http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/anna_macdonald/2006/09/we_need_control_of_the_arms_tr.html
Guardian Unlimited - UK

Bring the arms trade under Control.  At the moment, it's less regulated than the market in old postage stamps or dinosaur bones.
Anna MacDonald

September 13, 2006 12:04 PM | Printable version
News headlines continue to be dominated by depressing, yet worryingly familiar, stories and pictures of war, conflict and displacement. Closer to home, shootings are reported by the media, analysed briefly and then just as quickly consigned to the archive file - and many more are never reported at all.

In countries including Brazil, the Congo, Kenya and India I have met men, women and children whose lives have been torn apart by armed violence

Yet, behind the stories and the pictures, a deadly trade continues almost unregulated which allows all these diverse acts of violence to take place. Ridiculously, the arms trade is less regulated than that in old postage stamps or dinosaur bones as there are no global principles governing the sale in weapons. This legislative anomaly is partly responsible for the 1,000 deaths that occur every day around the world from armed violence.

Oxfam, Amnesty and IANSA (International Action Network on Small Arms) work closely with communities around the world where the arms trade has brought untold suffering. As well as death, many communities have suffered forced displacement, rape and torture as a result of the easy availability of arms. However, behind the scenes, high-level talks have been taking place which could see global principles on arms sales agreed for the first time. The UK and six other governments including Kenya, Argentina, Australia, Finland, Costa Rica and Japan have put forward a proposal to the United Nations General Assembly which will meet later this month, for an international Arms Trade Treaty. If agreed, the treaty will give the international community the power to regulate the arms trade globally so that every country in the world will need to abide by the same rules.

The UK government will tomorrow in London host a meeting of foreign ambassadors from over 50 countries to promote the Arms Trade Treaty resolution. However, despite the recommendations of ourselves and of the UK's quadripartite select committee, the current resolution still makes no reference to human rights law. Without this, the resolution risks being too weak to have real impact. The resolution must also set out a clear timetable for developing any agreed treaty; otherwise it risks dragging on for years whilst many more lives are lost.

Currently the series of national and regional laws governing the arms trade fail to effectively control it. A global trade needs global controls. As even the Defence Manufacturer's Association (who represent much of the defence industry in the UK) themselves point out on their website, "the current system of global counter-proliferation does not work, due to the sheer diversity of export control policies, systems and procedures."

Today, representatives from three continents will be lobbying their embassies to support the Arms Trade Treaty and we will be supporting them in that call. Since 2003 over one million people from well over 100 countries have added their faces to the Million Faces campaign. Governments must take this unique opportunity to finally bring the arms trade under control.

Activists will be running a live blog from the embassies throughout the day as well as from events happening around the world.  (Emphasis added)

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http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2357732,00.html
Times Online, 14 September, 2006

'Overwhelming' backing for UK plan to limit trade in guns
By Jenny Booth and agencies
 
The Government says that it has been staggered by the number of countries wanting to back its plans for a legally-binding, international arms trade treaty.
 
Kim Howells, the Foreign Office Minister, said he was "overwhelmed" by the breadth of support for the initiative, and urged governments around the world to get on board.

"There were ambassadors literally queuing up to express their support for the proposals that we announced this morning, and they ranged from very small countries like Mauritius to very large countries like Canada," said Mr Howells, speaking after a meeting in Whitehall with diplomatic representatives from 120 countries and other interested groups.

"It was quite overwhelming, actually, to see the range of support that is there."

There is currently no international agreement on the trade in conventional weapons - such as the ubiquitous AK47 assault rifle, weapon of choice in many of the world's trouble spots, where some conflicts have dragged on for decades.

The lack of an international framework mean that the trade is effectively only regulated to the standard of the country with the least level of control.

The UK Government is leading moves to present a draft resolution to the UN General Assembly next month. This would establish a group of governmental experts to examine the feasibility, scope and parameters of a treaty.

They will report to the UN Secretary-General by late 2008, with negotiations on the treaty itself possibly starting by 2009.

"We are committed to securing a treaty on the trade in all conventional arms," said Mr Howells.

"We believe that a treaty should be legally binding, with monitoring and enforcing mechanisms, and that it should set clear standards when an arms transfer should not take place, including respect for human rights."

Mr Howells, whose brief includes counter-proliferation, said that stopping conventional weapons from falling into the hands of rogue dealers would benefit the whole international community. The United States had not declared support for a treaty, he admiteed, but this could change as the process progressed.

He was candid about the scale of the task, warning: "We’ve got to start this process without preconditions, without scaring anyone to the point at which they are going to say ‘We don’t want anything to do with this’.

"It’s got to be a very delicate and a very sensitive approach."

Gareth Thomas, the International Development Minister, made the case from the perspective of deterring conflicts.

"What we know is that unscrupulous arms dealers who get access to weapons help to make the conflicts that we see around the world last longer, cost more lives and do more damage," he said.

"Violent conflict and violent crime are a huge drain on the scarce resources available for the fight against poverty in many developing countries."

Mr Thomas continued: "We think you can protect the legitimate self-defence needs of countries as well as trying to regulate the arms trade treaty in a more transparent and effective way to stop those unscrupulous arms trade dealers being able to operate in the way that they do at the moment."

Derek Twigg, the new Defence Minister, emphasised that stopping the flow of illicit arms to unstable regions also reduced risks for UK frontline forces. (Emphasis added)