Green light for the global Arms Trade Treaty

The Global Week of Action against Gun Violence is being held this year from 10 to the 16th of May, raising awareness of the devastating impact of small arms and light weapons on civilian populations around the world. As civil society organizes to keep gun control on the top of political agendas, attention turns to the future of the United Nations' Arms Trade Treaty. “We can now say that a global arms trade treaty is possible,” said the UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, Sérgio Duarte, setting the tone for this year's negotiations after a meeting between the European Union and the United Nations held this February in Vienna, Austria.

“We have entered an important new stage,” said Oistein Thorsen (photo) Oxfam humanitarian campaigner, who has been accompanying the treaty deliberations at the UN headquarters in New York. “We now have, for the first time since the ATT initiative was launched, a date for its completion, set for 2012. Work will now begin on determining the shape and content of the treaty,” said Thorsen. The United States voted in favor of the 2009 UN Resolution reversing its previous history of voting against a global arms trade treaty. “There were however 19 abstentions, among them Russia, China, India and Pakistan. The treaty will have to be approved by consensus in 2012, our problems are far from over, we still have a long road ahead.”

Civil society organizations have been accompanying ATT proceedings through the Steering Committee. The SC has decided, in its own parallel meeting in Vienna, to open its doors and invite more NGOs into the fold, hoping to bring ATT awareness back to a wider public. “Even if the ATT is approved, an important part of the work that will make it a reality will need to be done locally by the various governments," said Thorsen, “the regulation of arms transfers is work that will take us years."

For Daniel Mack, a member of the Steering Committee and arms control policy coordinator of Brazil’s Sou da Paz institute, it is important to understand that the treaty is not merely viable, it is necessary: “The Arms trade treaty was born out of a great victory of civil society. It took many years of campaigning until the UN adopted the project in 2006, with the goal of creating a legally binding, multilateral agreement that would guarantee transparency in arms transfers in the international market,” explains Mack.

In Mack's view, once the ATT entered the UN deliberations process, it disappeared from the radars of civil society. “Although we have encouraging signs, a great deal still remains to be determined, the treaty is not on paper yet,” said Mack.

Arms transfers under shroud of invisibility

According to Small Arms Survey data, an estimated 600 million small arms and light weapons are dispersed across the planet, and millions of these weapons are being used fueling conflicts, in repression, in crimes and human rights abuses.

“The majority of these arms transfers are made completely irresponsibly, what the treaty does is to take the gun trade out of invisibility,” said Mack (photo). Mack contrasts the gun trade with regulations imposed by the World Trade Organization on buying and selling oranges, shoes, films and shoes, for example. “All such merchandize are regulated by the WTO, but firearms cross international borders practically under a shroud of invisibility,” said Mack.

“We cannot tell the exact trajectory of gun transfers, but especially in Latin America and Africa, they leave a direct affect over civilian population in their wake,” said Natasha Leite, Gun Control researcher at the Brazilian civil society organization Viva Rio. Leite has co-authored, along with economist Julio Purcena, “The Balance of the Balance” a yearly report on arms transfers in Latin America that this year also included sub-Saharan Africa. The report is published by Viva Rio's En La Mira, the Latin America Small Arms Watch newsletter.

60 civilian deaths for every military death in Africa

Africa, Leite notes, with a mere 5.5% of the world imports of firearms, or very low levels of consumption of firearms, has extremely high rates of firearms related deaths. “To give you an idea, for every military death in Europe, you have a civilian death. In Africa, for every military death, you have 60 civilian deaths,” said Leite, citing data from the International Displacement Monitoring Center. Former UN Secretary General of the UN, Kofy Annan once described small arms and light weapons as arms of mass destruction, “when you look at numbers from Africa and Latin America, we see that he is right,” said Leite.

Leite goes on to explain there there is little data available on arms transfers between states. “It is international practice to have countries declare how many weapons they sell, roughly, to which other state. But we have no way of knowing, for example, who buys weapons in that particular country, it is impossible to pinpoint, for example, specific allotments of weapons,” said Leite.

