Pressure Builds for Treaty to Regulate Small Arms Trade
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UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 25 (OneWorld) - Nobel peace prizewinners have joined hands with major human rights groups in urging nations to back U.N. moves to ink a treaty that would curb the illicit trade in small weapons.
"No weapons should ever be transferred if they will be used for serious violations of human rights," they said in a letter to the U.N. General Assembly's committee on disarmament, which in coming days is expected to ask delegates to vote on a resolution stating the need to adopt the proposed Arms Trade Treaty. The 15 Nobel laureates signing the letter included South Africa's Archbishop Desmond Titu, the Dalai Lama, former Costa Rican President Oscar Arias, Iranian lawyer Shirin Ebadi, top U.N. atomic watchdog Mohamed ElBaradei, and former Polish president and anti-communist labor leader Lech Walesa. The committee has held talks on the proposed pact for several years. If passed, it would help close loopholes in laws that allow the flow of small arms to conflict zones across the world and thus give rise to violations of human rights and undermine development, said diplomats and observers close to the negotiations. The laureates' letter said all international weapons transfers should be authorized by a recognized state and carried out in accordance with international law. "No state should authorize international arms transfers that violate the specific obligations under international law," the letter said. It further recommended that governments submit national reports on arms transfers to an international registry. Civil society groups, which have worked closely with the United Nations on the issue of small arms proliferation, estimate that in the past three years more than one million people have been killed as a result of the unchecked flow of guns and other small weapons. "A thousand people die every day and many more are harmed as a result of the proliferation and misuse of small arms," said Rebecca Peters, director of the International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA). "The world can no longer leave civilians to the mercy of gunrunners and arms brokers who are profiting every year," Peters added. Though cautiously optimistic about the outcome of the impending committee vote, Peters and others acknowledged that some influential nations continued to oppose the proposal for an international treaty. Some major arms exporters--including Britain, France, and Germany--seem willing to adopt the treaty. Others--including the United States, China, India, Russia, Iran, and Egypt--are considered unlikely to vote yes. The resolution's sponsors include Argentina, Australia, Costa Rica, Finland, Japan, Kenya, and Britain. If approved, it would set up a group of experts to look at the feasibility, scope, and parameters of an eventual treaty. The resolution would require the study group to report back to the full committee by 2008. Activists said several emerging arms exporters, such as Brazil, Bulgaria and Ukraine, and countries devastated by armed violence, including Colombia, East Timor, Haiti, Liberia, and Rwanda, are likely to back the resolution. "The majority of the world's governments have already championed the resolution," said Jeremy Hobbs, director of the charity Oxfam International. "As a result, we are increasingly confident it will go through." Expressing her support for the resolution, Irene Khan, Amnesty International's secretary-general, described the vote as "an historic step to stop irresponsible and immoral arms transfers." "It will prevent the death, rape, and displacement of thousands of people,'' Khan added. |
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