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 [27 Jul 2012] at United Nations as Washington, Moscow and Beijing required \u201cmore time\u201d after six years of preparatory meetings.<\/p>\n
The Arms Trade Treaty could have, for the first time, regulated the trade of conventional weapons in the world.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis treaty is a key element to make people safe,\u201d representatives of Control Arms<\/a>, an NGO striving for a legally binding Arms Trade Treaty, told reporters Friday morning, a few hours before the final meeting.<\/p>\n \u201cAll eyes are on Washington to see if the Obama administration is ready to lead this treaty to a conclusion.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe have until the end of the day, the historic opportunity is here,\u201d they added, confident and hopeful for the final day of negotiations.<\/p>\n But while activists had been pointing at the draft treaty\u2019s \u201cnumerous loopholes\u201d during the last week, the main loophole of the conference turned out to be the lack of political will from three big powers.<\/p>\n In a dramatic turn of events, the U.S., the world\u2019s largest exporter of arms, refused to accept the long-awaited treaty Friday night, followed by Russia and China.<\/p>\n \u201cThe U.S. have had three years to sort out what they want, there were a lot of opportunities to find ways to reach consensus,\u201d Amnesty International\u2019s Brian Wood told reporters during Friday\u2019s briefing.<\/p>\n \u201cThis statement is not \u2018yes, we can\u2019, it\u2019s \u2018yes, maybe, we\u2019ll do it later\u2019,\u201d Wood added.<\/p>\n 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 \u201cmore time\u201d, thus postponing the finalisation of the treaty to next year.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n \u201cI 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,\u201d Ban said in a statement<\/a> released late Friday in London, where he was attending the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games.<\/p>\n Although activists considered the final draft to be satisfying \u201cin spite of some loopholes\u201d, Mikhail Ulyanov, the Russian negotiator at the Arms Trade Treaty conference, told the Russian news agency RIA Novosti<\/a> that the text was too \u201cweak\u201d and that Moscow \u201ccould not support it in its current form\u201d, without giving much more detail.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Rather than a fight for human rights, the Arms Trade Treaty Conference became a political game played by the three big powers.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re looking at the controlled demolition of the Assad regime,\u201d Andrew J. Tabler, a Syria expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, had told the New York Times<\/a> a week before the end of negotiations.<\/p>\n \u201cSuch a move permits Russia\u2019s weaponising of Syria\u2019s Assad regime, American unfettered aid to the Free Syrian Army, and Chinese military assistance to North Korea and Iran,\u201d Kathi Austin, executive director of the Conflict Awareness Project<\/a> and former U.N. arms investigator, told IPS.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n In the run-up to November\u2019s presidential election, President Obama is clearly leery of a public spat with the association, which has more than four million members.<\/p>\n According to the NRA, the treaty was \u201cwholly incompatible with the Second Amendment rights protected by (the) Constitution.\u201d<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n \u201cThe NRA did their own lobbying and sent a message, but one that was not connected to what was happening in the conference room,\u201d Alberto Estevez, Amnesty International\u2019s lobbying coordinator on the arms trade treaty, told IPS.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was very misleading and it only helped create confusion,\u201d Estevez added.<\/p>\n A U.N. arms trade treaty would not \u201cinterfere with the domestic arms trade and the way a country regulates civilian possession\u201d, the U.N. Office for Disarmament Affairs had emphasised at the beginning of the month.<\/p>\n But Friday night, after months of campaigning, the NRA celebrated the failure of the treaty.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a big victory for American gun owners, and the NRA is being widely credited for killing the U.N. ATT,\u201d the organisation proudly declared<\/a>.<\/p>\n The \u201ckilled\u201d Arms Trade Treaty is now to be referred to the U.N. General Assembly\u2019s First Committee in October, where it will be submitted to a majority vote.<\/p>\n The process will take a long time, Estevez warns.<\/p>\n \u201cIt 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,\u201d he told IPS.<\/p>\n \u201cA key question remains whether the largest exporter of arms \u2013 the U.S. \u2013 wants to be part of the game,\u201d Estevez added.<\/p>\n Civil society remains hopeful that the U.S., which holds the key to consensus, will help make the treaty a reality.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Obama administration\u2019s feebleness in the face of the American gun lobby will result in 2,000 lives lost each day\u2026 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,\u201d Austin told IPS.<\/p>\n \u201cWe won\u2019t give up,\u201d Amnesty International\u2019s Estevez told IPS. \u201cThe battle still goes on.\u201d<\/p>\n