The Control Arms Coalition demonstrated in front of the United Nations in July 2012 to remind delegates of the price paid every day by armed violence. Credit: Coralie Tripier/IPS

By Cydney Hargis
WASHINGTON, May 31 2013 (IPS)

Advocacy groups here are stepping up a campaign to pressure President Barack Obama to quickly sign on to a new United Nations treaty aimed at regulating, for the first time, the international small-arms trade.

The Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), adopted by the U.N. in April following on years of preparation, opens for country signature on Monday. It passed with just three “no” votes, coming from Iran, North Korea and Syria, and will require the ratification of 50 countries to come into effect."The issue here is simply the symbolism of saying that [the U.S.] is committed to this on an international level." -- Rachel Stohl of the Stimson Center

“The U.S. has said that it feels its export control system is one of the best in the world, and that it would like to see those standards replicated in the ATT,” Clare Da Silva, legal advisor on the ATT with Amnesty International, told IPS.

She says she is confident that the United States will sign on, though it most likely will not be on Monday.

“There is nothing in this treaty that requires the U.S. to do anything differently,” Rachel Stohl, a senior associate at the Stimson Center, a think tank here, said at a panel discussion Friday. “Rather, the issue here is simply the symbolism of saying that [the U.S.] is committed to this on an international level – that’s really important.”

For the first time, the ATT states that if a country knows its weapons will be used to commit genocide or violate a U.N. arms embargo, they cannot be transferred. Stohl believes the ATT has the potential to address some U.S. national security and foreign policy concerns, including terrorism.

A significant majority of U.S. allies, human rights and religious groups have supported the treaty, the passage of which was seen as a key victory for the United States. And while many groups are now calling on President Obama to sign on to the ATT immediately, others are saying he will need to do so no later than the U.N. General Assembly meeting in September.

“If he doesn’t do that, the momentum behind the force will be undermined,” Daryll Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, a bipartisan advocacy group here, said Friday.

“U.S. credibility will be questioned, we are going to be pulling the rug out from under our allies, and the president is going to have a lot of explaining to do.”

According to both Kimball and Stohl, other countries will be looking to the U.S. to sign on before they make their final decisions. Neither Russia nor China, for instance, has announced whether they will sign the ATT, and analysts suggest that these decisions will hinge on the U.S.’s own moves.

“The U.S. is the largest weapons exporter in the world,” Stohl says. “So people will look and say, well if its okay with the United States, then [signing the ATT] must not be too damaging to legitimate trade.”

Political momentum

The Obama administration has formally supported the ATT, a turnaround from previous U.S. policy under George W. Bush.

Nonetheless, it appears unlikely that the United States will sign the treaty on Jun. 3. Observers say this is due simply to typographical errors in translations from the original English text, however, which are currently being corrected following which countries will have three months to lodge comments.

Even once the Obama administration does sign on, the U.S. Congress will still need to approve the ratification before it can be signed into law. According to Amnesty International’s Da Silva, many international treaties never get ratified, and she does not expect to see the ATT made into law anytime soon.

Indeed, Republican politicians have already moved to pass legislation specifically barring the United States’ ratification of the ATT, while gun-rights advocates here continue to see opposition of the treaty as a primary rallying point. The majority of this opposition has come from the National Rifle Association (NRA), a lobby group.

“The text of the approved treaty is deeply problematic and threatens the rights of privacy of American gun owners,” the NRA says on its website.

In fact, the ATT deals solely with the international arms trade between governments. Nonetheless, this opposition has been so strong that U.S. delegation specifically wrote into the ATT text language that no infringement will occur for recreational, cultural, historical and lawful ownership.

Still, the Stimson Center’s Stohl notes that there remains an important opportunity for the United States to set an example.

“The symbolism is not that there has to be any change to U.S. law,” she told IPS. “Rather, it would be sending a signal to the rest of the world that the United States, which is responsible for 75 percent of the arms trade, is taking on this obligation as the world’s largest [arms] exporter.”

Following a recent legislative defeat of President Obama’s attempts to strengthen domestic gun laws – unrelated to the ATT – Stohl notes that the treaty could be an opportunity for the administration, as well.

“Here’s an opportunity to say, the NRA didn’t like this and we did it anyway,” she says.

