you can read more about it.)
Although the plaintiffs failed with their demand that the Federal Government should prohibit the US from using Ramstein for US drone missions. But the OVG reprimanded the federal government in the appeal hearing on Tuesday clearly for their previous attitude. It is not enough to repeatedly say that they trust the American assurance that the activities in Ramstein were in accordance with the law.
DPA
The drone Predator MQ-1 at a base in California
"Insufficient fact-finding"
The presiding judge Wolf Sarnighausen said Germany does not participate in military drone activities and did not allow them. The previous assumption of the Federal Government, for US legal violations there is no evidence, but is based on an "insufficient fact finding". That was not legally viable.
The case has a "special international significance," said the presiding judge. He made no secret that the Senate has legal doubts about the controversial US drone strikes. The attacks with armed drones, which are directed against Yemeni offshoots of the Islamist terrorist network Al-Kaida and the terrorist militia "Islamic state" (IS), are "not generally inadmissible".
However, there are "significant" facts known to the Federal Republic, or at any rate obvious fact, that the United States, using technical equipment at Ramstein Air Force Base and its own staff, conducts armed drone missions in the plaintiff's home region that at least partially violate international law ". It remains unclear whether direct armed attacks in Yemen "are limited to admissible military objectives".
"Groundbreaking verdict"
Time and again, human rights organizations and observers are complaining about numerous civilian casualties - including children - in US attacks with unmanned aerial vehicles. In the plaintiff's region, the court has also regularly been receiving civilian casualties for years. There are indications that the plaintiffs are "unlawfully endangered in their right to life". In view of this risk, the Federal Government has a high duty of protection.
The judgment - to which neither the plaintiffs or their lawyers nor representatives of the defendant ministry had appeared - gives the Federal Government a certain amount of leeway. It had to "work to ensure compliance with international law by taking an appropriate action" if it were to establish that it had violated US law. The Ministry of Defense did not initially receive any comments. The decision from Münster is not yet final, the OVG has allowed because of the great importance of the politically explosive case, a revision in the Federal Administrative Court.
AFP
A drone in northern Iraq (2017)
Nevertheless, the human rights organization ECCHR spoke of a "groundbreaking verdict". Germany must now work to ensure that the US complied with international law when using Ramstein. The Federal Government will have to face up to their responsibility, said spokesman Andreas Schüller.
The complaint of a Somali against the Federal Republic after a US drone attack in his homeland in 2012 rejected the OVG against. Here no dereliction of duty of the Federal Republic can be determined. The Senate was also unconvinced that the plaintiff's father had actually been killed by a US drone.