In November 2023, Airwars took the UK government to a tribunal. The session appealed against the refusal of the Ministry of Defence and the Information Commissioner to release basic details about how the UK government assesses civilian harm.

It centred on Airwars’ request for details about the sole time the UK government accepted killing a civilian in a decade of airstrikes against so-called Islamic State. The UK government says the strike occurred in eastern Syria in 2018 and killed a civilian on a motorbike but serious questions have been raised about the official account – including the fact that the Coalition of which the UK was a part has no record of the strike.

The two-day tribunal, which allowed Airwars’ legal representative to question a senior Ministry of Defence official, took place in London. The Guardian was among a number of publications covering the tribunal, focussing on the lack of “effective oversight” of UK civilian harm policies.