ATT Case Neg - Northwestern 2019

Case Neg – ATT
** T **
T --- Reduce
1NC
Interpretation --- to reduce means to diminish in size, amount, extent, or number
GUTIERREZ, 3, Chief Judge for the Idaho Court of Appeals (State v. Knutsen, 71 P. 3d 1065 - Idaho: Court
of Appeals, 1/29/03, http://caselaw.findlaw.com/id-court-of-appeals/1320950.html,
By its plain language, Rule 35 grants a district court the authority within a limited period of time to reduce or modify a defendant's sentence after
relinquishing jurisdiction. To “reduce” means to diminish in size, amount, extent or number, or to make
smaller, lessen or shrink. Webster's Third New International Dictionary 1905 (1993). To “modify” means to make more temperate and less
extreme, or to lessen the severity of something. Id. at 1452. Thus, under the plain meaning of its language, Rule 35 authorizes a district court to diminish, lessen
the severity of, or make more temperate a defendant's sentence. An order placing a defendant on probation lessens the severity of a defendant's sentence and
thus falls within the district court's authority granted by Rule 35. Other state jurisdictions have held likewise in interpreting similar rules for reduction of sentence.
See State v. Knapp, 739 P.2d 1229, 1231-32 (Wy.1987) (similar rule of criminal procedure authorizes reduction of a sentence of incarceration to probation); People
v. Santana, 961 P.2d 498, 499 (Co.Ct.App.1997) (grant of probation is a “reduction” under Colorado Cr. R. 35(b)).
A ratification is not a reduction of arm sales --- it’s the action of making a law valid
Kailyn Champlin, 18, worked as a Legal Secretary for nine years and specializes in Civil Litigation,
Family Law, and Criminal Law, 11/18/18, https://legaldictionary.net/ratification/
The term “ratification” describes

the act of making something officially valid by signing it or otherwise giving it formal
consent. For example, ratification occurs when parties sign a contract. The
signing of the contract makes it official, and it
can then be enforced by law, should the need arise . To explore this concept, consider the following ratification definition.
Violation --- the plan is an approval of an international regulation on arm sales --- they
don’t fiat a net decrease in arm sales because they don’t on-face result in reduction of
arms sales from the United States --- the plan text should specify
Standards ---
Precision --- our definitions captures the LEGALLY ENFORCED definitions --- that’s key
to predictable and lit-based debates
Limits --- they explode an already large and intricate topic to include the ratification
and implementation of international agreements --- that makes neg prep impossible
and decks clash
Ground --- allowing international treaty affs steals core negative cp ground and no-
links out of every generic DAs --- politics, arm sales bad, fill-in are just a few examples
Effects T is a voter --- the plan only eventually results in the reduction of arms sales
from the US --- it goes through the process of congressional approval, executive
ratification, implementation of the treaty, and follow on --- allowing this makes it
impossible to predict and debate because any governmental action could
hypothetically decrease arm sales at some point in the future --- links to all our
offense above
T --- DCS/FMS
1NC
Interpretation --- arm sales include solely DCS and FMS from the US – that’s the res
Paul Kerr, 19 – Congressional Research Service, “U.S. Arms Sales and Human Rights: Legislative Basis and
Frequently Asked Questions” 5/6/19, https://fas.org/sgp/crs/weapons/IF11197.pdf
The Arms Export Control Act (AECA; P.L. 90-629; 22 U.S.C. 2751 et seq.) and the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 (FAA;
P.L. 87-195; 22 U.S.C. 2151 et seq.) establish provisions governing Foreign Military Sales (FMS) and Direct
Commercial Sales (DCS) to foreign consumers, including foreign governments. FMS refers to the sale of U.S.-
origin defense articles, equipment, services, and training (hereafter referred to as “defense articles”) on a
government-to-government basis. DCS refers to the sale of U.S.-government licensed defense articles
and services directly from U.S. firms to eligible foreign governments and international organizations.
Violation --- they don’t specify what sales they reduce --- default to plan text in a
vacuum --- they’re not on face topical
Violation --- Ratifying the ATT results in a reduction of imports, transits, trans-
shipments, and brokering – none of these are FMS or DCS from the United States
ATT 13, Arms Trade Treaty, https://unoda-web.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-
content/uploads/2013/06/English7.pdf
Article 1
Object and Purpose
The object of this Treaty is to:
– Establish the highest possible common international standards for regulating or improving the regulation of the international trade in
conventional arms;
– Prevent and eradicate the illicit trade in conventional arms and prevent their diversion;
for the purpose of:
– Contributing to international and regional peace, security and stability;
– Reducing human suffering;
– Promoting cooperation, transparency and responsible action by States Parties in the international trade in conventional arms, thereby
building confidence among States Parties.
Article 2 Scope
1. This Treaty shall apply to all conventional arms within the following categories:
(a) Battle tanks;
(b) Armoured combat vehicles;
(c) Large-calibre artillery systems;
(d) Combat aircraft;
(e) Attack helicopters;

(f) Warships;
(g) Missiles and missile launchers; and
(h) Small arms and light weapons.
2. For the purposes of this Treaty, the activities of the international trade comprise export, import, transit,
trans-shipment and brokering, hereafter referred to as “transfer”.
3. This Treaty shall not apply to the international movement of conventional arms by, or on behalf of, a State Party for its use provided that the
conventional arms remain under that State Party’s ownership.
Article 3 Ammunition/Munitions
Each State Party shall establish and maintain a national control system to regulate the export of ammunition/munitions fired, launched or
delivered by the conventional arms covered under Article 2 (1), and shall apply the provisions of Article 6 and Article 7 prior to authorizing the
export of such ammunition/munitions.
Article 4
Parts and Components
Each State Party shall establish and maintain a national control system to regulate the export of parts
and components where the export is in a form that provides the capability to assemble the conventional arms covered under Article 2 (1)
and shall apply the provisions of Article 6 and Article 7 prior to authorizing the export of such parts and components.
Article 5
General Implementation
1. Each State Party shall implement this Treaty in a consistent, objective and non-discriminatory manner, bearing in mind the principles referred
to in this Treaty.
2. Each State Party shall establish and maintain a national control system, including a national control list , in
order to implement the provisions of this Treaty.
3. Each State Party is encouraged to apply the provisions of this Treaty to the broadest range of conventional arms. National definitions of any
of the categories covered under Article 2 (1) (a)-(g) shall not cover less than the descriptions used in the United Nations Register of
Conventional Arms at the time of entry into force of this Treaty. For the category covered under Article 2 (1) (h), national definitions shall not
cover less than the descriptions used in relevant United Nations instruments at the time of entry into force of this Treaty.
4. Each State Party, pursuant to its national laws, shall provide its national control list to the Secretariat, which shall
make it available to other States Parties. States Parties are encouraged to make their control lists publicly available.
5. Each State Party shall take measures necessary to implement the provisions of this Treaty and shall designate competent
national authorities in order to have an effective and transparent national control system regulating
the transfer of conventional arms covered under Article 2 (1) and of items covered under Article 3 and Article 4.
designate one or more national points of contact to exchange information on matters

6. Each State Party shall
related to the implementation of this Treaty. Each State Party shall notify the Secretariat, established under Article 18, of its
national point(s) of contact and keep the information updated.
Article 6 Prohibitions
1. A State Party shall not authorize any transfer of conventional arms covered under Article 2 (1) or of items covered under Article 3 or Article 4,
if the transfer
would violate its obligations under measures adopted by the United Nations Security Council acting under Chapter VII of the Charter of the
United Nations, in particular arms embargoes.
if the transfer would violate its relevant international obligations under international agreements to which it is a Party, in particular those
relating to the transfer of, or illicit trafficking in, conventional arms.
if it has knowledge at the time of authorization that the arms or items would be used in the commission of genocide, crimes against humanity,
grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 1949, attacks directed against civilian objects or civilians protected as such, or other war crimes
as defined by international agreements to which it is a Party.
Article 7
Export and Export Assessment
1. If the export is not prohibited under Article 6, each exporting State Party, prior to authorization of the export of conventional arms covered
under Article 2 (1) or of items covered under Article 3 or Article 4, under its jurisdiction and pursuant to its national control system, shall, in an
objective and non-discriminatory manner, taking into account relevant factors, including information provided by the importing State in
accordance with Article 8 (1), assess the potential that the conventional arms or items:
(a) would contribute to or undermine peace and security;
(b) could be used to:
(i) commit or facilitate a serious violation of international humanitarian law;
(ii) commit or facilitate a serious violation of international human rights law;
(iii) commit or facilitate an act constituting an offence under international
conventions or protocols relating to terrorism to which the exporting State is a Party; or
(iv) commit or facilitate an act constituting an offence under international conventions or protocols relating to transnational organized crime to
which the exporting State is a Party.
2. The exporting State Party shall also consider whether there are measures that could be undertaken to mitigate risks identified in (a) or (b) in
paragraph 1, such as confidence-building measures or jointly developed and agreed programmes by the exporting and importing States.
3. If, after conducting this assessment and considering available mitigating measures, the exporting State Party determines that there is an
overriding risk of any of the negative consequences in paragraph 1, the exporting State Party shall not authorize the export.
4. The exporting State Party, in making this assessment, shall take into account the risk of the conventional arms covered under Article 2 (1) or
of the items covered under Article 3 or Article 4 being used to commit or facilitate serious acts of gender- based violence or serious acts of
violence against women and children.
5. Each exporting State Party shall take measures to ensure that all authorizations for the export of conventional arms covered under Article 2
(1) or of items covered under Article 3 or Article 4 are detailed and issued prior to the export.
6. Each exporting State Party shall make available appropriate information about the authorization in question, upon request, to the importing
State Party and to the transit or trans-shipment States Parties, subject to its national laws, practices or policies.
7. If, after an authorization has been granted, an exporting State Party becomes aware of new relevant information, it is encouraged to reassess
the authorization after consultations, if appropriate, with the importing State.
Article 8 Import
1. Each importing State Party shall take measures to ensure that appropriate and relevant information is
provided, upon request, pursuant to its national laws, to the exporting State Party, to assist the exporting State Party in
conducting its national export assessment under Article 7. Such measures may include end use or end user
documentation .
2. Each importing State Party shall take

