PRESS RELEASE: Historic consensus at the United Nations on an international Arms Trade Treaty

Posted on July 20, 2009 0 Comments58

New York/ New Delhi, 20 June 2009: For the first time, at a historic consensus at the United Nations General Assembly, all governments agreed that international action is needed to address the problem of the unregulated arms trade. This happened at the first Open-Ended Working Group on an Arms Trade Treaty that ended on 17 July last week at the United Nations headquarters in New York. Almost no states, including India seriously questioned the merit of developing international regulations and a majority of the countries urged that negotiations begin on an Arms Trade Treaty.

Despite the suffering and poverty fuelled by irresponsible arms transfers, there is still no comprehensive, binding international treaty on the trade in conventional arms. There are more regulations in music and film industry but none in arms. Since the UN process started in December 2006, approximately 695,000 people have been killed directly with unregulated arms, illustrating the urgent need for an Arms Trade Treaty. With 2000 people dying every day from armed violence, Member States agreed to begin negotiations when they reconvene in October 2009 at the United Nations First Committee on Disarmament. Any further delay would means more lost lives.

The idea of a global ATT was inspired by Nobel Peace Laureates and developed by lawyers, human rights organisations, and humanitarian NGOs. It now enjoys the support of a growing number of governments (153 States), as well as more than 800 civil society organisations worldwide.

In India, the work is spear-headed by Control Arms Foundation of India and its partner organisations and till date more than 50,000 Indians and over 40 parliamentarians have voiced their concern to Government of India to support the process.

At the recently held open ended working group on Arms Trade Treaty in New York a clear message was given that a small number of States must no longer block the desire of the overwhelming majority for a legally binding Arms Trade Treaty.

The government of India participated actively in the process. According to a statement given by Shri Venkatesh Varma, Minister Disarmament of the Government of India who was negotiating on India’s behalf, “We are certain that there is now a growing international momentum working toward solving some of the problems identified. If there’s one message we can take from this OEWG, it is that dialogue is inherently good and necessary. We have shown the will to work together in an inclusive manner.  We hope that the next United Nations Open Ended Working Group for an Arms Trade Treaty will be of a different nature in terms of how we look at and how we wish to take forward this very important topic”.

Government of India in its earlier report in 2007 to United Nations Secretary General had stated that “It is premature to begin work on a comprehensive, legally binding instrument establishing common international standards for the import, export and transfer of conventional arms”. Like India, while the US has previously opposed discussions on a future Arms Trade Treaty, they are now willing to fully engage in the debate. But the process seems to be on track as the historic consensus just showed.

Ms Binalakshmi Nepram, Secretary General from Control Arms Foundation, “This first historic consensus moves the world closer to an Arms Trade Treaty. Most governments now support an Arms Trade Treaty and they must now move forward with urgency. The recently concluding Open Ended Working Group on Arms Trade Treaty is one step closer towards containing irresponsible arms transfers which have caused loss of lives of thousands worldwide including of Indian citizens as we recently saw in Mumbai”.


For more details, log on to  www.controlarms.org/en or www.cafi-online.org 
For interviews and other information, please contact :

Ms Binalakshmi Nepram & Team
Control Arms Foundation of India
B 5 / 146, First Floor, Safdarjung Enclave, New Delhi – 110 029
Phone: +91-11-46018541 Fax: +91-11-26166234
Mobile: +91-9868233373 Email : binalakshmi (at) gmail (dot) com

Note about the United Nations process for an international Arms Trade Treaty

On
6 December 2006, work on an international Arms Trade Treaty began
immediately following a historic vote in the UN General Assembly, which
saw 153 governments supporting the proposed Arms Trade Treaty. The UN
General Assembly resolution comes just three years after the launch of
the Control Arms campaign, which has seen over a million people in 170
countries calling for an international Arms Trade Treaty. Pursuant to
General Assembly Resolution 61/89, on 28 September 2007 the Secretary
General appointed a Group of Governmental Experts (GGE) from the 28
countries. India was one of the countries. The GGE have already met for
three sessions in New York in 2008 and in October 2008, 147 states
voted in favour of a second resolution on the ATT. This resolution
mandates the UN to establish an Open-Ended Working Group, open to all
UN member states to further consider the elements in the GGE report
where consensus could be developed for their inclusion in an eventual,
legally binding treaty. The first open ended working group took place
from 2 to 6 March 2009 and the second meeting took place from 13 to 17
July 2009.

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