Paul O’Brien, an advocate with Oxfam America, a humanitarian group, agrees.

“Do they sign it in a moment when the world is paying attention? We hope so,” he said at Friday’s panel discussion.

“Do they wait until Congress isn’t paying attention and the NRA has probably gone to bed for a couple of weeks? We hope not. We hope they use the moment to continue to build political momentum”.

With just three countries opposing it in the General Assembly, the ATT will be open for signature on Jun. 2. Credit: UN Photo/Susan Markisz

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 11 2013 (IPS)

When the 193-member General Assembly voted overwhelmingly for a long outstanding Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) last week, there was a lingering question left unanswered: how long will it take to reach the 50 ratifications necessary for the treaty to be legally binding?

Asked for his prediction, Ambassador Palitha Kohona, a former head of the U.N. Treaty Section, told IPS, “It is difficult to tell when this treaty will enter into force.”

Katherine Prizeman, international coordinator/disarmament programme at Global Action to Prevent War (GAPW), was more optimistic.

She told IPS that in terms of ratification and entry-into-force (EIF), the ATT formulation of 50 is actually quite achievable within the next few years despite the political struggles inherent in national government ratification processes.

“I would say it is very likely that EIF will occur in less than five years,” she predicted.

Adopted by a vote of 154 (Angola has since switched from “abstain” to “yes” making it 155 countries supporting the treaty) to three against (Iran, Syria and North Korea), the ATT will be open for signature on Jun. 2.

But ratification of the treaty, mostly by legislative or executive bodies of each of the member states, could be a long drawn-out process.

The 23 abstentions, not surprisingly, included some of the world’s key arms exporters and manufacturers (China, Russia, India) and leading arms buyers (Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain).

Kohona said some important countries, including China, Russia and India, have expressed serious reservations about the ATT text.

Others may have to overcome domestic difficulties, he added.

“You will recall that the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), adopted by vote in September 1996 in the General Assembly, after failing to obtain consensus in the Commission on Disarmament, has still not satisfied the conditions necessary for entry into force (17 years after adoption),” said Kohona, who is also Sri Lanka’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, and who abstained on the vote.

Asked whether General Assembly approval is only a political and moral obligation on the part of member states, and with no legal force, Kohona said under the Law of Treaties, a treaty on signature creates certain limited obligations for the signatory states.

“Adoption, per se, does not. It is on ratification/accession and entry into force that a treaty imposes binding legal obligations on the parties,” he explained.

Prizeman said taking into consideration the wide and robust support for the ATT across Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as the European Union, it is likely that 50 states would ratify the treaty within the next few years.

The majority of states – reflective of the 155 votes in favour of the resolution – have expressed relatively categorical support for the ATT, if not calling for even more robust provisions than what is found in the text, she added.

Last week, a coalition of about 50 U.S. senators said they will oppose ratification, amid an anti-ATT campaign spearheaded by the National Rifle Association (NRA), one of the most powerful pro-gun lobbies in the United States.

Widney Brown, senior director of International Law and Policy at Amnesty International, told IPS, “The key to enforcement is transparency and peer pressure.”

She pointed out that the important elements of enforcement are that all exports must be reported to the Secretariat and that information will be shared with other states.

“If one state thinks another is failing to comply with the terms of the treaty, there will be a dispute mechanism to address the issue. But peer pressure to conform will be strong,” she added.

Secondly, even if China (currently about number six on the list of arms exporters) does not ratify, “I think we will see what we saw during the negotiations” — there will be strong pressure from African states on China to support the treaty, Brown said.

Russia, she said, is more problematic — particularly as it is trying to regain lost market share.

Brown said India did not play a helpful role in the negotiations, but like other emerging powers wants to be seen as a key player on the international stage and may be vulnerable to pressure to adhere to the treaty, even if it does not ratify.

“The United States, as you know, voted for the treaty although ratification is unlikely, but I think we will see significant compliance,” she said.

Where it will get tricky will be in decisions regarding transfers to Washington’s Gulf allies such as Bahrain, said Brown.

Prizeman told IPS that previous iterations of the ATT text had featured higher formulations (65), which would have, of course, elongated the EIF process.