measures that will allow it to regulate, where necessary, imports under its
jurisdiction of conventional arms covered under Article 2 (1). Such measures may include import systems .
3. Each importing State Party may request information from the exporting State Party concerning any pending or actual export authorizations
where the importing State Party is the country of final destination.
Article 9
Transit or trans-shipment
Each State Party shall take appropriate measures to regulate, where necessary and feasible, the transit or trans-
shipment under its jurisdiction of conventional arms covered under Article 2 (1) through its territory in accordance with relevant
international law.
Article 10 Brokering
Each State Party shall take measures, pursuant to its national laws, to regulate brokering taking place under its jurisdiction
for conventional arms covered under Article 2 (1). Such measures may include requiring brokers to register or obtain written authorization
before engaging in brokering.
Article 11 Diversion
1. Each State Party involved in the transfer of conventional arms covered under Article 2 (1) shall take measures to prevent their
diversion.
2. The exporting State Party shall seek to prevent the diversion of the transfer of conventional arms covered under Article 2 (1) through its
national control system, established in accordance with Article 5 (2), by assessing the risk of diversion of the export and considering the
establishment of mitigation measures such as confidence-building measures or jointly developed and agreed programmes by the exporting and
importing States. Other prevention measures may include, where appropriate: examining parties involved in the export, requiring additional
documentation, certificates, assurances, not authorizing the export or other appropriate measures.
3. Importing, transit, trans-shipment and exporting States Parties shall cooperate and exchange
information , pursuant to their national laws, where appropriate and feasible, in order to mitigate the risk of diversion of the
transfer of conventional arms covered under Article 2 (1).
4. If a State Party detects a diversion of transferred conventional arms covered under Article 2 (1), the State Party shall take appropriate
measures, pursuant to its national laws and in accordance with international law, to address such diversion. Such measures may include
alerting potentially affected States Parties, examining diverted shipments of such conventional arms covered under Article 2 (1), and taking
follow-up measures through investigation and law enforcement.
5. In order to better comprehend and prevent the diversion of transferred conventional arms covered under Article 2 (1), States Parties are
encouraged to share relevant information with one another on effective measures to address diversion. Such information may include
information on illicit activities including corruption, international trafficking routes, illicit brokers, sources of illicit supply, methods of
concealment, common points of dispatch, or destinations used by organized groups engaged in diversion.
6. States Parties are encouraged to report to other States Parties, through the Secretariat, on measures taken in addressing the diversion of
transferred conventional arms covered under Article 2 (1).
Article 12 Record keeping
1. EachState Party shall maintain national records, pursuant to its national laws and regulations , of its
issuance of export authorizations or its actual exports of the conventional arms covered under Article 2
(1).
2. Each State Party is encouraged to maintain records of conventional arms covered under Article 2 (1) that are transferred to its territory as the
final destination or that are authorized to transit or trans-ship territory under its jurisdiction.
3. Each State Party is encouraged to include in those records: the quantity, value, model/type, authorized international transfers of
conventional arms covered under Article 2 (1), conventional arms actually transferred, details of exporting State(s), importing State(s), transit
and trans-shipment State(s), and end users, as appropriate.
4. Records shall be kept for a minimum of ten years.

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Article 13 Reporting
1. Each State Party shall , within the first year after entry into force of this Treaty for that State Party, in accordance with Article 22,
provide an initial report to the Secretariat of measures undertaken in order to implement this Treaty,
including national laws, national control lists and other regulations and administrative measures .
Each State Party shall report to the Secretariat on any new measures undertaken in order to
implement this Treaty, when appropriate. Reports shall be made available, and distributed to States
Parties by the Secretariat.
2. States Parties are encouraged to report to other States Parties, through the Secretariat, information on measures taken that have been proven
effective in addressing the diversion of transferred conventional arms covered under Article 2 (1).
3. Each State Party shall submit annually to the Secretariat by 31 May a report for the preceding
calendar year concerning authorized or actual exports and imports of conventional arms covered under
Article 2 (1). Reports shall be made available, and distributed to States Parties by the Secretariat. The report submitted to the Secretariat may contain the
same information submitted by the State Party to relevant United Nations frameworks, including the United Nations Register of Conventional Arms.
Reports may exclude commercially sensitive or national security information.
Article 14 Enforcement
Each State Party shall take appropriate measures to enforce national laws and regulations that implement the provisions of this Treaty.
Article 15
International Cooperation
1. States Parties shall cooperate with each other , consistent with their respective security interests and national laws, to
effectively implement this Treaty.
2. States Parties are encouraged to facilitate international cooperation, including exchanging information on matters of mutual interest regarding the
implementation and application of this Treaty pursuant to their respective security interests and national laws.
3. States Parties are encouraged to consult on matters of mutual interest and to share information, as appropriate, to support the implementation of this
Treaty.
4. States Parties are encouraged to cooperate, pursuant to their national laws, in order to assist national implementation of the provisions of this Treaty,
including through sharing information regarding illicit activities and actors and in order to prevent and eradicate diversion of conventional arms covered
under Article 2 (1).
States Parties shall , where jointly agreed and consistent with their national laws, afford one another the widest measure
5.
of assistance in investigations, prosecutions and judicial proceedings in relation to violations of

national measures established pursuant to this Treaty.
6. States Parties are encouraged to take national measures and to cooperate with each other to prevent the transfer of conventional arms covered under
Article 2 (1) becoming subject to corrupt practices.
7. States Parties are encouraged to exchange experience and information on lessons learned in relation to any aspect of this Treaty.
Article 16
International Assistance
1. In implementing this Treaty, each State Party may seek assistance including legal or legislative assistance, institutional capacity-
building, and technical, material or financial assistance. Such assistance may include stockpile management,
disarmament, demobilization and reintegration programmes, model legislation, and effective

practices for implementation. Each State Party in a position to do so shall provide such assistance,
upon request .
2. Each State Party may request, offer or receive assistance through, inter alia, the United Nations, international, regional, subregional or national
organizations, non-governmental organizations, or on a bilateral basis.
3. A voluntary trust fund shall be established by States Parties to assist requesting States Parties requiring international assistance to implement this
Treaty. Each State Party is encouraged to contribute resources to the fund.
Article 17
Conference of States Parties
1. A Conference of States Parties shall be convened by the provisional Secretariat, established under Article 18, no later than one year following the entry
into force of this Treaty and thereafter at such other times as may be decided by the Conference of States Parties.
2. The Conference of States Parties shall adopt by consensus its rules of procedure at its first session.
3. The Conference of States Parties shall adopt financial rules for itself as well as governing the funding
of any subsidiary bodies it may establish as well as financial provisions governing the functioning of
the Secretariat . At each ordinary session, it shall adopt a budget for the financial period until the next ordinary session.
4. The Conference of States Parties shall:

(a) Review the implementation of this Treaty, including developments in the field of conventional arms;
(b) Consider and adopt recommendations regarding the implementation and operation of this Treaty, in particular the promotion of its
universality;
(c) Consider amendments to this Treaty in accordance with Article 20;

(d) Consider issues arising from the interpretation of this Treaty;
(e) Consider and decide the tasks and budget of the Secretariat;
(f) Consider the establishment of any subsidiary bodies as may be necessary
to improve the functioning of this Treaty; and
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(g) Perform any other function consistent with this Treaty.
5. Extraordinary meetings of the Conference of States Parties shall be held at such other times as may be deemed necessary by the Conference of States
Parties, or at the written request of any State Party provided that this request is supported by at least two-thirds of the States Parties.
Article 18 Secretariat
1. This Treaty hereby establishes a Secretariat to assist States Parties in the effective implementation of this Treaty. Pending the first meeting of the
Conference of States Parties, a provisional Secretariat will be responsible for the administrative functions covered under this Treaty.
2. The Secretariat shall be adequately staffed. Staff shall have the necessary expertise to ensure that the Secretariat can effectively undertake the
responsibilities described in paragraph 3.
3. The Secretariat shall be responsible to States Parties. Within a minimized structure, the Secretariat shall undertake the following responsibilities:
(a) Receive, make available and distribute the reports as mandated by this Treaty;
(b) Maintain and make available to States Parties the list of national points of contact;
(c) Facilitate the matching of offers of and requests for assistance for Treaty implementation and promote international cooperation as requested;
(d) Facilitate the work of the Conference of States Parties, including making arrangements and providing the necessary services for meetings under this
Treaty; and
(e) Perform other duties as decided by the Conferences of States Parties.
Article 19
Dispute Settlement
States Parties shall consult and , by mutual consent, cooperate to pursue settlement of any dispute that
1.
may arise between them with regard to the interpretation or application of this Treaty including
through negotiations, mediation, conciliation, judicial settlement or other peaceful means.
2. States Parties may pursue, by mutual consent, arbitration to settle any dispute between them, regarding issues concerning the interpretation or
application of this Treaty.
Article 20 Amendments
1. Six years after the entry into force of this Treaty, any State Party may propose an amendment to this Treaty. Thereafter, proposed amendments may
only be considered by the Conference of States Parties every three years.
2. Any proposal to amend this Treaty shall be submitted in writing to the Secretariat, which shall circulate the proposal to all States Parties, not less than
180 days before the next meeting of the Conference of States Parties at which amendments may be considered pursuant to paragraph 1. The
amendment shall be considered at the next Conference of States Parties at which amendments may be considered pursuant to paragraph 1 if, no later
than 120 days after its circulation by the Secretariat, a majority of States Parties notify the Secretariat that they support consideration of the proposal.
3. The States Parties shall make every effort to achieve consensus on each amendment . If all efforts at
consensus have been exhausted, and no agreement reached, the amendment shall, as a last resort, be adopted by a three-quarters majority vote of the
States Parties present and voting at the meeting of the Conference of States Parties. For the purposes of this Article, States Parties present
and voting means States Parties present and casting an affirmative or negative vote. The Depositary shall
communicate any adopted amendment to all States Parties.
4. An amendment adopted in accordance with paragraph 3 shall enter into force for each State Party
that has deposited its instrument of acceptance for that amendment , ninety days following the date of deposit with
the Depositary of the instruments of acceptance by a majority of the number of States Parties at the time of the adoption of the amendment. Thereafter,
it shall enter into force for any remaining State Party ninety days following the date of deposit of its instrument of acceptance for that amendment.
Article 21
Signature, Ratification, Acceptance, Approval or Accession
1. This Treaty shall be open for signature at the United Nations Headquarters in New York by all States from 3 June 2013 until its entry into force.
2. This Treaty is subject to ratification, acceptance or approval by each signatory State.
3. Following its entry into force, this Treaty shall be open for accession by any State that has not signed the Treaty.
4. The instruments of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession shall be deposited with the Depositary.
Standards ---
Limits --- they explode an already expansive definition of DCS and FMS to include
further regulations on arms sales --- that makes neg prep impossible and decks clash
Ground --- allowing non-DCS and non-FMS related regulations wreck core generic cps
like the end arm sales to x country cps, and all DCS and FMS bad das
Extra T is a voter --- even if the plan results in a decrease in FMS and/or DCS sales from
the US, there are still non topical aspects of it which still links to all of our offense.
Allowing extra T means literally any action is topical if you staple a topical plank to it –
this destroys debate.
Risk Assessment CP
Core
Risk Assesment CP---1NC
The United States federal government should:
-- conduct risk-based assessments before tentative arms exports to; determine any
adverse effects on civilians, and base partner capability on adherence to international
law
-- develop an ongoing system to alert policymakers of the need for additional risk
mitigation.
Solves the case

