Campaign Against Arms Trade

UK campaign organisation (a company limited by guarantee) that campaigns for an end to the international arms trade; publishes research on UK arms exports and arms companies

Campaign Against Arms Trade
Type	Campaign organisation; private company limited by guarantee (Companies House 08818199, incorporated 17 December 2013)
Founded	1974 (CAAT's own account)
Headquarters	Unit 1.9, The Green House, 244–254 Cambridge Heath Road, London E2 9DA
Website	caat.org.uk

Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) is a UK-based campaign organisation that describes itself as "working to end the international arms trade". It publishes research on UK arms exports and arms companies, and its company profiles are cited on Powerbase pages about UK subsidiaries of Israeli and other arms firms, including Elbit Systems UK Limited, Pearson Engineering Limited and RUK Advanced Systems Ltd.

Legal form and finances

The Companies House record shows Campaign Against Arms Trade as a private company limited by guarantee without share capital, company number 08818199, incorporated on 17 December 2013, status active, SIC code 94990 (activities of other membership organisations not elsewhere classified), with its registered office at the Cambridge Heath Road address above. The record lists no person with significant control and carries a statement, notified on 17 December 2016, that the company knows of no registrable person or relevant legal entity.

The company's accounts for the year to 31 December 2025 (filed on 12 August 2026) are unaudited and show a balance sheet only: total assets less current liabilities of £264,818 (31 December 2024: £273,124), made up of cash at bank of £286,816 and debtors of £15,114, less creditors of £37,112. The accounts filed do not include an income statement, so income and expenditure are not shown in them.

The Companies House officers page lists ten current directors and many former directors of the company; they are volunteers or trustees of a membership campaign, and their names are not reproduced here (see the officers link in the reference above).

Aims

CAAT's "About" page lists its priorities as: to stop the procurement or export of arms "where they might exacerbate conflict, support aggression, or increase tension", support an oppressive regime or undermine democracy, or threaten social welfare through the level of military spending; to end all government political and financial support for arms exports; and to promote "progressive demilitarisation within arms-producing countries". It says that it values "the diversity of opinion amongst its supporters" and is committed to nonviolence, and that its protests are conditional on accepting action guidelines. The same page says that CAAT received the Right Livelihood Award in 2012, and that it was nominated for the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize by American Friends Service Committee and Quaker Peace and Social Witness, a nomination CAAT links to its Saudi Arabia work.

History and campaigns (CAAT's account)

CAAT says it was founded in 1974 and that its work has combined "parliamentary work, research and awareness raising" with campaigning and protest. Its 50-year history page gives these examples, all in CAAT's own words and not checked against a second source here:

• In the 1990s its main campaign was against sales of Hawk aircraft and Alvis tanks to Indonesia.
• In 2016 it began judicial review proceedings against the UK government over arms exports to Saudi Arabia. It says it won in 2019, when the court found the lack of a review process "irrational and therefore unlawful", and lost a later case in 2023.
• It says it has campaigned against the arms fair DSEI (Defence Security and Equipment International) since 1999 and that, with others, it forced Reed Elsevier out of organising it in 2007.
• It lists divestment campaigns aimed at banks, universities and churches, and says it is now working with War on Want and the Palestine Solidarity Campaign on a campaign directed at Barclays over its financing of companies that sell weapons to Israel.
• It says its research includes a UK arms export licence browser, launched in 2011, and an annual report on UK arms exports.

Work on Israel (CAAT's statements)

CAAT campaigns for what it calls "a complete, two-way arms embargo on Israel", and says that the UK's partial suspension of some export licences to Israel in September 2024 was limited, with an exemption ("the F-35 carve-out") for components of F-35 combat aircraft supplied through a global supply pool. The following are CAAT's claims, published on its own site:

• In a press release of 17 March 2026 CAAT called for an investigation into drone components exported to Israel after the September 2024 suspension. It said that licences to Thales for radar systems worth £120.1 million were likely for the Watchkeeper X drone that Elbit Systems was selling to Romania, and that the Romanian contract had not been delivered. It cited a Declassified UK investigation that an Elbit-owned subsidiary had sent drone components, including Watchkeeper engines, to Israel. Powerbase has pages on UAV Tactical Systems (Elbit and Thales) and on Elbit Systems UK Limited.
• Its company profile of Rafael says that Rafael's UK subsidiaries RUK Advanced Systems and Pearson Engineering are 75% owned by the Israeli government, and that the profile was updated in 2025 "with the help of a grant from the Network for Social Change Charitable Trust, which funded the updating or creation of our country and company profiles".

See also

• Elbit Systems UK Limited
• UAV Tactical Systems
• Pearson Engineering Limited
• RUK Advanced Systems Ltd
• RAFAEL Advanced Defense Systems