The ATT “supportive” states were keen to lower the EIF formulation so that the ATT would not become a victim of the perpetual “waiting-to-enter-into-force limbo” that the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) endures.

Moreover, also unlike the CTBT model, additional EIF obstacles such as qualitative provisions, including a requirement that the 10 largest exporter states ratify the treaty before EIF, ultimately did not make it into the final ATT text – although such proposals were supported by a group of states, mostly the emerging importer states concerned over potential manipulation of the treaty’s provisions, she added.

Brown said, “As someone who has worked primarily with human rights treaties, it has been quite interesting to understand the dynamics of what is in part a trade treaty.

“As you know,” she pointed out, “the agreed figure that is bandied around is that the current market for arms is about 70 billion dollars annually.” But in the next few years that is expected to increase to 100 billion dollars annually.

“Also remember that there are only about 40 countries that actually do trade in arms, ammunition and parts and components, but the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council (the UK, United States, France, China and Russia) plus Germany account for the vast majority of those transfers. So the remaining 36 states account for perhaps 30 percent of all transfers.”

If one state does its assessment and finds under the terms of the treaty that the transfer should not happen and another state swoops in a grabs that deal – the second state is going to be called out by the first state, Brown said.

The Control Arms coalition demonstrated in front of the United Nations on Jul. 25, 2012, reminding delegates negotiating the ATT of the price paid every day by armed violence. Credit: Coralie Tripier/IPS

By Carey L. Biron
WASHINGTON, Feb 12 2013 (IPS)

With a new round of negotiations for an international treaty regulating the international trade of small-scale weapons slated for next month, advocates here have stepped up a campaign to clarify what exactly the treaty is trying to accomplish – and to eliminate some opposition to the treaty from within the U.S. Congress that, they say, is based on misinformation.

The National Rifle Association (NRA), a lobby group, “and its allies have mounted a campaign of lies and deliberate distortions to build American opposition to an international Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) that will keep weapons out of the hands of human rights abusers around the globe,” according to a campaign launched Tuesday by Oxfam America, an international humanitarian group.

Warning that there are far more regulations on the international sale of fruit or electronics than for many weapons, Oxfam and other campaigners are calling for a treaty that includes a prohibition on arms transfers if it is clear they will facilitate mass atrocities; that includes all “conventional” weapons and ammunition; and that does not include loopholes for any specific countries.“Prior to the last few months, the ATT seemed like a way for the NRA to mobilise its base when there was no real discussion in Congress on gun control – they had to find a new bogeyman, and that was the U.N.”

Under the auspices of the United Nations, negotiations towards an ATT will recommence for 10 days in late March in New York.

Following three years of preparations, a month of talks on a draft ATT were shelved in late July when representatives from the United States, together with the Russian and Chinese delegations, made a surprise announcement that they needed more time. That declaration came after civil society observers had expressed increasing frustration at procedural delays and an apparent lack of seriousness on the part of some negotiators.

The end of the July round of talks also coincided with a forceful campaign against any treaty by the NRA, which for years has been the strongest voice against gun control here in the United States.

In late July, the NRA publicly took credit for “killing” the ATT, and for letters to the president from dozens of members of the U.S. Congress (from 51 senators and 130 representatives) noting “strong opposition” to any treaty.

But just a day after his re-election, in early November, President Barack Obama signalled his intent to move forward on a new round of talks.

“Just as the NRA warned would happen,” the group stated in response to Obama’s statement. “Needless to say, our position will remain the same on any treaty that could adversely affect the rights of American gun owners.”

In mid-January, a Republican state senator in Virginia tabled a resolution opposing any future ATT, despite the fact that the treaty’s text remains far from finalised.

Mobilising the base

The NRA’s position is based on two purported grievances: first, that an ATT would infringe on the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution (on the “right to keep and bear arms”), and, second, that such a treaty would require countries to create national registries on gun owners.

Yet according to a new Oxfam America policy brief distributed to members of Congress on Tuesday, neither of these points holds up under any scrutiny.

On the first point, the draft ATT text, which will serve as the starting point for the March negotiations, states that regulation of conventional arms within national territory will remain the “sovereign right and responsibility” of each national government. It also explicitly recognises the traditional uses of guns for hunting and related activities.