Rachel Stohl 18, Managing Director at the Stimson Center and consultant to the Arms Trade Treaty
process, and Daniel R. Mahanty, Director of the U.S. program at Center for Civilians in Conflict, 2-1-18,
“If We’re Going to Export More US Arms, Let’s Do It Smarter”,
https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2018/02/if-were-going-export-more-us-arms-lets-do-it-
smarter/145644/?utm_content=buffer9e726&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_ca
mpaign=buffer
Fortunately, there is room for improvement in the current arms-export process. A smarter, risk-based
approach – focused on certain items, sold to certain partners, at certain times – will save lives.
Indeed, various process-focused measures could make it easier to sell more arms overall, while
reducing adverse consequences and strengthening international norms. Arms manufacturers want to sell their
wares, but do not want their weapons to indiscriminately harm civilians. An arms transfer process that is focused on risk
mitigation and looks at the long-term potential of U.S. arms sales better serves U.S. interests – for
national security, for broader foreign policy, and for economic vitality.
In a recent report released by Center for Civilians in Conflict and the Stimson Center, we argue that the U.S. government has the
ability and, importantly, the responsibility to adapt the sales of a few weapons categories, such as
fighter aircraft, bombs, and explosives, to reflect the realities of conflicts where civilians bear the
brunt of these weapons. We recommend revitalizing U.S. processes to place risk assessments at the
center of arms transfer decision-making. Among several recommendations, we argue that the State and
Defense Departments refine their analyses of partner country capabilities, to include the capacity to
use weapons and weapons systems in accordance with international law, and to customize partner
capacity building as needed. We propose the development of a political violence and conflict tripwire
system that could signal to policymakers the potential need for additional risk mitigation measures.
We recommend that the U.S. government ensure that it has the access it needs to conduct
operational oversight of major weapons systems it sells, so that it can ascertain for itself if the
weapons are being misused once delivered. And we recommend that the terms of sale be
strengthened for this small sub-set of major systems so that policymakers have more and better
options if a weapon is misused or diverted.
Solvency
2NC Solvency
The counterplan has the Departments of State and Defense analyze security risks from
pending arms sales based on civilian effects and the arms buyer’s adherence to
international law. Alerting policymakers enables sound decision-making and
international leadership without damaging the economy or national security---that’s
THEIR AUTHOR---Rachel Stohl---a consultant on the drafting of the ATT
The CP solves best – mitigates the risk of weapon misuse and pioneers a more
accountable process without compromising efficiency
Rachel Stohl 18, Managing Director at the Stimson Center and consultant to the Arms Trade Treaty
process, and Daniel R. Mahanty, Director of the U.S. program at Center for Civilians in Conflict, 2-1-18,
“If We’re Going to Export More US Arms, Let’s Do It Smarter”,
https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2018/02/if-were-going-export-more-us-arms-lets-do-it-
smarter/145644/?utm_content=buffer9e726&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_ca
mpaign=buffer
We developed our recommendations in consideration of American industrial and security interests. In

a better understanding of partner nation capabilities could open new possibilities for materiel
our view,
and training that American vendors could provide. Conflict tripwires that compel a review of arms
sales policy earlier could give policymakers more time to determine their options and to
communicate their intentions early, not only with the buying countries, but with the defense industry
as well. This may mean restricting the sale of items if necessary and if in US policy interests to do so, but it could
also mean getting an earlier start on customized training and capacity building that can mitigate the
risk of a weapon being misused before conflict starts. Meanwhile, greater access that leads to improved
operational oversight would actually draw the US closer to its partners, especially under
circumstances where security interests are aligned. Finally, creative adjustments to pre-sale terms and
conditions may strengthen the US government’s hand in the event that circumstances on the ground,
where the weapon system is being used, changes. The enemies of our friends are not always our enemies.
Critics may say that any additional requirements would slow down the process and cede more market
space to competitors. But countries that buy American systems want the quality, service, and reputation that American
manufacturers are known for. Our recommendations could also actually go hand in hand with other process
improvements to foreign military sales designed to streamline, and expedite, the process. And hopefully,
they would help the US government achieve its own stated policy goal of minimizing the effect of war
on civilians. While the steps we recommend will take time, resources, and creativity, we have no
doubt that good people in the State and Defense Departments are up to the challenge, if properly
supported by Congress.
The United States can be the world leader not only in arms sales, but in pioneering a more responsible
and accountable transfer process. That would truly make America great.
Solvency – Partner Capability
The CP best trains officials to sell according to partner capability to use arms exports
properly – prevents rushed ‘wish-list’ transactions
Daniel R. Mahanty 18, Director of the U.S. program at Center for Civilians in Conflict, and Annie Shiel,
security and human rights researcher at Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, 1-
10-18, “With Great Power: Modifying US Arms Sales to Reduce Civilian Harm”,
https://www.stimson.org/content/great-power-modifying-us-arms-sales-reduce-civilian-harm-0
*CTA = country team assessment
Misaligned Capabilities and Needs: The acquisition of conventional arms is an essential part of developing the
warfighting capabilities a country needs to service its national security and defense aims. However, to
be used effectively and appropriately, for legitimate purposes and in legitimate ways, the acquisition of arms
must align with a clear and coherent strategy and real institutional capacities. Arms acquisitions
should be supported and reinforced by military infrastructure, budgetary resources, doctrine,
appropriate training, and technical expertise for industrial sustainment. For example, the US military
part acquires arms based on its own “DOTMLPF-P” framework, which considers how weapons systems align with
Doctrine, Organization, Training, Materiel, Leadership, Personnel, Facilities, and Policy.
While purchasing arms from the US through the FMS “total package approach” can help to fill gaps in
certain areas, such as sustainment and training, large deviations between newly acquired arms and
the capability to employ them appropriately can be difficult to resolve on short timelines and without
adequate commitment or resources. As such, the US government undertakes an assessment of the capabilities and needs of the
purchasing government using the country team assessment (CTA) prior to authorizing a sale in order to ensure that the item comports with a
In a standard CTA, the US embassy country team is tasked with evaluating
legitimate need and capacity.
whether or not the defense item serves a legitimate defense need, whether the item is likely to be
misused, and whether the purchasing country can sustain the item (see Annex E).87 When considered
seriously by decision makers, a thorough and proper assessment can help to reduce the likelihood
that any defense item sold by the United States will be used incorrectly or for unsuitable purposes.
Current and former US government officials told our researchers that setting
requirements—matching arms sales with the
real needs of the partner—is one of the most important elements of the process, yet often where
most problems originate.88,89 One reason for discrepancies is that the US government’s interests in selling arms
are distributed between industry, national security, and foreign policy aims. Where some foreign
policy concerns, like human rights, may commend a more cautious approach, other economic or
security incentives may promote riskier or higher volume sales. As a result of this interplay, security
cooperation officers or other officials may represent details in a CTA in biased or incomplete ways
that can lead to ill-advised transactions.
officials described a so-called “wish-list phenomenon,” wherein the US

In interviews, former government
government and the purchasing country pursue sales agreements based on a wish list of high-tech
items that often greatly exceeds the capacity of the purchasing country’s military to appropriately use
or sustain the weapons systems.90 ,91 SCOs, who most often interact with the partner nation and receive
these “wish-lists,” are trained primarily in technical contracting, process, and budgeting skills, and
often lack sufficient regional expertise or training to successfully identify the real needs and existing
capabilities of the partner defense institutions.92,93 According to the “Green Book,” the basic textbook employed by the
Defense Institute of Security Cooperation Studies (DISCS), “For the SCO, [the host country relationship] is the raison d’être.” 94 But without
the proper training and controls, increased sales of wish-list items may come at the expense of proper
and lawful use.
Lack of regulation allows industry representatives to pressure Congress into a hasty

sale
Spoilers: In
some cases, senior White House, Defense, or State Department officials press for sales that
are difficult to defend on the basis of an objective assessment of legitimate needs, capacity, or risks. In
some of these cases, the
“pressure to deliver” exerted by public officials sped up the pre-sale review
process, prioritizing bilateral deliverables over due diligence. Similarly, industry representatives
commonly “lobby” purchasing country to buy a certain system or item, even if the item in question is
ill-suited to the purchaser’s actual needs and capabilities. It is also not uncommon for industry
representatives to intervene directly with State Department and other officials when a DCS license is
delayed or rejected.95 For example, the New York Times reported in December 2016 that major arm manufacturer
Raytheon’s chief executive “personally lobbied Tony Blinken, the deputy secretary of state, and also
reached out to Secretary of State John Kerry and Susan Rice, the national security adviser” to push for
the sale of guided munitions to Saudi Arabia, which were ultimately denied by the Obama
administration.96 However, while the federal, state and local governments often provide large subsidies and tax breaks to defense
contractors – ostensibly to create jobs – research has shown that military spending creates fewer jobs than other kinds of government
spending. 97,98
Solvency – Oversight
Solves risk mitigation – Congressional oversight provides checks that didn’t exist in the
squo
Congressional Oversight: The

notification and subsequent evaluation of a proposed sale by Congress should
provide for the checks and balances needed to ensure the adequate consideration of risk and
alignment with the American public interest. However, many in Congress and their staff are unaware
of the risks involved with certain sales or the available risk mitigation options that could be
demanded as a prerequisite for the sale. The Senate Appropriations Committee is not notified of arms
sales, and thus the legislative body with arguably the largest oversight role for US security assistance
has little formal role in ensuring adequate oversight of arms sales as a security cooperation activity.
Solvency – Adaptability
Adapting responses to changing dynamics prevents unintended political consequences
The potential for undesired consequences as a result of arms

