Here are three articles on the ATT. Monday, there was a news conference, at the UN, during which ATT advocates used the Virginia Tech tragedy as a reason to support the ATT.
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Hopes That Massacre Will Spark Treaty
By EDITH M. LEDERER
Associated Press Writer
Las Vegas SUN
April 24, 2007
http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/nat-gen/2007/apr/24/042400661.html
The former U.N. human rights chief hopes that last week's massacre at Virginia Tech will generate U.S. support for a global treaty to control the international small arms trade.
Mary Robinson, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights from 1997 to 2002, noted Monday that the U.S. was the only country to oppose a U.N. General Assembly resolution that could lead to the first international convention on regulating the trade in small arms and light weapons such as AK-47s.
She hopes last week's shooting will shed light on the 1,000 "invisible" deaths each day from such arms.
"I saw firsthand the reality that it is the small arms that are the weapons of mass destruction at ground level," in places such as Sierra Leone, East Timor, Congo and Colombia, she said.
Robinson, a former president of Ireland, said 1,000 people a day are killed by the uncontrolled market and sale of small arms.
"Many African countries where the guns are prevalent - they come from elsewhere. They may start in legal sale and then become the subject of an illegal sale, so it is extraordinarily important that we have an arms trade treaty," Robinson said.
The non-binding resolution adopted by the General Assembly in December asked the secretary-general to seek the views of the 192 U.N. member states on the feasibility of a comprehensive treaty "establishing common international standards for the import, export and transfer of conventional arms." The vote was 153-1 with 24 abstentions.
The resolution asked the secretary-general to submit a report to the current General Assembly session which ends in September, and to establish a group of government experts to examine the feasibility of a treaty, based on the report, starting in 2008.
Robinson, Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Oscar-winning actress Helen Mirren, the sponsors of the resolution and arms control advocates called on governments Monday to deliver a tough arms trade treaty.
Campaigners behind the resolution said they hope any final treaty would compel countries to officially authorize all weapons transfers, stiffen compliance with previous treaties related to conventional weapons and prohibit weapons transfers that fuel conflict, poverty and human rights abuses.
Robinson said the shootings at Virginia Tech - which left 32 students and teachers and gunman Seung-Hui Cho dead - "were really a tragic reminder that armed violence is a problem in so many parts of the world."
While the arms trade treaty would address the trade in weapons between countries, or weapons getting to countries that are not manufacturers or suppliers, the policy issues that arise from the Virginia Tech tragedy are domestic policy issues for the U.S., she said.
"Maybe the sense of personal loss for the 32 lives, and what we know about them, can bring home that we heard that the toll every day of this uncontrolled arms situation is more than a thousand lives," Robinson said.
"These are anonymous lives, these are invisible," she said. "Maybe Virginia Tech can at least give a local context of empathy for the fact that so many are killed."
Robinson said supporters of the treaty should try and engage Americans "very constructively ... and maybe in some way use the tragedy and the great response from the Virginia Tech community to engage in the need to control arms."
When the resolution was approved by the General Assembly's legal committee over U.S. objections, Richard Grenell, spokesman for the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, said: "The only way for a global arms trade treaty to work is to have every country agree on a standard."
"For us, that standard would be so far below what we are already required to do under U.S. law that we had to vote against it in order to maintain our higher standards," he said.
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U.N. Readies for Draft on Small Arms Control Treaty
Thalif Deen
Inter Press Service
4/25/07
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=37472
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 24 (IPS) - Against the backdrop of a new national poll calling for stricter gun control in the wake of the mass killings of 32 people on a U.S. university campus last week, the United Nations is getting ready to formulate a new international treaty regulating the proliferation of small arms worldwide.
"There is not yet a draft," said Jennifer Abrahamson of Oxfam International, one of the lead organisations campaigning for the treaty, along with the London-based Amnesty International and International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA). "What's happening now is that governments are due to turn in their blueprints of what they believe a draft should look like," she added.
The hard deadline is the end of April, but submissions by the 192 U.N. member states will be accepted through Jun. 20.
"This is the first real action that will lead to a treaty," Abrahamson told IPS.
According to last week's poll, conducted by the New York Times and the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) television network, most Americans favoured stricter control of handguns in the wake of the killings of 32 people in a shooting rampage at Virginia Tech campus.
But there was no widespread support for a total ban on handguns, the weapons used in the Virginia Tech shootings in the town of Blacksburg, Virginia.
The proposed treaty, which was supported by 153 of the 192 member states in a resolution adopted by the U.N. General Assembly last December, does not envisage a total ban either.
But the treaty is expected to call for a regulation of the production and sale of small arms, including handguns.
A U.N. expert panel has identified small arms to include assault rifles, pistols, sub-machine guns, light machine guns, mortars, portable anti-aircraft guns, grenade launchers, anti-tank missile and rocket systems, hand grenades and anti-personnel landmines.
At a U.N. press conference Monday, former U.N. high commissioner for human rights Mary Robinson stressed that the handguns that had played a devastating role in the tragic deaths in Virginia Tech had been purchased legally.
Asked about the countries, including the United States, which had expressed reservations on the resolution calling for a treaty, Robinson said that "policy issues were internal to the United States."
But she hoped that the sense of personal loss felt by Americans and others, as well as the response from the Virginia Tech community, could bring home the terrible cost being paid in many countries around the world.
"The campaign should try to engage the United States and those countries that had abstained in the vote so that they could recognise the need to control arms -- just as nuclear weapons had been regulated -- with varying degrees of success," said Robinson, a former president of Ireland.
Asked who the sceptics of the treaty are, Abrahamson said that besides the United States, these include China, Russia and several Arab states.