On the second point, the treaty only covers the official import or export of weapons by national governments, and does not extend to domestic ownership. Further, the draft text only directs importing states to take steps to prevent weapons from entering the “illicit market or for unauthorized use”.

(By deadline, the NRA had not responded to request for comment for this story.)

“While it’s hard to say exactly what the impact of the NRA’s advocacy was on the negotiations, it’s interesting that most of what they were discussing was outside of the scope of the ATT talks,” Scott Stedjan, Oxfam America’s senior policy advisor, told IPS.

“Prior to the last few months, the ATT seemed like a way for the NRA to mobilise its base when there was no real discussion in Congress on gun control – they had to find a new bogeyman, and that was the U.N.”

As Stedjan notes, however, following the killing of more than two dozen people at an elementary school in the state of Connecticut in December, Washington lawmakers are currently engaged in the most significant policy discussion on gun control in decades, and the NRA is widely seen as being on the defensive.

It is important to note that there is no direct connection between the Washington discussion on domestic legislation and the upcoming ATT talks in New York. In this new context, however, Stedjan says his office is “hopeful” that the NRA will turn its focus to the domestic policy debate and roll back its opposition to the ATT.

Consensus unneeded

Others too are cautiously optimistic about the outcome of the March negotiations, citing extremely high international support and new procedural considerations.

An indication of that support came following the breakdown of talks in July. During a subsequent gathering of the U.N. General Assembly, there was unanimous backing for another round of related negotiations – the first time this had happened.

Further, in voting to allow another round of talks, the General Assembly tweaked the rules for agreement.

Ahead of last year’s discussions, President Obama had stipulated that any eventual ATT draft had to be agreed upon by consensus. If no agreement is arrived at in March, however, the issue will now be allowed to go to a vote in the General Assembly, where no consensus is required.

“There is reason for optimism that states will conclude an Arms Trade Treaty this year, but what’s most important is creating a strong treaty,” Jeff Abramson, director of the secretariat for Control Arms, an international civil society network, told IPS.

“Given that a treaty text will still be allowed to move ahead later in the year even if a single or small minority blocks consensus in March, this arrangement should enable states that want a strong treaty to succeed in securing one.”

Oxfam’s Stedjan agrees, noting that the ATT “must be able to impact on human rights around the world. If there is no agreement, we’re strongly encouraging negotiators not to sacrifice the substance of the treaty for the sake of consensus.”

The “Non-Violence” (or “Knotted Gun”) sculpture by Swedish artist Carl Fredrik Reuterswärd on display at the U.N. Visitors’ Plaza. Credit: UN Photo/Rick Bajornas

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 27 2012 (IPS)

Amidst a politically divisive debate on gun control in the United States following a rash of mass shootings, the United Nations will meet in March to finalise an Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) after nearly two decades of negotiations.

Dr. Natalie Goldring, a senior research fellow at the Center for Security Studies at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, told IPS the upcoming conference probably represents the last opportunity to reach an Arms Trade Treaty within the U.N. structure.

“If this conference fails, supporters of an ATT are likely to look outside the U.N. for the next stage of negotiations, as was the case with the Landmine Treaty,” said Goldring, who has been monitoring negotiations since the early 1990s.

She said the real test of the ATT will be whether it helps set strong international standards for the arms trade.

If it helps bolster international human rights and humanitarian law, she argued, it will be a success, and it will save lives.

“If a weak ATT is negotiated, it may undermine existing practice and international law. Simply put, a weak ATT could be worse than not having an ATT,” warned Goldring.

The 193-member General Assembly last week voted overwhelmingly – 133 to nil, with 17 abstentions – to hold the conference Mar. 18-28, 2013.

All six major arms-exporting countries – China, France, Germany, Russia, the UK and the United States – voted for the resolution.

The abstentions, mostly from the Middle East, included Bahrain, Belarus, Bolivia, Cuba, Egypt, Iran, Kuwait, Myanmar, Nicaragua, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, United Arab Emirates, Venezuela and Yemen.

The conference is expected to approve a treaty to regulate the estimated 73-billion-dollar global arms trade. In 2011, the United States alone concluded arms agreements worth 66.3 billion dollars, according to the Congressional Research Service.

The current draft text, which will be the negotiating document next March, has been kicked around since July 2012.