Lack of Process Adaptations for the Onset of Conflict:
sales increases when a purchasing country becomes involved in non-international or international conflict. The
onset of conflict may also carry legal implications if the US is selling arms to one or more parties to
the conflict, depending on the nature and significance of the weapons being sold. However, no
automatic or systematic controls currently exist to appropriately adapt the arms sales process as the
risk of political violence or armed conflict increases, including by thoroughly re-assessing partner
capabilities, behavior, risk and liability under new or evolving conflict dynamics.101 Without such a
systematic review, conflict may create a sense of urgency that in fact reduces pre-sale scrutiny or
deference to human rights concerns, particularly when a partner is waging a military campaign.102
Solvency---Circumvention Turn
US circumvents international law---only the CP solves
Challenges of applying international law86: In

theory, international and domestic laws may apply to arms sales
prior to the actual purchase (i.e., an ex ante evaluation of the lawfulness of the sale itself), or once a sale has already
taken place (i.e., an ex-post evaluation of the use of an item that has already been sold). As described in Part 1, the precise degree
of US responsibility in arms sales may depend on the level and type of support it provides, its
knowledge of partner practices, and any discernible intent to facilitate unlawful acts.
In practice, restricting US arms sales purely on the basis of the most directly relevant sources of
domestic and international law is difficult if not impossible, especially when a legal challenge to a
sale originates from outside of the US government itself. The degree to which the US weighs what it
knows about its partners’ internal operational processes vs. what it can deduce from observable
patterns in its legal evaluation of conduct is unknown, may vary by case, and depend on specific facts.
It is possible that absent any indicia of partner “intent,” and without access to partner military
operations, the United States may rarely determine that a purchasing state has committed violations of
international humanitarian law, even when facts suggest reckless conduct or the likelihood of
unlawful acts. It is also possible that the United States may have privileged access to information, and
could determine that a partner has operated in accordance with international law, even when the
consequences of partner conduct suggest otherwise.
Certain US laws, such as the Arms Export Control Act, hold promise for strengthening controls on high-
risk US arms exports, but could be strengthened with additional clarification of intent that the scope
and intent includes likely violations of law by end-users. Technicalities that relieve the US government of legal liability
do not automatically relieve the US government from association with the human consequences of its decisions.
Weak language means international conditions fail due to intentional

misinterpretation – the CP adds more rigorous terms of sale
Weak Terms of Sale: The standard terms and conditions in a LOA do not bind the purchasing country to
abide by IHL or other behavioral restrictions; rather, they include the benign language that “The purchaser notes
its obligations under International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights Law.”99 The standard terms
and conditions do commit the purchaser to agree to use the articles under the terms specified by the
AECA, including internal security, and legitimate self-defense; however, the fact that these uses are not
defined or further elaborated leaves the purchaser’s interpretation of “legitimate purpose”
vulnerable to abuse. As written, the standard terms and conditions set a low baseline of expectation
of use by the purchasing country, and therefore a weak basis for the US to challenge a partner on
misuse using the terms of sale (even though the US government does reserve the right to terminate the LOA at any time).
The authority to amend the standard terms of sale for certain items resides with the Director of DSCA .
In a 2016 Memo on Cluster Munitions, for example, DSCA Director Joseph Rixey (Annex G) mandated that any new letters
of agreement obligate the purchaser to report on the circumstances of use: “a requirement that the
purchaser agrees whenever the munitions being sold are taken out of inventory on a permanent basis
to report the date, quantity, place expended, and a brief description of the circumstances under which
it was expended.”100
Competition
AT: PDCP
It severs the plan’s mechanism – The CP competes by not ratifying the treaty, while
the plan text specifically mandates a ratification. Severance is a voting issue for
fairness and ground – makes the aff a moving target and allows them to spike out of
links. Reject the team, not the argument, to set a precedent.
Dark Web CP
Core
Dark Web CP---1NC
The United States federal government should:
--substantially increase online sting operations of illicit arms trade conducted on the
dark web
and
-- publish quantitative and qualitative assessments detailing the nature of dark web
arms sales in response to such operations.
Online sting campaigns are the best solution barring further study
Dr. Christopher L. Copeland 19, Doctor of science specializing in security and cyber forensics, Mikaela
Wallin, doctoral candidate in criminal justice, and Dr. Thomas J. Holt, professor in the Michigan State
School for Criminal justice specializing in cybercrime, 3-30-19, “Assessing the Practices and Products of
Darkweb Firearm Vendors”, https://www.gwern.net/docs/sr/2019-copeland.pdf, DOI:
10.1080/01639625.2019.1596465
these findings provide some direction for law enforcement practitioners. Unlike the
Taken as a whole,
processes of data and drug markets, weapons vendors appear to operate in environments that
cannot be subverted through slander or Sybil attacks that leverage the feedback and trust
mechanisms in the community to sow mistrust (e.g. Franklin et al. 2007; Holt and Lampke 2010; Hutchings and Holt 2017).
Law enforcement could concentrate efforts toward the creation of convincing undercover
advertisements to entice potential buyers to sting operations (see also Hutchings and Holt 2017). For instance,
posting ads with dynamically rotating stock and pricing would could be a useful mechanism to
facilitate the perception of trust in a market that has little to no feedback tool for users.
In addition, this study emphasizes the need for continuing research to assess the state of illicit products
sold through online markets operating on the clear and darkweb. The increasing use of technological
platforms as a medium to sell illegal physical goods challenges our understanding of the nature of
illicit markets, particularly for those goods that can be readily identified through inspection and
traditional detection methods (Holt and Bossler 2016). It is unknown how the use of online platforms may
affect the distribution and pricing for illicit products, or the ways that offender’s behaviors will
change in the face of aggressive enforcement and takedown campaigns (e.g. Holt, Blevins, and Kuhns 2014;
The use of exploratory qualitative and quantitative assessments such as this study
Hutchings and Holt 2017).
are essential to provide direction for future scholarship and identify potential paths for illicit markets
to evolve overtime and transition on and off-line.
Solvency
2NC Solvency---Modeling
Solves modeling – study and undercover monitoring solve and improve the efficacy of
existing international mandates
Dr. Giacomo Persi Paoli 17, associate director of the Defense, Security, and Infrastructure group at
RAND, Judith Aldridge, professor of criminology, Nathan Ryan, analyst at RAND Europe, and Richard
Warnes, counterterror research fellow at RAND Europe, 7-20-17, “Behind the curtain: The illicit trade of
firearms, explosives and ammunition on the dark web”,
https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR2091.html.
significant value can be obtained by using empirical analysis methodologies

