Effect of the proposed War Materiel Act revision

Under the new Article 22b, the Federal Council could depart from all the licensing criteria in Article 22a under vaguely defined ‘exceptional circumstances’. The public would not have to be informed. The Federal Council could add Saudi Arabia to Annex 2 by amending the War Materiel Ordinance. This would remove the exclusion criterion based on participation in an armed conflict and make approval the rule. The Federal Council could refuse a licence only in exceptional cases. Article 18 paragraph 1 would abolish non-re-export declarations in the vast majority of cases. Weapons for Saudi Arabia could thus easily be supplied through a subsidiary or intermediary in a third country. The United States could serve as a third country, having, according to SIPRI, supplied substantial quantities of war materiel to Saudi Arabia in recent years (24’295 million TIV).