The Netherlands

In 2018, the Netherlands purchased four General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper drones from the US, which it will receive in 2021. In November 2019, the Dutch parliament demanded the Ministry of Defence to investigate whether the four MQ-9 Reapers should be armed.

The purchase of the first Reapers was planned for 2016 but was postponed due to budgetary considerations. Although the Dutch government officially announced to use the MQ-9 Reaper drones for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) missions, political parties are divided regarding the procurement and use of armed drones.

It is expected that the Reaper drones will be armed within the near future. In January 2020, State Secretary for Defence Barbara Visser wrote in a letter to parliament that the Ministry of Defence does recognize “the operational benefits of arming the MQ-9 Reaper” and will continue to investigate the possibilities and costs of the armament of the drones, although the armament of the Reapers is “currently not on the agenda.”

Additional developments in the Dutch drone program include conversations held in 2015 between the government and aerospace services company Strat Aero on establishing a UAV Training Center in the Netherlands, which would be the first in Northern Europe.

In 2015 the Dutch human rights law firm Prakken d’Oliveira took legal action against the Dutch government on behalf of two Somali nomads who became victims of a drone attack when they were hit by a US missile in January 2014. The victims claim that the Dutch government is also responsible given its intelligences services allegedly shared essential metadata that informed the drone strike. Though this case is still ongoing, it underlines the urgent need for the Dutch government to ensure that shared data is not used for unlawful targeting.

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Related Resources

Paper: Military drones in Europe: Ensuring transparency and accountability

The use of armed drones, particularly to conduct targeted killings outside formal war zones, is highly contentious. In the contemporary context, where conflict has moved beyond the theatres of traditional warfare to take place in undefined battle zones, and is chiefly characterized by counterterrorism and counter-insurgency operations, drone use has brought to the fore critical questions on civilian casualties, the rule of law, secrecy and lack of accountability, among others.

Violent Skies: How lethal drone technology is shaping contemporary warfare

The rapidly growing use of deadly drones is profoundly shaping state and armed groups’ capacities to wage war, according to new research from peace organization PAX called Violent Skies.

The report Violent Skies demonstrates how all actors involved have quickly learned how to make use of drones in all shapes and sizes in their military operations. In the wars in Yemen and Ukraine alone, 40 types of drones were used from 12 different countries. The outcomes of the report paint a disturbing picture. Remote lethal force with armed drones is being used in conflicts all over the world, spurred by burgeoning drone industries and States seeking to expand their geo-political and military influence with drone sales and support operations. Now even groups that previously had little access to intelligence can easily track their enemies and eliminate them from a distance. Many innocent people fall victim to this. It’s time to control drones.

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Analysis of Armed Drones in the European Press (July-Dec 2019)

In the second six months of 2019 Internazionale and VoxEurop produced six press reviews for the European Forum on Armed Drones (EFAD), monitoring how the topic of armed drones is developed and observed on the European press. This report is based on the articles published by the main European newspapers.

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