Post date: Jul 28, 2012 5:31:44 PM
NEW YORK, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES (JULY 25, 2012) (REUTERS) - Delegations from around the world failed on Friday (July 27) to agree to a landmark UN arms-trade treaty to regulate the more than $60 billion industry, opting for further talks and a possible UN General Assembly vote by the end of the year, diplomats said.
Diplomats fail to agree on landmark UN arms-trade treaty, opting for further talks.
More than 170 countries have spent the past month in New York negotiating a treaty, which needed to be adopted by consensus, so any one country effectively could have vetoed a deal. Instead, no decision was taken on a draft treaty.
Oxfam's head of arms control, Anna MacDonald, said the draft text now under discussion needs to be worked on, however a large majority of countries had recognized the need for regulation of the international arms trade.
"What's really positive about it and what there is definitely a huge momentum around is that we have a very large majority of states who have agreed that the arms trade needs to be brought under control and needs to be regulated against rules around international humanitarian law and international human rights law. That's a first for conventional arms so it's a very big step forward," said MacDonald.
But despite the current failure to come to an agreement, additional talks and a draft arms-trade treaty could eventually be brought to the 193-nation UN General Assembly and adopted with a two-thirds majority vote. Diplomats said there could be a vote by the end of the year and cited conflicts in Syria and elsewhere as examples of why a treaty is necessary.
Arms-control activists blamed the United States and Russia for the inability to reach a decision on Friday, as both countries said there was not enough time left for them to clarify and resolve issues they had with the draft treaty. And while most UN member states favored a strong treaty, activists said there were also a small minority of states, including Syria, North Korea, Iran, Egypt and Algeria, who loudly voiced opposition to global arms control throughout the negotiations.
"It's not just the United States. Russia made a similar intervention. India last night made a similar intervention, and right the way through the process there has been a small number of states who have not shared the common view, so we had the likes of Iran, Syria, North Korea, Egypt, Venezuela, Cuba - they've been constantly, constantly been raising their concerns. Those concerns are different from the majority view, but in a consensus process, everybody's views are important," said Oliver Sprague, Programme Director Military Security and Police for Amnesty International UK in the corridors of the United Nations.
The draft arms-trade treaty under negotiation required countries to assess if a proposed arms export could be used to commit or facilitate a serious violation of international humanitarian or human rights law.
"Strict controls on the use and sale and transfer of conventional weapons are essential to protect human rights. In our own research, sixty percent of all of the people that suffer human rights violations, have those rights violated by using conventional weapons, at gunpoint for example," Sprague added.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed disappointment that meetings were inconclusive, but said he was encouraged UN members will continue pursuing "this noble goal."