From Export to Impact: How UK Defence Contracts Contribute to Civilian Harm and Human Rights Violations in Modern Conflicts: The Case of Children, Families, and War Victims

Abstract: The United Kingdom is one of the major exporters of military equipment. It has a significant position at the cross-section of defence industry revenues, national security and human rights responsibilities. The current research paper is based on a systematic literature review. It examines how UK defence contracts and exports of defence equipment have contributed to human suffering in recent wars, with a specific focus on children and conflict sufferers. It is found that UK defence licensing and weapon export play a role, whether direct or indirect, in grave human rights violations in recent conflicts. The innocent children and families suffered massively by means of casualties, injuries, relocation, demolition of houses, cessation of education, and long-term trauma. In spite of having formal restrictions, the export control framework of the UK still shows serious issues and discrepancies, such as poor threat evaluation of predictable human sufferings, inadequate post-delivery oversight, confined transparency in open licensing and no accountability for human sufferings. To overcome these shortcomings, serious and comprehensive reforms are required. The proposed reforms include that export licensing must clearly add child rights and safety of civilians, the defence industry members need to carry out essential human rights due diligence, transparency of open licensing should be ensured, end usage oversight needs to be proactive, and procedures of redress for victims of conflicts should be improved. The focus of future research must be on granular tracking of UK-supplied weapons to particular incidents of innocent people killing, comparative analysis of different main export countries and investigating the legal framework for redressal of victims.