Germany's highest court on Tuesday threw out a case brought by two Yemenis seeking to sue Berlin over the role of the US Ramstein airbase in a 2012 drone attack, ending a years-long legal saga.

The case has since been through several German courts, with mixed results, but the constitutional court on Tuesday said that ultimately it could not be proven that the drone attack had broken international law.

Washington has for years launched drone strikes targeting suspected Al-Qaeda militants in Yemen, an impoverished country that has been torn by fierce fighting between its beleaguered Saudi-backed government and Iran-backed rebels.

The two Yemeni men, supported by the Berlin-based European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR), had argued that Germany was partly responsible for the attack because the strike was aided by signals relayed via the Ramstein base in western Germany.

"Without the data that flows through Ramstein, the US cannot fly its combat drones in Yemen," according to the ECCHR.

The ECCHR's Andreas Schueller, programme director for international crimes, argued that "the German government must put an end to the use of this base – otherwise the government is making itself complicit in the deaths of innocent civilians".

'Trusting dialogue'

The court found that Germany "does have a general duty to protect fundamental human rights and the core norms of international humanitarian law, even in cases involving foreign countries", according to the written verdict.

However, in order for this duty to be binding, there must be "a serious risk of systematic violation of applicable international law".

"Measured against these standards, the constitutional complaint is unfounded," the court said.

According to the ECCHR, the two Yemeni men were having dinner ahead of the wedding of a male family member in 2012 when they heard the buzz of a drone and then the boom of missile attacks that claimed multiple lives.

Their case against Germany was initially thrown out, before the higher administrative court in Münster ruled in their favour in 2019.

However, the government appealed and a higher court overturned the decision in 2020, arguing that German diplomatic efforts were enough to ensure Washington was adhering to international law.

Ahead of the latest proceedings, which opened in December 2024, the German defence ministry said Berlin was "in an ongoing and trusting dialogue" with the United States about its activities at Ramstein.

The government has repeatedly obtained assurances that drones are not launched, controlled or commanded from Germany and that US forces are acting lawfully, the ministry said.

(vib)