Overview

• On July 15, 2025, the Federal Constitutional Court dismissed a constitutional complaint (Az. 2 BvR 508/21) by two Yemeni nationals challenging Germany’s role in US drone strikes via Ramstein Air Base.
• The court ruled that Germany’s technical relay of drone control signals through Ramstein does not trigger a concrete constitutional duty to halt US military operations abroad.
• Judges emphasized that Germany retains a general obligation under Article 2 of the Basic Law to protect fundamental rights and core humanitarian international law norms for individuals overseas.
• A binding protection duty requires both a sufficient link to German state authority and proof of systematic breaches of applicable international law, which the court determined were not met in the Yemeni strikes.
• The decision ends a decade-long dispute that saw an investigation order by OVG Münster in 2019 overturned by the Federal Administrative Court in 2020.