The German Federal Constitutional Court ruled Tuesday that Germany is not violating international law by allowing the U.S. to partly operate drones from its territory.
In response to a complaint from two Yemeni nationals, judges said that Germany did not bear responsibility for American military action routed through satellite infrastructure based at the Ramstein Air Base, in Rhineland-Palatinate, southwestern Germany.
Two Yemenis were unintentionally killed in August 2012 by an American drone strike that targeted an al-Qaeda terrorist. One of the victims, a Yemeni cleric, was the uncle of the two plaintiffs.
The complainants, supported by Berlin-based nongovernmental organization the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, argued the German government shared responsibility for the attack by hosting infrastructure for the U.S. military and called on Germany to prevent American drone attacks.
They also insisted that Germany violated Article 2 of its constitution, which guarantees the inviolable right to life and physical integrity. According to the victims’ lawyers, this constitutional duty of protection also applied to individuals abroad.
The court stated that Germany bears the “protective obligation to safeguard fundamental human rights and the essence of the international humanitarian law,” which also applies to foreign nationals of its territory. But in this particular lawsuit the requirements for a specific protective obligation were not fulfilled, the court said.
The trial marked another chapter in a long-running debate about whether Germany is responsible for U.S. military action run from Ramstein.
In 2010, Berlin didn’t object after the U.S. military informed the German government of its plans to install a satellite relay station on air base grounds in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate.
Even though attack drones are controlled from inside the United States, the command signals are routed through the satellite infrastructure based in Germany.