The National Rifle Association (NRA), the most powerful gun lobby in the United States, has opposed the treaty on the mistaken belief it will hinder or deprive gun ownership in the country.

Brian Wood, arms control manager at Amnesty International, said the upcoming meeting will be the final leg of a 17-year campaign by his London-based human rights organisation and its partners.

The primary objective, he said, was to achieve an arms trade treaty to help protect people on the ground who, time and again, have borne the brunt of human rights violations during armed repression, violence and conflicts around the globe.

“We know sceptics will keep trying to undermine the human rights rules in the final treaty, but Amnesty International and its partners will keep up the pressure to secure the strongest possible text that protects human rights,” Wood said.

Last July, after nearly a month of negotiations, U.N. member states were close to an agreement on the proposed treaty.

But the U.S. delegation announced on the last day of the conference that it would not be able to support the draft treaty text that had been negotiated, and that insufficient time remained to reach agreement on a revised text.

With that statement, and the concurrence of other key arms suppliers, the talks collapsed.

Since the mid-1990s, the NRA has opposed U.N. efforts to reduce gun violence. It was unsuccessful in blocking the Programme of Action on Small Arms and Light Weapons in 2001.

“And I believe they will also fail in their efforts to prevent the signing of an Arms Trade Treaty,” Goldring predicted.

The proposed ATT does not affect civilian possession of weapons, and NRA efforts to claim otherwise are at best misleading, she said.

“The NRA’s outrageous statements about the ATT seem designed to mobilise their supporters. Their tactics may also be effective as a fundraising tool. But there’s no factual basis for the NRA’s claims,” Goldring added.

Ironically, the NRA’s trumped-up objections to an ATT free the U.S. government to negotiate a strong treaty, she said.

“If an ATT is unlikely to be ratified in the United States in the near term, there’s little incentive to compromise with U.S. senators who oppose a strong treaty,” she said.

“The political environment is quite different (since the November presidential polls). My hope is that President (Barack) Obama’s convincing re-election victory last month will help ensure that the U.S. delegation advocates a strong ATT now and in the negotiating conference next spring,” Goldring said.

Meanwhile, the biggest stumbling block to a strong ATT is the continued emphasis on consensus. If even a single delegation announces that it is unable to support consensus on the treaty, it will not be agreed.

“By insisting on consensus adoption of a treaty, the U.S. government has a veto over a prospective treaty,” said Dr Goldring.

“But it also gives every other country a veto, including sceptical delegations such as Iran, Pakistan, Cuba, and Egypt. This reduces the likelihood of success in March,” she added.

The U.S. government has made clear its refusal to accept a treaty with any provisions that would restrict civilian possession of firearms in the United States. It has even published its “diplomatic redlines” on the Department of State website, an action that may be without precedent in this context.

Thus far the U.S. government has also opposed any inclusion of ammunition or explosives in the treaty, which Goldring considers “short sighted”.

“At a minimum, all countries should be required to track ammunition when it is exported, as the United States already does. To be effective, an ATT must include all types of transfers and all types of conventional weapons, including their parts, components, and munitions,” she said.

The media did their best to make the U.S. presidential election look important, the altar on which democracy is built. But there has been a problem ever since the Supreme Court legalised unlimited campaign spending (six billion dollars this year), thereby authorising one more freedom of expression, called “commercial speech” even though much of this speech is libellous, often neither true nor relevant.

Johan Galtung

There were real disagreements, some kind of rhetorical left-right. However, the real problem lies somewhere else, not in what was said but in what was not. The list is long. The Washington Post on election day (Manuel Roig-Fanza): “A tough day for causes without a candidate”. The article mentions climate change, gun control and immigration as issues that werent picked up by either one of the party conventions, nor in the debates. But there are many more pressing problems confronting the country.

Two major lobbies advocating the use of force were left untouched: the National Rifle Association, NRA, for violence in the U.S., and the American-Israeli Political Action Committee, AIPAC, for violence abroad, mainly anti-Muslim wars.

They both exercise power through their impact on the media, denying critical politicians access to political power, thereby removing obstacles to violence. Dennis Kucinich, a voice for peace in Congress, and other critics, had the boundaries of their districts changed so that they were not reelected, fatally reducing the political spectrum in Congress and elsewhere. Both presidential candidates knew that to take them on would be suicidal.

