The Political Economy of Danish Arms Exports to Israel in Connection with the War on Gaza

Human Rights Law Discussion Group SEMINAR SERIES | Spring 2026


Dr Martin Lemberg-Pedersen (Honorary Associate Professor at the University of Warwick, and research affiliate with the Barcelona Centre for International Affairs (CIDOB)

The Political Economy of Danish Arms Exports to Israel in Connection with the War on Gaza

The seminar starts at 14.15, respecting the academic quarter, and involves 20-30 minutes of presentation, followed by approx. 30 minutes of discussion.
 

For people outside the Faculty of Law at Lund University who wish to participate either on site or digitally please register your participation by sending an e-mail to daria [dot] davitti [at] jur [dot] lu [dot] se or zvezda [dot] vankova [at] jur [dot] lu [dot] se.

Faculty members, graduate students and all interested in interdisciplinary research involving law are most welcome!

Convenors: Chris Cowan, Amanda Kron, Björg Valgeirsdóttir, Pablo Pastor Vidal
Senior Members: Dr Daria Davitti, Dr Zvezda Vankova

The Human Rights Law Discussion Group is kindly funded by the Centre for European Studies at Lund University, in collaboration with the ERC Starting Grant project “Refugee Finance: Histories, Frameworks, Practices (REF-FIN)” and the VR project “Refugee protection or cherry picking? Assessing new admission policies for refugees in Europe” (ARISE).

This talk provides insights into the public and private actors, networks and politico-legal dynamics underpinning Danish government policies and administrative practices regarding arms export licences to Israel. It relates Danish licences for direct and indirect arms export to:

a) The 2008 EU Common Position on Arms Exports (EUCP) and the 2014 Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) banning exports facilitating various degrees of risks of war crimes;

b) Civil society, judicial and NGO-critiques of Danish and European governments’ exports policies due to risk of war crimes; and

c) Developing Danish and European reconfigurations of military exports through contexts such as Yemen and Gaza.

These interventions into the political economy of Danish arms trade are contextualized through the two 2024-court cases filed against the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and National Police for their licensing practices. Now awaiting Supreme Court decisions in mid-March 2026, the two cases are analysed through discussions of the ATT and EUCP.

Speaker’s bio 

Dr Martin Lemberg-Pedersen is Associate Professor at the Center for War Studies, Southern University Denmark, Honorary Associate Professor at the University of Warwick, and research affiliate with the Barcelona Centre for International Affairs (CIDOB). He has held Associate Professorships at Malmö University and the University of Copenhagen, where he also obtained his Ph.D. in Philosophy. Between 2021-2024 he was Head of Policy and Documentation for Amnesty International Denmark, working on Danish arms export licensing. He has also been Visiting Fellow at the Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford, Kwame Nkrumah Institute for Science and Technology, Ghana, and Harokopio University, Athens. His work covers interdisciplinary analyses of Western geopolitics related to displacement, arms trade and mineral supply chains to infrastructures involving military-industrial actors. He has also undertaken analyses of colonial and imperial logics in Western policies manufacturing and managing displacement.