This study has demonstrated that
to investigate dark web-enabled arms trafficking. Taking into account the caveats and limitations described throughout the
report, this study represents the first systematic, evidence-based assessment of the trafficking in
firearms (including their parts, components, accessories and ammunition) and explosives. However,
based on the observations above, further research is necessary to further develop the understanding
of the market characteristics (e.g. size, scope and value of the dark web arms trafficking), the products available and
the actors involved (e.g. buyers, vendors, administrators, and others).
in order to generate a more robust understanding of the role of the dark web in enabling
In particular,
arms trafficking, more continuous monitoring activity should be undertaken. This would involve
repeating and refining the data collection and analysis presented in this report over time in order to
generate historical data that can be used to analyse trends. This would also enable a more rigorous
assessment of the validity and applicability of current national and international counter-arms
trafficking regimes including policies, laws and regulations, actors and resources.
Further study is necessary, but we know enough about the process to infiltrate
10.1080/01639625.2019.1596465
Though a number of studies have examined the proliferation of small arms and light weapons (SALW)
via real world means there is generally little research considering the role of the Internet generally
and the Dark Web specifically in the illicit market for weapons (see Paoli et al. 2017). There have been
multiple arrests and prosecutions of vendors on federal charges in the US related to firearms
trafficking via Dark Web markets since 2015 (District of Massachusetts 2016; McKay 2018; Middle District of Alabama 2015;
Office of Public Affairs, Department of Justice 2017; Western District of Michigan 2015). There have also been several arrests
and takedowns of firearms vendors internationally over the last few years as well (C. M. 2018; Cox 2015).
Beyond these incidents, little is known about the quantity or types of firearms sold through Dark Web
markets, their price points, or operational techniques in order to ship purchased goods to buyers.
Examinations of traditional physical markets for SALW, whether white, grey or black, argue that they
can be thought of as a
traditional supply chain for products (Markowski et al. 2009; Rothe and Collins 2011). Similar evidence has been
found for the illicit online distribution of physical goods including drugs (Cunliffe, Martin, and Decary-Hetu 2017;
Decary-Hetu and Giommoni 2017; Martin 2014), as well as digital resources such as malicious software (Holt 2013)
and stolen personal information on the open and dark web (e.g. Franklin et al. 2007; Smirnova and Holt 2017; van
Hardeveld, Webber, and O’Hara 2017).
It is possible the social and structural factors that shape these markets may also be observed with online
markets for SALW. In particular, there is substantial evidence that vendors operating on the darkweb
require payments via cryptocurrencies like bitcoin (e.g. Ablon et al. 2014; Cunliffe et al. 2017; Martin 2014; Smirnova and
Holt 2017). Illicit markets that utilize Dark Web services operate in two primary forms: forums and shops
(Li and Chen 2014). First, forums function in a similar fashion to illicit markets operating on the Open Web,
wherein a vendor posts an ad for their product, indicating price point, methods of communication,
payment, and their terms of service (Cunliffe et al. 2017; Li and Chen 2014; Smirnova and Holt 2017). Prospective
customers can then post questions to the seller about their products, and they may contact the buyer
separately outside of the forum to engage in a transaction.
Solvency – Feedback
Capitalizing on methods to improve feedback is the best way to gain trust – key to
effective sting operations
10.1080/01639625.2019.1596465
Forums are also operated by an individual or group with some hierarchical structure, thereby enabling
third-party regulatory control over posts and user behavior (e.g. Holt 2013; Martin 2014). Forum operators
supporting illicit markets on the open or dark web frequently attempt to find ways to manage user
encounters so as to minimize in-fighting and promote sales. One of the key mechanisms to encourage
economic exchanges is through enabling users to post reviews of vendors’ products and services.
Seemingly unbiased customer reviews provide a measure of transparency to the market so that
customers can identify vendors who cheat their customers, through the delivery of poor quality
products or by sending nothing to the buyer after they receive payment (e.g. Holt 2013; Hutchings and Holt 2015).
Thus,the use of feedback enables buyers a measure of crowd-sourced information to check a vendor’s
legitimacy prior to making a purchase. Positive feedback from customers is essential for a vendor to
appear trustworthy and is tied to a growth in their customer base over time (Holt and Lampke 2010; Motoyama
et al. 2011). Negative feedback is often detrimental to a vendor, and may even cause a broader
disruption in market operations depending on the severity of the claims (Holt, Smirnova, Chua and Copes 2016).
The second form of vending on the Dark Web operate via single-operator shops, which are created by
individual vendors to explicitly offer goods or service to potential customers (Martin 2014; Smirnova and Holt
2017). A shop operates independently of forums, enabling vendors to directly offer services with no
third party oversight. Structurally, vendors post the same information as in forums by posting their
products, prices and processes. Shop operators do not, however, have to post all the feedback they
receive from their customers. As a result, vendors may restrict posts of negative feedback on buyer
experiences which may make it difficult for buyers to determine the legitimacy of a vendor and their
products (Smirnova and Holt 2017).
The role of feedback demonstrates that illicit markets operating on the open and dark web both depend
in part on trust between participants (e.g. Franklin et al. 2007; Holt 2013; Hutchings and Holt 2015; Motoyama et al. 2011).
The virtual nature of the market renders it impossible for customers to physically inspect products
before they make a purchase. Thus, they must find textual and image-based cues to determine a
vendor’s potential legitimacy, such as the use of photos of products, the presence of customer
support lines via Skype or email, and the presence of positive or negative feedback posted by customers
(Holt and Lampke 2010; Hutchings and Holt 2015; Martin 2014).
Solvency – Study
The study would duplicate dark web sites to mirror networks to determine site
behavior and possible responses
10.1080/01639625.2019.1596465
Methodology
The primary exploration of any illicit market is to determine the source, destination, and makeup of
the good and services being sold. In the case of crypto-markets, this becomes problematic as the
source and destination cannot even partially be known without participating in the sale of goods and
services. Without violating law and ethics, this leaves passive observation of the markets to
determine descriptive characteristics of the good and services of the vendor.
To collect the information desired, six different Tor sites specific to the sale of weapons were monitored over a period of four
months from beginning of February 2016 until the end of May 2016. The sites were systematically mined using custom
shell scripts on a Linux based computer that connected to the Tor network and downloaded the site
in its entirety to a local mirror. These scripts were then scheduled to mirror the sites on a once per
week basis. The sites selected were already known to the researchers based on previous experience on the Tor network.
As with any study, there are limitations to the research. Any connection to the Tor network will
require up to 6 nodes or points of connectivity. This can delay the transfer speeds between the host
client and the server. Data connections can be lost or disconnected if these speeds are reduced to a
point or the time between data transfers becomes too large and times out. In addition, hosting companies on the
Tor network are sometimes the target of large scale denial of service attacks. These types of attacks can cause similar data transmission issues
between host client and server. There are also technical challenges to monitoring such markets in an organized and systematic manner.
These technical challenges are compounded by a constant trend on the Tor network of shifting sites to
alternate URL addresses to avoid law enforcement or launch scams.
there is the added limitation of the unknown nature of the seller or

In addition to transmission difficulties,
market vendor. It is not uncommon to find fake or duplicate sites claiming to be a vendor at an
alternate URL address. These are typically user reported scam sites designed to look and feel real, but serve only to defraud a
potential customer. The second issue with the unknown nature of a site is that some of these sites might be active sting operations by law
enforcement from various agencies or countries. This was a primary concern that led to the passive observation of these sites .
To alleviate
this concern and to show due diligence, senior members of the Dallas FBI were made aware of the
intent for this study. The agency found no reason to stop the research study and the researchers
proceeded with IRB approval and data collection.
Findings
This analysis utilized a qualitative case study design to consider the practices of vendors based on the
language in their advertisements, as well as images posted for products. The methods for purchase,
payment, and distribution of product were explored along with any customer support measures and
trust mechanisms used by vendors. Additionally, the range of products sold and differences in price
points over time are examined in detail. Deviant cases are highlighted to demonstrate differences
across vendors, and direct quotes were taken from the ads to illustrate points where appropriate.
US Key---2NC
The US is key – the large majority of dark web arms trades originate in the US
Table 5.1 suggests that the large majority (almost 60 per cent) of the firearms listings are associated with
the United States as ‘ship from’ location. The United States is followed by a selection of European
countries which, in aggregate, account for roughly 25 per cent. Unspecified locations of origin account for roughly 12
per cent. This distribution refers to all firearms listings (339), but a very different picture is provided by the evidence when
referring to listings generating sales. In this case, the distribution is significantly more balanced, with the
United States and ‘Worldwide’ accounting for 35 per cent each, followed by European countries at 25
per cent.
In terms of number of monthly transactions, evidence suggests that the firearms shipping from the
United States are the most commonly purchased. The data indicates that the number of monthly
transactions originating from the United States is almost double the number of those originating from
Europe. Even assuming all the ‘Worldwide’ transactions are all non US-based, this would not alter the
perception that the United States appears to be the most common source country for firearms traded on
cryptomarkets.
the United States has the lowest price
Interestingly, comparing the average price-per-transaction, results of this study suggest that
compared, for example, to the average price-per-transaction in European countries taken individually or in
aggregate. This could suggest that (i) most the firearms shipping from the United States are pistols/handguns,
with a lower unit price compared to heavier firearms; and/or that (ii) the market price for the same
firearm type in the United States is significantly cheaper than elsewhere.
The dominant position of the United States in this ranking is not entirely surprising given the legal status of
firearms in the country. There are, on average, 89 registered civilian firearms for every 100 residents in the United States, a total of about
270,000,000, without counting the unregistered weapons circulating on the black market; at
both the aggregate and the per
capita level, the United States ranks first in the world for firearms in civilian possession. 129
Dark Web Key---2NC
The dark web uniquely makes arms accessible to terrorists – sting operations solve
In the absence of any official public statement by the authorities, a

