IT was great to hear that the Court of Appeal has ruled that UK's continued arms sales to Saudi Arabia for use in Yemen's brutal war are unlawful.
The Campaign Against the Arms Trade argued that UK fighter jets and bombs are being used to kill civilians and violate international law. The Court of Appeal concluded that it was “irrational and therefore unlawful” for the international trade secretary to have licensed weapons exports without assessing whether past incidents broke international law and if there was a “clear risk” of future breaches.
Judges found that although the UK had "engaged closely" with Riyadh in attempt to minimise civilian casualties in Yemen, that fell short of the legal obligation to assess the risk of war crimes.
No matter what atrocities it has inflicted, the Saudi regime has been able to count on the uncritical political and military support of the UK.
The bombing has created the worst humanitarian crisis in the world and thousands of people have been killed in Saudi-led bombing. Many more have died as a result of an ongoing humanitarian catastrophe including a cholera outbreak and starvation.
UK arms companies have profited every step of the way and must immediately follow the lead of the likes of Germany, the Netherlands and Finland in immediately ceasing arms sales to Saudi Arabia.
The man who was the Foreign Secretary in the period considered by the judgement, who signed off the export licences and should therefore be held responsible, was none other than Tory leadership frontrunner, Boris Johnson.
Alex Orr, Edinburgh EH9.
Scotland's sinkhole fear
THE land contamination issue potentially affecting St Ambrose and Buchanan High schools in Coatbridge ("Issue of the week: Health fears over ‘toxic waste’", The Herald, June 15) will unfortunately be the first of many such cases.
Indeed, we have also seen similar issues raised with the new development at Polmadie (the former White’s Chemical Works). And today, no housing developments have an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA).
The common theme is the Scottish Government's watering down of the EU EIA regulations in 2014 and 2017. So now developers (or councils) can save a few bob by building on dodgy sites (with flood, contamination, ground or landfill, or habitat issues) without rigorous scrutiny. The question is not if, but when, Scotland gets its first sinkhole.
Dave Sutton, Architect and planner, Cambuslang.
Time to unplug the amps
HIGHLIGHT of the recent John Barrowman performance at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall (June 18) was the appearance of John’s 84-year-old mother, who was given a standing ovation when she sang The Wedding.
Is it just me or is the deafening amplification at such concerts the norm? My friend and I sat there wishing, just for one number, they would unplug the amplifiers and let us hear John’s splendid voice and his excellent band with the minimum of help from their sound engineer.
Natural sound: what happened to it?
Carol Hughes, Glasgow.
Initial thoughts
WHILST leaving myself open, after the surrendering of a 3-0 lead, to accusations of sour “grapery" ("Crying game as Scotland pay the penalty", The Herald, June 20), I think that with some justification, last night's shenanigans spoke some truth to power in revealing the true meaning of the abbreviation VAR – Very Average Refereeing.
Alastair Patrick, Paisley.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here