Foreign policy was twisted in the debates to economic relations with China, trying to sound tough. But the U.S. majority cannot live without affordable Chinese goods with adequate quality/price ratios. Unless a big unless the U.S. restructures its economy from below, with cooperatives and self-employment, activating the countryside and local communities with numerous small enterprises focused on basic needs, food above all, housing and clothing, health and education, direct from producers to consumers.

No country in the world has a population so creative and cooperative. But the blossoming Occupy Movement has so far limited itself to occupation and critique, not to constructive action. They left untouched the basic change in the world: the U.S. grip on elites in other countries is loosening, in Latin America, even Africa, in the Arab awakening.

Instead they recited the “largest economy in the world” (the European Union is bigger, and China will overtake the U.S. soon) and the “strongest military power in the world” (losing Vietnam, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan is a strange concept of “strongest”).

Climate change: the U.S. is dragging its feet, delaying action in any international fora. Not the candidates, but Nature, in the shape of Sandy, talked, a brutal reminder of climate reality. How much is man-made is uncertain but the change is certain enough. And the self-proclaimed world leader does not lead.

Then, incredible: the fact that 16 percent are in misery and hunger, while one percent live in opulence, feeding on speculation, was drowned in glib talk about the “middle class”. Yes, it is large, and stagnant. But far from 100 percent.

Neither candidate had answers, possibly agreeing to be silent. The U.S. desperately needs more parties that are less afraid of truth (as they will not win anyhow), for democratic transparency, and open dialogue.

Does the election make a difference? What change will the second Barack Obama term bring? Obama said in his victory speech that he will focus on deficit, the taxation system, and immigration. None of the above mentioned issues. In foreign policy Mitt Romney, like George W. Bush, might have been more reckless, accelerating the fall of the empire. Obama, like Bill Clinton, is better informed, more sophisticated, holding up the fall a little longer. And democrats are more inclined to do what Israel wants.

Obamacare will continue, whatever that is worth given the rise in costs for any medical care possibly because the “state will pay”.

On Jan. 1, 2013, the debt ceiling strikes, according to the Congress consensus, with major “austerity” for those who can least afford it, touching the military gently. Misery will accelerate and so could military deployment and wars waged the Obama way, with drones and SEALs, extrajudicial executions.

Imagine a Politburo committee in China studying photos to decide whom to kill abroad for anti-Chinese activity or threats to China’s security. Or China arming Cuba and Haiti countries as close to the U.S. as Taiwan is to China to the teeth; with a fleet cruising in the Caribbean. The U.S. would find this unacceptable.

But Obama will play, “I am above the parties uniting the nation. In his first term he was leaning over backward to the Republicans and was badly punished mid-term; this time that makes Romney a de facto co-president. The Dodd-Frank finance economy reforms will be very bland, Wall Street will by and large continue its lethal games. The rich may be taxed and may find more loopholes including settling abroad. Like the French super-rich in London?

Is U.S. democracy a two-party system becoming a one-party state? If so, other countries beware. Do not imitate. Democracy is more than elections. It is also transparency and dialogue, for real change. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

* Johan Galtung, rector of the TRANSCEND Peace University, is author of “The Fall of the US Empire–And Then What?” ( www.transcend.org/tup)

Boys play with toy guns in a suburb of Maputo. Some 2,000 persons are killed by arms every day. Credit: UN Photo/Pernaca Sudhakaran

By Coralie Tripier
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 31 2012 (IPS)

The protracted negotiations on an Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) with the ambitious aim of eradicating the illicit trade in conventional arms hit a deadlock Friday at United Nations as Washington, Moscow and Beijing required “more time” after six years of preparatory meetings.

The Arms Trade Treaty could have, for the first time, regulated the trade of conventional weapons in the world.

“This treaty is a key element to make people safe,” representatives of Control Arms, an NGO striving for a legally binding Arms Trade Treaty, told reporters Friday morning, a few hours before the final meeting.

“All eyes are on Washington to see if the Obama administration is ready to lead this treaty to a conclusion.”

“We have until the end of the day, the historic opportunity is here,” they added, confident and hopeful for the final day of negotiations.