lot of uncertainty still persists around how the
terrorists involved in the November 2015 Paris attacks gained access to the assault rifles that were
used. One theory emerged two weeks after the attacks, on 27 November 2015, when a man was arrested in
Germany on suspicion of conducting illegal arms trafficking on the dark web, including of non-lethal
weapons converted to fire live ammunition. On the same day the German newspaper Bild, on the
basis of investigative documentation it claimed to possess, reported that the same dealer sold, on 6
November, the four assault rifles that were used in the attacks.14 This theory, which was picked up and rapidly
distributed by several international news agencies and media outlets, has yet to be confirmed by relevant authorities and
remains, to date, an unconfirmed conjecture. However, whether or not this modus operandi will be
confirmed in relation to Paris, this case highlighted the possibility of the d ark web being used by
terrorists to procure weapons.
Another case, which bridges the category of political extremism-inspired terrorism and that of
vulnerable or fixated individuals, relates to the 18-year-old David Ali Sonboly, who, on 22 July 2016, shot
and killed nine people at the Olympia Shopping Centre in Munich, Germany, before killing himself.15
He appeared to be deliberately targeting teenagers and young people of Turkish or North African
origin and was reported to be inspired by the 2011 Norway attack by far-right extremist Anders
Breivik .16 Sonboly, of Iranian background, was reported to suffer from depression and was receiving
treatment for mental conditions.17 One source reported that investigations by the German Federal Police
(Bundeskriminalamt or BKA) identified that he had obtained the Glock 17 automatic pistol and 250 rounds of
9 mm ammunition from the dark web.18 It is believed the handgun was a re-activated pistol, which had
previously been used as a theatre prop. The weapon’s provenance is difficult to trace since its serial number was removed;
Having identified that Sonboly visited Marburg, Germany, twice
however, it is believed to have originated in Slovakia.
before the attack, the BKA managed to identify the dark web vendor and ran a ‘sting’ operation with
undercover officers. Once arrested, the vendor became fully cooperative with the Federal Police,
leading them to a hidden weapons cache where they further recovered a sub-machine gun, four semi-
automatic pistols and a quantity of ammunition.19
Dark web purchases violate arms regulations – without further knowledge, the danger
can only increase
Michigan State University 19, MSU’s department of cyber security pioneered dark web research,
4-19-19, “Weapons trade reveals a darker side to dark web”,
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-04/msu-wtr041919.php
Debates over gun regulations make headlines across the world, but there's an underground operation
for weapons that has drawn very little attention - until now. Researchers from Michigan State University crept into the
dark web to investigate how firearms are anonymously bought and sold around the world.
"We know so little about the distribution of firearms sold on the dark web that it's kind of a black
hole, similar to illicit pharmaceuticals and narcotics: We know people buy them online, but we don't
know to what extent," said Thomas Holt, MSU professor of criminal justice and co-author. "The more we understand how
guns move, how they are sold and what types of guns are available on the dark web, the more we'll
understand how the internet can serve as a niche market for gun distribution."
The research, published in Deviant Behavior, revealed key insights on a trade that undercuts gun laws in the
United States, as well as other countries around the world where regulations are tighter.
"What I found most surprising was that most of what we saw wasn't rifles of military-grade weapons," Holt said. "Instead
of exotic or
rare firearms, we saw handguns - the kinds of weapons someone in the U.S. could buy from stores or
vendors with a license. Additionally, the price points of these guns weren't drastically different than
what you'd find if you were buying legally. These observations beg the question, 'why the dark web
instead?'"
Sixty-four percent of the products advertised were handguns, 17% were semi-automatic long guns and fully automatic long guns were 4%.
There are many reasons buyers could turn to the dark web to purchase a weapon, Holt explained. One
example would be a buyer who can't legally obtain a firearm; another explanation would be that the
buyer lives in a country with stricter gun laws. Regardless, Holt said that because the dark web allows for
total anonymity, it supports his theory that the dark web buyers are those who wouldn't be able to
purchase a firearm legally.
Holt and partners dug into shops, or single-owner websites hosted on Tor, a dark web browser, using a scaping tool to track vendors
anonymously selling firearms, as well as to identity patterns of their operations. Common
threads between the sellers
included: vendors deliberately selling hand and long guns; the use of bitcoin for payment; sellers'
shops requesting PO Boxes to ship the product; and how sellers delivered the guns.
From these consistencies, collected between February 2016 and May 2016, Holt was able to draw conclusions - as well as ask more pointed
questions for follow-up research.
"The sellers were very clear about how the transaction would go, which underscored the need for
consistent secrecy. Some profile names indicated that they operated out of Europe, but there's little
else to tell about who these people are," Holt said. "The sellers would oftentimes say they'd ship the
product in separate pieces and hide them in books, shoes, cocoa, computer parts and other
innocuous things, as well as to be alerted if a part was held up in customs ."
While the dark web masks a user's identity, location and any traces of persona, Holt's findings reveal
the need for further investigations, and potential growth and impact.
"We shouldn't take these markets as trivial because they could grow, travel and change very quickly. It
takes just one gun purchased through the dark web to kill someone and the danger is very real ," Holt
said. "While technology doesn't allow we as researchers to know who these sellers and buyers are, we
can confirm that the transactions are very real, that they're international in scope, and that the buyers
could be violating major government regulations and guidelines. This market could cater to major
violence and the danger is we don't know to what extent."
Increases the risk of terror – anyone can purchase illegal arms on dark web
cryptomarkets
During September 2015, Liam Lyburd, a teenager from Newcastle, UK, was allegedly planning an active
shooter attack to massacre his former classmates at Newcastle College. The police were tipped off by
a friend about Lyburd’s messages on Facebook under the pseudonym ‘Felix Burns’, which hinted at his
plans. As a result, they raided his home address and discovered a Glock semi-automatic pistol and nearly
a hundred rounds of ‘hollow-point’ expanding ammunition. According to the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC),
the weapon had been obtained from the dark web,26 on the cryptomarket ‘Evolution’.27 He had also
prepared a so-called ‘kill bag’ which contained home-made pipe bombs, boots, overalls and a mask.
Lyburd was found guilty of plotting multiple murders at his former college and given a life sentence.28 He described purchasing the
Glock as ‘like buying a bar of chocolate’.29
As the recent examples from the contexts of terrorism, crime and mental health demonstrate, the
threat to community safety posed by individuals or groups is documented, evident and real. Similarly,
the successful purchase of weapons using cryptomarkets has been an enabler for illegal activity in all
the cases reviewed.
Solves O-Crime---2NC
The dark web creates a safe haven for organized crime operations
details
In a press release published on 31 May 2017 by the US DOJ (Department of Justice) Attorney’s Office, Northern District of Georgia,
emerge of how four men used dark web cryptomarkets to sell firearms to countries worldwide.21
20
Using the pseudonyms ‘CherryFlavor’ and ‘Worldwide Arms’, the organised crime gang in Georgia, US,
shipped over 50 parcels containing firearms hidden inside electronic goods. The gang had been
acquiring firearms legally from the OutDoorTrader website and reselling them on cryptomarkets in
order to circumvent federal firearm laws.22
Investigations by the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) and other agencies began in June 2013, approximately four
months prior to the arrest of DPR. The
CherryFlavor group operated on the cryptomarkets Utopia and Black
Market Reloaded (BMR), which experienced an influx of users after the shutdown of SR1 in October 2013, and Agora Market,
which similarly received displaced users after Operation Onymous in November 2014.23 A combination
of methods led to the identification of the crime gang. Federal search warrants, coupled with trace
interviews, showed the original purchases of the weapons were in the Atlanta area. Intelligence
analysis and a massive international postal audit with 11 partner countries24 involving several
suspected US Post Offices, resulted in the identification of the CherryFlavor gang. Two of the men arrested
have since entered guilty pleas before a federal grand jury, on 3 May 2017.25
For Reference
How Sales Work
Vendors use vague displays with military issue information to reel in customers
10.1080/01639625.2019.1596465
Vendor details and processes
The approach to sales and distribution of weapons varied greatly between the site vendors. As with web
sites on the clear web, the design, layout, photos, shipping, and escrow information for firearms vendors
were all present to support their apparent purchase and raise consumer trust. Though the general design and
layout varied between vendors, some common themes remained. Vendors placed a heavy emphasis on the display of
product, largely through the use of photos, ranging from common stock photography available on
manufacturer websites and online catalogs to highly detailed photos that noted specific weapon
characteristics such as specific rail attachments or optics. Some sites used multiple photos of the same
weapon from various angles to show the specificity of the weapon and any additional accessories. Of
the six sites, only Black Market provided professional photos, taken from several angles, many of
which captured specific specifications and details of the firearm such as serial number and
manufacturer markings (see Figure 1 for an example).
The majority of vendors, however, used less professional photos. Many of these photos were simply
an image of the weapon with the name of the vendor and date stamp handwritten on paper, as illustrated
in Figure 2. Many used photos of the guns laid on bare flooring or carpet, tables, beds, or even paper as a background in the image. Vendors
also provided product listings with additional photos and specifications, but they were clearly not
taken in a professional manner . Only one of the six vendors in the sample used a collage of weapon images as a banner that did
not allow customers to click and view more, nor it did it represent the products being sold at the time. This
method limited the potential information available to their customers regarding their products.
all sites used a catalog type system to display product photos and
Regardless of photo type or production quality,
descriptions. These were either in a vertical or matrix (row and column) fashion and very similar to
contemporary clearweb sites. Vendors differed in the manner in which they described their products.
Most all advertisements described the primary weapon operation and accessories that were provided
with purchase in addition to any descriptive text. For instance, the Black Market site contained a listing for a TAVOR SAR
rifle, stating: “The elite model TAVOR® SAR “IDF” model is the US civilian version in a semi-auto only configuration. It comes with a Meprolight®
MEPRO 21 Day/Night Illuminated reflex sight mounted directly to the barrel, just as it is issued to the IDF [Israeli Defense Force].” In this
the make, model, brand, variant, and accessories were all listed directly under the eight
description,
photos of the product. The description also contained a reference to the military issue standards,
commonly referred to as “milspec” (military specification). This attribute typically means that a
device, weapon, or piece of equipment meets or exceeds the specifications outlined for military
service.
Risk Factor CP
Core
1NC Shell
The United States federal government should require Congressional approval for all
arms sales, adopt a “no sale” default prior to rigorous review, improve data collection
on end-use monitoring, and immediately embargo nations scoring in the “highest risk”
category for any given risk factor, until further notice.
Solves the case
A. Trevor Thrall and Caroline Dorminey, 3-13-2018, Thrall, associate professor at the Schar School
of Policy and Government at George Mason University and a senior fellow at the Cato Institute,
Dorminey, policy analyst at the Cato Institute, "Risky Business: The Role of Arms Sales in U.S. Foreign
Policy", Cato Institute, https://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/risky-business-role-arms-
sales-us-foreign-policy#full
Policy Recommendations
The U nited S tates should reorient its arms sales policy to ensure that sales provide strategic benefits
and to avoid producing negative unintended consequences. At a practical level, this means reducing arms
sales dramatically , especially to nations with high risk factors for negative outcomes. Officials should look for other ways
to conduct foreign policy in situations where arms sales have been common tactics — such as when the United States negotiates access to
military bases or seeks cooperation in the war on terror. The arms sales process should also be revised in order to ensure
that all sales receive more thorough scrutiny than has been the case to date .
To implement this new vision for arms sales we recommend the following steps:
Issue an Updated Presidential Policy Directive on Arms Sales — Most importantly, the president should issue a new
Presidential Policy Directive reorienting U.S. arms sales policy so that the new default policy is “no sale .” The
only circumstances in which the United States should sell or transfer arms to another country are when three conditions are met: (1) there is a
direct threat to American national security; (2) there is no other way to confront that threat other than arming another country; and (3) the
United States is the only potential supplier of the necessary weapons.
The reasoning behind this recommendation is threefold: first, as noted, the United States enjoys such a high level of strategic immunity that
there is currently no direct security rationale for arms sales to any nation. Second, even if one believes that the United States has an interest in
helping other nations defend themselves against internal enemies (e.g., Iraq, Afghanistan) or external ones (e.g., South Korea, Taiwan, NATO
countries), there are other ways the United States can help instead of supplying weapons. Finally, by
halting the sales of weapons
the United States will decrease the risk of entanglement in conflicts that do not directly involve American
security. It will also improve the diplomatic flexibility of the United States to play the role of honest
broker and to exert moral leverage on dueling parties.
Immediately Stop Selling Weapons to Risky Nations — The first step in implementing a new approach should be to stop
selling weapons to the countries most likely to misuse weapons or to lose control of them. Based on the risk
assessment described here, we recommend that the United States immediately halt the sale of
weapons to any nation that scored in the “highest risk” category for any risk factor, or which is actively engaged in
conflict. Taking this action would immediately add 71 nations to the list of embargoed nations until
further notice. This simple and commonsense step would mitigate some of the worst negative
consequences and stop the United States from enabling conflicts abroad.
Improve and Respond to End-Use Monitoring — The U nited S tates should significantly expand its
tracking of the use and misuse of American weapons. The current system of end-use monitoring does
not collect enough data on how weapons are used once they are transferred. This is largely because the
system is designed to monitor and prevent instances of dispersion and corruption and is not
necessarily focused on the use of force by the client military and government. Rather than focusing on
tracking abuse down to a single military unit, end-use monitoring should hold countries accountable
for the actions of their militaries as a whole. End-use monitoring should take into account the bigger
picture of a country’s strategic environment and should assess weapons sales based on a proposed
customer’s history, actions, and participation in ongoing conflicts. End-use monitoring should be tracked and