But she pointed out that several other major international treaties "have gone through without the United States and other sceptics." A good example is the treaty banning landmines.
With respect to how confident Oxfam is about the success of such a treaty, Abrahamson said: "What is important now is that governments do their part (particularly the 153 nations that agreed to the treaty in December 2006) by submitting their plans -- plans which are rooted in international humanitarian and human rights law."
She said the treaty business is very time-consuming. "We are hoping that a treaty will be completed by 2010 which, historically, is quite quick."
"We hope that the process is completed within the United Nations," the activist added.
If this is derailed for some reason, she said, the movement will continue outside the United Nations, as did the landmine treaty. But for now, barring the detractors, there is strong consensus to continue forward with a treaty, she emphasised.
Helen Mirren, an Oscar-winning actress and an arms control activist, said Monday that "From Kenya to Brazil to Sri Lanka, there are more weapons than ever before, and they are easier and cheaper to obtain."
She noted that in December 2006, 80 per cent of the world's governments voted to start work on developing the international Arms Trade Treaty. "All governments now have a responsibility to make an effective Arms Trade Treaty a reality," she added.
Joseph Dube, a spokesperson for the IANSA arms control coalition, said there is a very real risk that sceptical governments, such as the U.S. administration, could seek to water down the treaty, rendering it too weak to save lives.
But "The over a million people around the world who support this treaty will not allow that to happen," he warned.
Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry of the UK, who is also the current president of the U.N. Security Council, told reporters that in Africa, only HIV/AIDS was a bigger killer than small arms.
While much of the industry behaved responsibly, he pointed out, illegal trafficking is a major problem and has to be curbed.
"The scale of the problem requires a U.N. multilateral response," he said.
Progress on elaborating the proposed treaty had been encouraging, he said, but he added that he was under no illusion that the next two or three years would be tough going, as "governments conveniently hid behind the negotiations and refused to fully disclose their positions." (END/2007)
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Campaign to End Gun Trade Ramps Up
Haider Rizvi
OneWorld US
Tue., Apr. 24, 2007
http://us.oneworld.net/article/view/148511/1/
UNITED NATIONS, April 24 (OneWorld) - As the United Nations prepares itself to take further action on a proposal to adopt an arms control treaty, civil society groups are stepping up pressure on governments to take a firm stand.
Joining hands with rights advocacy organizations this week, some of the world's leading female politicians and activists said they fully support civil society's call for a worldwide ban on gun supplies that fuel poverty and bloodshed in many regions of the world.
"From Kenya to Brazil to Sri Lanka, there are more weapons than ever before, and they are easier and cheaper to obtain," actress Helen Mirren told a news conference at the world body's headquarters in New York over the phone.
The Academy Award-winning performing artist, who has seen many people living in refugee camps as a result of armed conflicts, said huge supplies of guns in certain areas have created a situation where "young girls are often raped while boys are turned into killing machines."
Mirren and other activists involved in the global campaign to ban small arms transfers think it is time that all governments take responsibility for the individual tragedies perpetrated with the weapons they supply.
"The irresponsible arms trade is a global horror story, and it requires a global solution," said Mary Robinson, the former Irish president who, in the recent past, has also led the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva.
The solution, according to Robinson, who is now honorary president of the charity group Oxfam International, is that all governments deliver an agreement on a "strict, lifesaving treaty for the sake of millions of people at risk."
Last December, by adopting a UN General Assembly resolution, nearly 160 nations fully acknowledged the need for such a treaty. However, the progress to achieve that end remains very slow.
Though diplomats at the UN are due to submit their proposals to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon by the end of this month, it is not clear how far they will be willing to go to make the treaty compatible with international human rights law.
"If these proposals do not explicitly call for a ban on arms transfers that fuel conflict, poverty, and human rights abuses, then there is a serious risk that the resulting treaty will not save lives," said Oxfam's spokesperson Jennifer Abraham.
Campaigners say they are afraid that some governments that did not support the General Assembly's resolution on the treaty may choose to be spoilers.
"There is a very real risk that skeptical governments, such as the United States, could seek to water down the treaty, rendering it too weak to save lives," said Joseph Dube, spokesperson for the Control Arms Campaign, which also includes Amnesty International and the International Network on Small Arms.
But on a hopeful note, Dube added that over 1 million people around the world who support this treaty "would not allow that to happen."
Seemingly, Dube has a reason to be optimistic, because many government leaders whose countries have suffered from violence and bloodshed have become increasingly supportive of the campaign to crack down on the illegal business in guns.
Liberia's president is calling on world leaders to support a vigorous arms trade treaty. © United Nations' Integrated Regional Information Network
"The time for us to succeed in stopping arms transfers is now," said Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf. "I plead with the governments of the world, arms manufacturers, brokers, and traders not to deny Liberia and every other country this great chance to consolidate peace for our children and ourselves."
As a result of civil war in Liberia, more than 250,000 people were killed and many thousands more forced to flee their homes. The conflict, which came to end only recently, left the country overrun by weapons for years; the violence left the economy in ruin.
UN officials say in 2005 small arms were responsible for the death of half a million people around the world. According to Small Arms Survey, a research project at Geneva's Graduate Institute of International Studies, currently, about 25 percent of the $4 billion annual trade is either illicit or not recorded as required by law.
On Monday, campaigners across the world held meetings in support of the treaty, which they described as "Peoples Consultations." Over the next three months, they plan to hold many more meetings in about 60 countries with the task to find out what ordinary people want the treaty to deliver.
The campaign is running parallel to the official process of collecting input from governments led by the UN chief. Campaign organizers said they will deliver the results of their findings to the UN in October.
(Emphasis added)
