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Arms Trade Treaty: Arms Summary and Update

Allison Pytlak, Control Arms
A good thing happened at the United Nations last June. The Arms Trade Treaty opened for
signature in a high profile ceremony and 67 Member States signed on, including current major
arms exporters (the UK, France, Germany and Italy) and those with emergent trade in weapons
exports (Mexico and Brazil).
The ATT is the first internationally binding agreement to regulate the $85 billion annual trade in
arms and ammunition. It creates binding obligations for governments to assess all arms
transfers to ensure that weapons wont be used for human-rights abuses, terrorism,
transnational organized crime or violations of humanitarian law. Governments bound by the
treaty will be required to refuse any transfers of weapons if there is a risk that countries will use
them to violate human rights or commit war crimes.
The treatys provisions are designed to reduce the devastating humanitarian suffering caused
worldwide when weapons and military equipment fall into the wrong hands.
This treaty now makes governments take responsibility for every arms transfer that enters or
leaves their territory, and requires they put human rights and humanitarian law, not profit, at the
heart of every decision, explains Anna Macdonald, the new director of Control Arms, the
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primary civil society coalition advocating for the treaty. An article published in the summer 2013
issue of Disarmament Times further details the treatys parameters and how it works.
In the year since the treatys opening for signature, 118 states have signed it and 31 of those
have ratified it. This represents remarkable progress for a pact that required six years of
diplomatic negotiations and more than a decade of campaigning by grass-roots organizations
and Nobel Peace laureates, among others.
Many heads of state attending the annual high-level opening of the General Assembly signed
the treaty in September. The ATT was also referenced in several resolutions passed by the
General Assemblys First Committee, which deals with disarmament, and in the first-ever
Security Council resolution on small arms and light weapons adopted in September.
More recently, on 2 April the one-year anniversary of the treatys adoption 18 governments
jointly submitted their ratification instruments at an event attended by high-ranking UN officials,
including Deputy Secretary General Jan Eliasson.
A number of important initiatives meant to support treaty implementation have emerged this
year as well. Seminars have taken place in the Pacific, the Caribbean, West Africa and Europe,
and more are planned for other regions. Such events bring together government officials, the
International Committee of the Red Cross, civil society experts and lawyers to discuss the
exploration of model legislation, provisional application of the arms treatys criteria, monitoring
and reporting, and regional challenges such as transit and transshipment.
For the treaty to enter into force, 50 countries must ratify it. It is widely expected that this will
happen by the end of this year. Plans are currently underway for a ceremony on 3 June to mark
the ATT anniversary and potentially welcome several new countries on board.
Some speculate that the 50
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ratification could actually happen at the June ceremony, which
would make the ATT one of the fastest-ever arms agreements to enter into force. Plans for the
treatys first Conference of States Parties have been discussed. The government of Mexico has
offered to host this forum, where treaty members can set the guidelines for future CSPs and
come to agreement on other key issues.
We have seen from the success of the Mine Ban Treaty and the Convention on Cluster
Munitions how the creation of new international standards becomes a deterrent for all, including
non-signatories. The ATT establishes new international law that will influence the behaviour of
all states.
Much work remains to be done by states and civil society to ensure that the treaty is
implemented properly and that other states join in. Yet the fact remains that the Arms Trade
Treaty has created a powerful new global standard.