reported annually, and the results should be made public to enforce oversight and give Congress the information needed to make better-
informed decisions.
Amend the AECA to Require Congressional Approval for All Arms Sales — Finally, we recommend that
the AECA be amended to require congressional approval for all arms sales. The current law is designed
to make arms sales easy by making it difficult for Congress to block them. Blocking a sale requires a
majority vote in both houses of Congress, with such votes typically cropping up inconveniently in the
middle of other, more-pressing issues on the legislative agenda. Congress has exerted little or no
influence over arms sales and has allowed the executive branch near-complete autonomy . Requiring a
congressional vote to approve arms sales , on the other hand, would subject arms deals to much more
intense scrutiny than has traditionally been the case , and blocking misguided arms sales would be
much easier . Requiring a separate piece of legislation to approve each arms deal, not simply requiring a
resolution against, would encourage deliberations about the strategic benefits of any proposed deal.
Solvency
High Risk Definition/Arms Sales Bad Now
Current US arms sales aren’t reviewed effectively – a majority of our sales are to
‘highest risk’ countries
Introduction
What role should arms sales play in American foreign policy? Though major deals — like Trump’s $110
billion agreement with Saudi Arabia announced in 2017 or the decision to sell arms to Ukraine — provoke brief periods
of discussion, there is no real debate in Washington about the wisdom of exporting vast quantities of weapons around the globe to allies
and nonallies alike. Congress, which has the authority to cancel arms deals, has not impeded a deal since the passage of
the 1976 Arms Export Control Act created the framework for doing so. Since 9/11 the pace of sales
has increased . From 2002 to 2016, the United States sold roughly $197 billion worth of weapons and
related military support to 167 countries.1 In just his first year Donald Trump cut a deal worth as much as $110 billion to Saudi
Arabia alone and notified Congress of 157 sales worth more than $84 billion to 42 other nations.2 Despite losing market share over the past
two decades because of increasing competition, the United States still enjoyed the largest share of the global arms trade between 2012 and
2016 at 33 percent.3
The current consensus in favor of arms sales rests on three planks . First , advocates argue that arms sales
enhance American security by bolstering the military capabilities of allies, enabling them to deter and
contain their adversaries, and helping promote stability in critical areas like the Middle East and Southeast Asia. Second , they
argue that arms sales help the United States exert influence over the behavior and foreign policies of
client nations. Finally , advocates argue that arms sales provide a boon to the U.S. economy and fiscal benefits in
the form of lower unit costs to the Pentagon, while helping ensure the health of the American defense industrial base.4
We argue, however, that Washington’s faith in the wisdom of foreign arms sales is seriously misplaced . The benefits tend to
be oversold, and the downsides are often simply ignored. The defense industry and its champions, in particular, have long exaggerated the
economic boon of arms sales.5 And even if they were greater, economic benefits alone are not worth subverting strategic considerations. More
importantly, the strategic deficits of arms sales are severe enough to overwhelm even the most optimistic
economic argument. It is the strategic case for and against arms sales that we consider in this
analysis.
Arms sales create a host of negative, unintended consequences that warrant a much more cautious and limited approach, even in support of an
expansive grand strategy like primacy or liberal hegemony. From the perspective of those who would prefer a more restrained American
foreign policy, the prospective benefits of engaging in the arms trade are even smaller. Even in cases where the United States wants a nation to
arm itself, there is rarely a need for the weapons to come from the United States. Moreover, the United States would generate significant
diplomatic flexibility and moral authority by refraining from selling arms. Given these outsized risks and nebulous rewards, the United States
should greatly reduce international arms sales.
To develop our argument we begin in section one with a quantitative analysis of U.S. arms sales since 9/11 in order to illustrate the dangerous
track record of recent sales. We then provide a brief history of U.S. arms sales policy to provide a context for the current process in section two.
Section three outlines the advocates’ case for arms sales and section four outlines the case against. We conclude with a brief discussion of the
current politics of the arms trade and a series of policy recommendations.
U.S. Arms Sales since 9/11: Assessing the Risk from Arms Sales
In order to comply with the Arms Export Control Act (AECA), the U.S. government must generate a risk
assessment in order to confirm that sales are unlikely to produce unwanted outcomes. This requirement
makes sense, because history shows that arms sales can lead to a host of negative, unintended consequences. These consequences
come in many forms, from those that affect the United States, such as blowback and entanglement in foreign
conflicts , to those that affect entire regions , such as instability and dispersion , to those that affect the
recipient regime itself , such as enabling oppression and increasing the likelihood of military coups .
Forecasting how weapons will be used, especially over the course of decades, is difficult , but history provides
evidence of the factors that make negative outcomes more likely. Sadly, however, even a cursory review of
American arms sales over time makes it clear that neither the White House, nor the Pentagon, nor the
State Department — all of which are involved in approving potential sales — takes the risk assessment process
seriously .
Historically, the United States has sold weapons to almost any nation that wanted to buy them — suggesting
that the risk assessment process is rigged to not find risk. From 2002 to 2016, America delivered $197 billion in weapons to 167 states
worldwide.6 Thirty-two of these countries purchased at least $1 billion in arms. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was America’s
biggest client, purchasing $25.8 billion worth of weapons — including F-15s and a litany of helicopters, naval assets, and
associated munitions. As shown in Table 1, the top 10 clients collectively bought $124 billion in arms — accounting for roughly two-thirds of the
value of America’s total global exports since 2002. Given the amount of chaos, instability, and conflict in the world, it is difficult to imagine what
sort of process would assess as many as 167 of the world’s roughly 200 countries as safe bets to receive American weapons.
Moreover, the United States has a long history of selling weapons to nations where the immediate risks were obvious. From 1981 to 2010, the
United States sold small arms and light weapons to 59 percent and major conventional weapons to 35 percent of countries actively engaged in
a high-level conflict. The United States sold small arms to 66 percent and major conventional weapons to 40 percent of countries actively
engaged in a low-level conflict.7 As one author noted, in 1994 there were 50 ongoing ethnic and territorial conflicts in the world and the United
States had armed at least one side in 45 of them. Since 9/11, the United States has sold weapons to at least two dyads in conflict: Saudi Arabia
and Yemen, and Turkey and the Kurds.8
To produce a risk assessment of American arms recipients since 2002, we consulted previous research to
identify the risk factors most commonly associated with both short- and long-term negative outcomes.
Unfortunately, there are no hard data on the precise relationship between many of these risk factors and the probability of negative outcomes.
We also lack data entirely for certain risk factors that we would otherwise have included. A nation’s previous use (and misuse) of American
weapons, for example, is clearly among the most important factors to assess. Neither the government nor academic research, however, exists
to inform such an assessment. As a result, we take a conservative approach, creating an index of overall riskiness based on straightforward
assumptions about the correlations between risk factors and negative outcomes on data that are available, rather than attempting to make
precise predictions about the impact of each specific risk factor, or speculating about the impact of factors we cannot measure.
The first risk factor we consider is the stability of the recipient nation. We assume that fragile states with tenuous
legitimacy and little ability to deliver services and police their own territory, or those that cannot manage conflict within their borders, pose a
greater risk for the dispersion and misuse of weapons. Research also indicates that military aid can increase the likelihood of a military coup, an
outcome even more likely in the case of a fragile state.9 To measure this factor, we take the most recent score for each nation on the Fragile
States Index, which determines a state’s vulnerability by looking at a range of economic, political, and social factors.10
The second risk factor we look at is the behavior of the state toward its own citizens. We assume that states
that rank poorly on human rights performance or that regularly use violence against their own people pose a greater risk of misusing weapons
in the short or long term. To measure this we rely on two sources: Freedom House’s Freedom in the World rankings, which assess “the
condition of political rights and civil liberties around the world,”11 and the State Department’s Political Terror Scale, which provides a more
specific measurement of a state’s use of torture and violence against its citizens.12
Finally, we consider the level of conflict, both internal and external, each state is engaged in. We assume
that countries dealing with widespread terrorism and insurgency, or actively engaged in an interstate conflict, also represent higher risks of
negative outcomes such as dispersion, blowback, entanglement, conflict, and human rights abuses. Though the United States may have reasons
to provide arms to nations engaged in such conflicts or dealing with terrorism, the risk of negative consequences remains. To assess these
factors, we rely on the Global Terrorism Index, which measures the scope of terrorism in a country, and the UCDP/PRIO Armed Conflict Dataset,
published by the Uppsala Conflict Data Program and the Peace Research Institute Oslo, which tracks each country’s involvement in wars as well
as in smaller conflicts.13
Togauge the riskiness of selling weapons to a given country, we combined its scores on these five
metrics into a single risk index score. Since the measures all used different scales, we first recoded each of them into three
categories: low, medium, and high risk. For example, we coded “not free” countries as high risk (3 points); “partly free” countries as medium
risk (2 points); and “free” countries as low risk (1 point). The result was a risk index that runs from 5 (countries scoring “low risk” on all
measures) to 15 (countries scoring “high risk” on all measures).
To facilitate our reporting we then grouped the results into four risk categories. We gave the Highest Risk
designation to the 5 countries that scored as “high risk” on every measure . At the other end of the
spectrum, the Lowest Risk category contains the 38 countries that rated as “low risk” on all five
measures. The categories between these two are Very Risky (64 countries) and Somewhat Risky (60 countries).
Table 2 reveals the distribution of countries across risk categories as well as the average total arms sales by category since 2002.
Three important observations immediately emerge from the analysis. First, there are a large number of risky customers in
the world, and the United States sells weapons to most of them . Thirty-five nations (21 percent) scored in
the highest-risk category on at least two metrics, and 72 (43 percent) were in the highest-risk category
on at least one of the five measures. There simply are not that many safe bets when it comes to the
arms trade.
Second, the data provide compelling evidence that the United States does not discriminate between
high- and low-risk customers. The average sales to the riskiest nations are higher than those to the least risky nations.
Considering discrete components of the index, for example, the 22 countries coded as “highest risk”
on the Global Terrorism Index bought an average of $1.91 billion worth of American weapons. The 28
countries in active, high-level conflicts bought an average of $2.94 billion worth of arms.
Applying our risk assessment framework to the list of 16 nations currently banned from buying
American weapons helps illustrate the validity of our approach. The average score of banned nations
is 11.6, with 12 nations scoring 10 or higher. The highest-scoring nations were Syria, Sudan, and the
Democratic Republic of the Congo, with Iran, Eritrea, and the Central African Republic not far behin d. Clearly
these are nations to which the United States should not be selling weapons. What is especially
troubling is that the United States sold weapons to several of these countries in the years right before
sales were banned , when most of the risks were readily apparent. Moreover, America’s customer list includes 32
countries with a risk score above the average of those on the banned list. This reinforces our concern
that the U.S. government does not block sales to countries that clearly pose a risk of negative
consequences.
The third major observation is that this lack of discrimination is dangerous. As simple as it is, our risk assessment is a useful
guide to forecasting negative consequences . The five countries that scored as high risk on all five
measures provide a clear illustration of the risks of arms sales. This group, which purchased an
average of $1.8 billion in U.S. weapons since 9/11, includes Libya, Iraq, Yemen, the Democratic Republic of
the Congo, and Sudan . These five countries, recall, are classified by the various metrics as: “ terror everywhere,”
“not free,” “ most fragile ,” “ large impact from terrorism ,” and as being involved in high-level conflicts .
These governments have used their American weapons to promote oppression, commit human rights
abuses, and perpetuate bloody civil wars.
Within the Very Risky category, each country rated as “highest risk” on at least one measure, and 30 scored as “highest
risk” on at least two measures. This group also represents the full range of unintended consequences from
arms sales . Afghanistan , Egypt , Somalia , and Ukraine fall into this category. This group collectively spent an average
of $1.38 billion over the time period. Since 9/11, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (which scored a 12) invaded Yemen, intervened in Tunisia and
Syria, and provoked a crisis with Qatar, while cementing a track record of human rights abuses and government oppression. Other states in this
category, such as Afghanistan (score of 14), have entangled the United States in counterproductive conflicts since 9/11 and continue to do so
today.
Even arms sales to the less risky nations do not come without risk. For example, the Somewhat Risky
category includes the United Arab Emirates, which is involved in an active conflict in Yemen, as well as Georgia ,
which has dangerous neighbors. Finally, the Lowest Risk category includes most of the NATO nations , Taiwan ,
South Korea , and a range of other, mostly smaller nations with stable governments, such as Barbados and Grenada , located in
friendly neighborhoods. These countries pose little risk for problems like dispersion, destabilization, or misuse of weapons for oppression. In
some cases, however, arms sales could alter regional balances of power in ways that increase tensions and the chance of conflict. U.S. arms
sales to NATO allies, as part of the European Reassurance Initiative, for example, have upset Russian leaders.14 Similarly, arms sales to Taiwan,
itself not a risky customer, have nonetheless raised tensions between China and the United States.15
In short, even
a relatively simple risk assessment makes it clear that the policy of the U nited S tates is to sell
weapons to just about any nation that can afford them without much concern for the consequences.
Though the United States does limit its most advanced weapons to allies16 and maintains a ban on
the sale of materials related to weapons of mass destruction,17 the United States has sold just about
everything else, in many cases to countries embroiled in interstate and civil conflicts, to countries with
horrendous human rights records, and to countries that represent a risk for entangling the United States
in unwanted conflicts.
Solves influence in other treaties
Increases us diplomacy and paves the way for new arms control agreements.
The Case for a New Approach
So far we have argued that arms

