sailingaway
04-02-2013, 10:05 AM
UNITED NATIONS – The United Nations General Assembly voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday to approve the first-ever treaty to regulate the enormous global trade in conventional weapons, for the first time linking sales to the human-rights records of the buyers.
The vote on the Arms Trade Treaty came after an attempt to achieve a consensus on the treaty among all 193 member states of the United Nations failed last week, with Iran, Syria and North Korea blocking it. Those three countries, often ostracized as pariahs, contended the treaty was full of deficiencies and had been structured to be unfair to them.
The treaty would require states exporting conventional weapons to develop criteria that would link exports to avoiding human rights abuses, terrorism and organized crime. It would also ban shipments if they were deemed harmful to women and children. Countries that join the treaty would have to report publicly on sales every year, exposing the process to levels of transparency that rights groups hope will severely limit illicit weapons deals.
The vote was heavily lopsided in favor, with 154 supporting it and three opposing.
Twenty-three, including a handful of Latin American countries as well as Russia — one of the largest arms exporters — abstained. Vitaly I. Churkin, the Russian envoy to the United Nations, said Russian misgivings about what he called ambiguities in the treaty, including how terms like genocide would be defined, had pushed his government to abstain.
Support was particularly strong among many African countries — even if the compromise text was weaker than some had anticipated — with most governments asserting that over the long run the treaty will curb the arms sales that have fueled so many conflicts.
Nations can begin joining the treaty in early June and it goes into effect as international law once 50 have ratified it. Given the vote in the General Assembly was so overwhelmingly in support, it is expected to go into effect this year.
In the run-up to the vote on Tuesday, numerous states objected to the treaty because they said it was heavily weighted in favor of the exporters — allowing them to make subjective judgments about which states met the humanitarian guidelines. The treaty could be abused in the future as a means to foment unjust political pressure, said several countries, including Syria, Cuba and Nicaragua.
What impact it will have on the global conventional weapons trade — and over what period of time — is a more difficult question. Experts are certain it will change things eventually. In the shorter term it is more difficult to assess.
The United States and many European countries say they already have arms sales guidelines in effect that tie sales to the human rights records of the buyers and other issues included in the treaty.
It is considered unlikely that the treaty will have any effect on the supply of outside weapons to the Syrian government, for example, because Iran is opposed to it and Russia is hesitant. Both are the main conduits for conventional weapons to Damascus.
Those who pushed hard for the treaty, especially among rights groups, thought it would have an important long-term impact, however.
“The Arms Trade Treaty provides a powerful alternative to the body bag approach currently used to respond to humanitarian crises,” said Ray Offenheiser, the president of Oxfam America. “Today nations enact arms embargoes in response to humanitarian crises only after a mass loss of life. The treaty prohibits the weapon sales in the first place.”
It should help shut down safe havens where rogue arms dealers can sell weapons to war criminals with impunity, he said.
Frank Jannuzi, head of Amnesty International’s Washington office, said the final draft of the treaty was not perfect but represented what many rights groups considered an enormous advance.
more: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/03/world/arms-trade-treaty-approved-at-un.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&smid=tw-nytimes&_r=0
'can be banned if might be harmful to women and children'? only to UNARMED women (children are different, but their parents being armed is all to the good.)
The vote on the Arms Trade Treaty came after an attempt to achieve a consensus on the treaty among all 193 member states of the United Nations failed last week, with Iran, Syria and North Korea blocking it. Those three countries, often ostracized as pariahs, contended the treaty was full of deficiencies and had been structured to be unfair to them.
The treaty would require states exporting conventional weapons to develop criteria that would link exports to avoiding human rights abuses, terrorism and organized crime. It would also ban shipments if they were deemed harmful to women and children. Countries that join the treaty would have to report publicly on sales every year, exposing the process to levels of transparency that rights groups hope will severely limit illicit weapons deals.
The vote was heavily lopsided in favor, with 154 supporting it and three opposing.
Twenty-three, including a handful of Latin American countries as well as Russia — one of the largest arms exporters — abstained. Vitaly I. Churkin, the Russian envoy to the United Nations, said Russian misgivings about what he called ambiguities in the treaty, including how terms like genocide would be defined, had pushed his government to abstain.
Support was particularly strong among many African countries — even if the compromise text was weaker than some had anticipated — with most governments asserting that over the long run the treaty will curb the arms sales that have fueled so many conflicts.
Nations can begin joining the treaty in early June and it goes into effect as international law once 50 have ratified it. Given the vote in the General Assembly was so overwhelmingly in support, it is expected to go into effect this year.
In the run-up to the vote on Tuesday, numerous states objected to the treaty because they said it was heavily weighted in favor of the exporters — allowing them to make subjective judgments about which states met the humanitarian guidelines. The treaty could be abused in the future as a means to foment unjust political pressure, said several countries, including Syria, Cuba and Nicaragua.
What impact it will have on the global conventional weapons trade — and over what period of time — is a more difficult question. Experts are certain it will change things eventually. In the shorter term it is more difficult to assess.
The United States and many European countries say they already have arms sales guidelines in effect that tie sales to the human rights records of the buyers and other issues included in the treaty.
It is considered unlikely that the treaty will have any effect on the supply of outside weapons to the Syrian government, for example, because Iran is opposed to it and Russia is hesitant. Both are the main conduits for conventional weapons to Damascus.
Those who pushed hard for the treaty, especially among rights groups, thought it would have an important long-term impact, however.
“The Arms Trade Treaty provides a powerful alternative to the body bag approach currently used to respond to humanitarian crises,” said Ray Offenheiser, the president of Oxfam America. “Today nations enact arms embargoes in response to humanitarian crises only after a mass loss of life. The treaty prohibits the weapon sales in the first place.”
It should help shut down safe havens where rogue arms dealers can sell weapons to war criminals with impunity, he said.
Frank Jannuzi, head of Amnesty International’s Washington office, said the final draft of the treaty was not perfect but represented what many rights groups considered an enormous advance.
more: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/03/world/arms-trade-treaty-approved-at-un.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&smid=tw-nytimes&_r=0
'can be banned if might be harmful to women and children'? only to UNARMED women (children are different, but their parents being armed is all to the good.)