But while activists had been pointing at the draft treaty’s “numerous loopholes” during the last week, the main loophole of the conference turned out to be the lack of political will from three big powers.

In a dramatic turn of events, the U.S., the world’s largest exporter of arms, refused to accept the long-awaited treaty Friday night, followed by Russia and China.

“The U.S. have had three years to sort out what they want, there were a lot of opportunities to find ways to reach consensus,” Amnesty International’s Brian Wood told reporters during Friday’s briefing.

“This statement is not ‘yes, we can’, it’s ‘yes, maybe, we’ll do it later’,” Wood added.

While 153 states have consistently voted in favour of what could have been a first-of-its-kind regulation on conventional weapons, Washington, Moscow and Beijing declared that they needed “more time”, thus postponing the finalisation of the treaty to next year.

With 2,000 persons killed by arms every day, the delay came as a disappointment for many, including U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

“I am disappointed that the conference on the Arms Trade Treaty concluded its four-week-long session without agreement on a treaty text that would have set common standards to regulate the international trade in conventional arms,” Ban said in a statement released late Friday in London, where he was attending the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games.

Although activists considered the final draft to be satisfying “in spite of some loopholes”, Mikhail Ulyanov, the Russian negotiator at the Arms Trade Treaty conference, told the Russian news agency RIA Novosti that the text was too “weak” and that Moscow “could not support it in its current form”, without giving much more detail.

As for Beijing, it asked the EU to drop its arms embargo on China, which generated laughter in the conference room, and was visibly not satisfied by the refusal.

Rather than a fight for human rights, the Arms Trade Treaty Conference became a political game played by the three big powers.
The ongoing Syrian situation has had a great influence on the outcome, with Russia still selling arms to Syria and the U.S. seeking to increase its aid to the Free Syrian Army.
“We’re looking at the controlled demolition of the Assad regime,” Andrew J. Tabler, a Syria expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, had told the New York Times a week before the end of negotiations.

“Such a move permits Russia’s weaponising of Syria’s Assad regime, American unfettered aid to the Free Syrian Army, and Chinese military assistance to North Korea and Iran,” Kathi Austin, executive director of the Conflict Awareness Project and former U.N. arms investigator, told IPS.

In addition to the complex Middle East situation, the U.S. had to deal with the anger of its biggest gun lobby, the National Rifle Association (NRA), which campaigned against a treaty that, it said, threatened the right of U.S. citizens to bear arms.

In the run-up to November’s presidential election, President Obama is clearly leery of a public spat with the association, which has more than four million members.

According to the NRA, the treaty was “wholly incompatible with the Second Amendment rights protected by (the) Constitution.”

However, it has been repeated many times during the talks that the treaty only sought to control international arms transfers and had therefore nothing to do with the Second Amendment.

“The NRA did their own lobbying and sent a message, but one that was not connected to what was happening in the conference room,” Alberto Estevez, Amnesty International’s lobbying coordinator on the arms trade treaty, told IPS.

“It was very misleading and it only helped create confusion,” Estevez added.

A U.N. arms trade treaty would not “interfere with the domestic arms trade and the way a country regulates civilian possession”, the U.N. Office for Disarmament Affairs had emphasised at the beginning of the month.

But Friday night, after months of campaigning, the NRA celebrated the failure of the treaty.

“This is a big victory for American gun owners, and the NRA is being widely credited for killing the U.N. ATT,” the organisation proudly declared.

The “killed” Arms Trade Treaty is now to be referred to the U.N. General Assembly’s First Committee in October, where it will be submitted to a majority vote.

The process will take a long time, Estevez warns.

“It might well take two to three years at least, and that would mean that the ATT would not enter into force until 2014 or 2015,” he told IPS.

“A key question remains whether the largest exporter of arms – the U.S. – wants to be part of the game,” Estevez added.

Civil society remains hopeful that the U.S., which holds the key to consensus, will help make the treaty a reality.

“The Obama administration’s feebleness in the face of the American gun lobby will result in 2,000 lives lost each day… but (it) still has time to turn election year adversity around by courageously supporting a strong Arms Trade Treaty outcome during the U.N. General Assembly meetings in October,” Austin told IPS.

“We won’t give up,” Amnesty International’s Estevez told IPS. “The battle still goes on.”