RELY
Rearming Europe with Legal Accountability
Why RELY?
Europe is rearming. Over the next five years, the European Union will spend €800 billion to boost its defence industry. However, the EU’s arms production and transfers regime lacks comprehensive due diligence and transparency obligations designed to prevent downstream damage, including human rights abuses and environmental degradation.
Approach
RELY develops actionable legal safeguards and human rights risk mitigation strategies at the European Union level to prevent corporate and state misconduct for wrongful weapons transfers as the bloc prepares to ramp up its defense capabilities.
The project starts in January 2026.
Team
León Castellanos-Jankiewicz is an international law expert on arms trade and human rights. He regularly advises governments on arms export policies, and has extensive experience working in projects involving interdisciplinary research, multistakeholder engagement and advocacy.
RELY: Rearming Europe with Legal Accountability
RELY is hosted at the T.M.C. Asser Institute for International and European Law in The Hague and is funded by the Dutch Research Council (NWO) SSH-XS Grant.