Since guns have a direct effect over the civilian population, monitoring the gun trade touches on other significant issues for civilians, among them human rights, sustainable development, and international humanitarian law. “If a specific country is increasing its imports of components of firearms it could mean that it is beginning to develop a local arms industry, or that they are producing homemade guns. If we see an increased apprehension of homemade guns it is because there is little offer of firearms, and this lowers the probability of soldier recruitment, and therefore, we have a lower rate of gun related homicides,” said Natasha Leite. It is part of the goal of the treaty, noted Thorsen, to reduce the humanitarian impact of unmonitored arms trade.

The Ivory Coast: biggest African arms exporter, with no significant arms industry

The fact that customs procedures on firearms transfers vary greatly is also a hindrance. An international treaty would mean harmonizing customs rules, and help bring customs information to public knowledge.

The Ivory Coast is a particularly telling example, it has been under an arms embargo for six years. “The Ivory Coast is one of the 10 greatest arms exporters in the African continent, but it has no significant arms industry. We know that a great part of these weapons come from France. We know such transfers are made. All European countries disclose firearms transfers in the EU Report, but there are no records of such transfers from France to the Ivory Coast,” said Natasha Leite (photo). She notes that France has a peace force contingent in the Ivory Coast, “but we have no data that will allow us to make a connection, the gun route remains invisible,” said Leite.

A treaty would prevent the criminalization of states

Apart from allowing for greater transparency in gun sales, the ATT will allow for finer regulations on the international arms trade. “It would be possible, for example, to stop the sale of specific alottments of weapons to buyers who, in the language of international law, ‘show a considerable risk of violating human rights’, or who have infringed on international humanitarian law. In other words, and ATT would allow for adjustments in international trade and it would provide an option to criminalizing or punishing countries with embargos,” said Mack.

Unlike the UN Program of Action on firearms (PoA), that was designed to cover solely small arms and light weapons, the ATT includes all conventional weapons, parts and ammunition, from revolvers to tanks and helicopters, to technology transfers. “The scope of the ATT is very wideranging, it touches on different countries in very different ways,” said Daniel Mack.

Controlling ammunition would also allow for greater transparency in places were legal guns enter the illegal gun markets. “It is much easier to erase  a gun's serial number than i.d. from an ammunition cartridge. If we control ammunition, the entire flow of guns becomes much more transparent, and without ammunition, guns are worth little more than baseball bats,” said Leite.

Civil society looking on

The ATT project has progressed through a series of preparatory meetings in the UN, according to a schedule, it will now undergo a series of prepcoms, that will define treaty content and shape, and ought to culminate with its enactment in 2012. “But it is this year that the content of the treaty will start to be outlined, its scope and number of articles,” said Mack. The meetings are conducted by delegates of the UN member states, diplomats in their great majority, and a handfull of invited experts. “Until now civil society organizations have been invited to observe the deliberations and to make speeches on the last day of plenary session meetings. But it is not clear what our role will be in the meetings leading up to the 2012 deadline,” said Mack.

In his view, it is time to return to civil society at large. “The NGOs have followed the ATT proceedings and have done good work in presenting our goals. We want to lessen the impact of illegal arms transfers. But this does mean that the populations affected by irresponsible arms transfers are aware of the issue,” said Mack. The climate is one of cautious optimism, as Mack put it. The UN's High Representative for Disarmament's statement, and vote approving the final Resolution for a global arms transfers treaty was opposed only by Zimbabwe.

Read Further:

The UN site on Gun Control

Dossier Towards a Global Arms Trade Treaty

Control Arms, the campaign for an ATT by three great civil society organizations: Iansa, Oxfam and Amnesty International

Brazil's Sou da Paz Institute

The Small Arms Survey

Cover photo: from UN Office for Disarmament Affairs