The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has not yet endorsed the Political Declaration on the use of explosive weapons in populated areas. It did not individually participate in the negotiations towards a Political Declaration but, as a member of the Arab Group, participated in the round of consultations that took place in 2021. There, the Arab Group highlighted the following said that the aim of the Declaration should be to strengthen protection of civilians through enhancing existing International Humanitarian Law (IHL), not by establishing new rules, concepts, or mechanisms. The Group expressed concern that the Declaration would stigmatise explosive weapons use, noting that it is their use in contradiction to the rules of IHL rather than the weapons themselves that makes some attacks unlawful. The Arab Group said any reference to non-state armed groups should be confined to IHL, without prejudice of self-determination and resistance to foreign occupation and aggression, and argued that the Political Declaration draft overlooked the use of human shields by such groups. The Arab Group also urged clarity over terms such as “populated areas”, “reverberating effects”, and “critical civilian infrastructure” which it argued were undefined and open to interpretation.1
Statements and positions
As a member of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, the UAE aligned with the World Humanitarian Summit Core Commitments to ‘Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity’ in May 2016, including the commitment “to promote and enhance the protection of civilians and civilian objects, especially in the conduct of hostilities, for instance by working to prevent civilian harm resulting from the use of wide-area explosive weapons in populated areas, and by sparing civilian infrastructure from military use in the conduct of military operations.”2