B&A Law wins case for NPSA against Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs

On Tuesday 30 May 2017,  B&A Law successfully represented the NPSA, the Dutch representative of the International Practical Shooting Confederation, in a very interesting court case against the Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs. Eight members of the NPSA were invited to join the IPSC World Championships taking place from 4 through 11 June in Kubinka, Russia. Practical shooting is a dynamic form of shooting sport, requiring the sporters to finish a track whilst shooting different types of targets. In April 2017, the Dutch Ministry indicated that the participation in the World Championships would not fall within the scope of the EU arms embargo against Russia. However, after having deliberated in a European context, the Ministry five weeks later decided that the temporary export of the arms does fall within the scope of the EU arms embargo and denied the required export licenses pursuant to criterion 1 of the Council Common Position on military exports.

NPSA requested B&A Law’s assistance in this matter and started summary proceedings against the Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs. From a legal perspective, the case concerned, among many other things, the following. The EU Council Decision 2014/512/GBVB imposes an obligation on all EU member states to install an arms embargo prohibiting “arms exports” to Russia. That Council Decision, however, only binds the EU member states and does not bind the EU citizens. The Dutch implementation of that Council Decision (Sanctieregeling territoriale integriteit Oekraïne 2014) on the other hand is directly binding, but includes only an arms embargo prohibiting all exports to persons or entities in Russia. B&A Law argued that the binding Dutch implementation must be guiding here – and not the EU Council Decision – and that even if the Council Decision were binding, it is steady EU case law that EU sanctions legislation must be interpreted within the context of the language as well as the intentions behind the legislation. It clearly was never the intention behind the arms embargo to prohibit the participation of European countries in sports championships, let alone World Championships. This was also shown by the fact that several other European countries decided to grant licenses for the participation of their teams.

Briefly put, the Court ruled that, given the fact that the EU Council Decision does not have any direct binding force and given that the Dutch legislator has provided for a binding implementation thereof, the Dutch implementation should be applied, which, according to the Court, does not prohibit the requested temporary export. The export licenses have therefore been granted.

We are of course very happy with the result and wish all Dutch participants of the IPSC all the best in their efforts to represent our country in the World Championships. From a legal perspective, the case has been very interesting and it shows that it can be rewarding to appeal authorities’ decisions.

Should you be interested in informal discussions with us or should you have any sanctions or export controls-related questions, please do not hesitate to contact us at info@balaw.nl or +31 (0)20 260 0082.

 

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