sales lack a compelling strategic justification, amplify risks, and generate a
host of unintended negative consequences. These factors alone argue for significantly curtailing the
arms trade. But the case for doing so is made even stronger by the fact that greatly reducing arms sales would also produce two significant
benefits for the United States that cannot otherwise be enjoyed.
The first benefit from reducing arms sales would be greater diplomatic flexibility and leverage. Critics
might argue that even if arms sales are an imperfect tool, forgoing arms sales will eliminate a potential source of
leverage. We argue that, on the contrary, the diplomatic gains from forgoing arms sales will outweigh the
potential leverage or other benefits from arms sales. Most importantly, by refraining from arming
nations engaged in conflict, the United States will have the diplomatic flexibility to engage with all
parties as an honest broker. The inherent difficulty of negotiating while arming one side is obvious
today with respect to North and South Korea. After decades of U.S. support for South Korea, North
Korea clearly does not trust the United States. Similarly, U.S. attempts to help negotiate a peace deal
between the Israelis and Palestinians have long been complicated by American support for Israel. To
stop arming one side of a contentious relationship is not to suggest that the United States does not have a preferred outcome in such cases.
Rather, by staying out of the military domain the United States can more readily encourage dialogue and
diplomacy.
Forgoing arms sales is likely to be a superior strategy even in cases where the United States has an entrenched interest. In the case of Taiwan,
for example, though it is clear that Taiwan needs to purchase weapons from other countries to provide for its defense, those weapons do not
have to be made in the United States. Having Taiwan buy from other suppliers would help defuse U.S.-China tensions. Even if Taiwan’s defenses
remained robust, China would clearly prefer a situation in which American arms no longer signal an implicit promise to fight on Taiwan’s behalf.
This could also promote more productive U.S.-China diplomacy in general, as well as greater stability in the Pacific region. Most important,
breaking off arms sales would also reduce the likelihood of the United States becoming entangled in a future conflict between Taiwan and
China.
The second major benefit of reducing arms sales is that it would imbue the United States with greater
moral authority. Today, as the leading arms-dealing nation in the world, the United States lacks
credibility in discussions of arms control and nonproliferation , especially in light of its military interventionism since
2001. By showing the world that it is ready to choose diplomacy over the arms trade, the United States
would provide a huge boost to international efforts to curtail proliferation and its negative
consequences. This is important because the United States has pursued and will continue to pursue a
wide range of arms control and nonproliferation objectives. The United States is a signatory of
treaties dealing with weapons of mass destruction, missile technology, land mines, and cluster munitions,
not to mention the flow of conventional weapons of all kinds . The effectiveness of these treaties, and
the ability to create more effective and enduring arms control and nonproliferation frameworks,
however, depends on how the United States behaves.
Solves Dispersion
Arms sales to conflict-heavy regions cause dispersion to terrorist groups – it’s how ISIS
became such a problem
Dispersion. The United States uses a number of procedures to try to ensure that the weapons it sells actually
go to authorized customers and to monitor the end use of the weapons so that they do not wind up
being used for nefarious purposes. The Department of State even compiles a list of banned countries,
brokers, and customers. But most of these tools have proved ineffectual. 86
Programs like Blue Lantern and Golden Sentry aim to shed light on the service life of American
weapons sold abroad through end-use monitoring.87 While the description of U.S. end-use monitoring
(“pre-license, post-license/pre-shipment, and post-shipment”) sounds comprehensive, it’s actually anything but . In fiscal
year 2016, the agency in charge of approving and monitoring arms sales, the Directorate of Defense Trade Controls (DDTC), authorized 38,398
export-license applications — down more than 50 percent from 2012 after the government shifted some weapons to the Department of
Commerce’s purview.88 To
oversee more than 35,000 export licenses annually, the DDTC has a full-time staff
of only 171 people. The Blue Lantern program is executed by embassy staff in recipient countries but
administered back in Washington by only nine State Department employees and three contractors.89
Twelve people can’t possibly track everything that happens to billions of dollars’ worth of advanced
weaponry transferred to dozens of countries abroad each year.
Nor is the process designed to correct problems. On one hand, end-use violations can result in individuals and companies being prevented from
making future purchases. On the other hand, there
is no evidence that end-use monitoring has changed the pattern
of American arms sales in any way. The United States in truth has little or no control over what happens
to the weapons it sells to other nations. The result is that year after year weapons of all kinds end up
falling into the hands of unreliable, risky, or just plain bad actors, at which point they’re used in ways
neither the United States nor its customers intended. American weapons have frequently wound up being used against
Americans in combat. And even more often, local and regional actors, including criminal gangs, have employed
them in their own conflicts. In civil wars, regime collapse, or other extreme cases, factions steal
weapons and use them for their own purposes, as ISIS did in Iraq.90
As part of U.S.
Iraq, as previously noted, provides an excellent case study in the inability of the United States to prevent dispersion.
efforts to rebuild Iraq’s military and security capabilities after the 2003 invasion, the United States sent
Iraq roughly $2.5 billion worth of American weapons through 2014, including everything from small arms to
“armored personnel carriers, military helicopters, transport aircraft, anti-tank missiles, tanks, artillery and drones.”91
Despite the presence of thousands of U.S. troops in-country and the very close relationship between
those troops and their Iraqi counterparts, many of those weapons went missing. Between 2003 and
2008 alone, 360,000 out of 1 million small arms disappeared, along with 2,300 Humvees. A sizable chunk of
this weaponry would later end up in the hands of ISIS. The Iraqi army, trained and equipped by the American
military, dissolved when faced by ISIS and left their weapons behind for the terrorist group to pick up
and use for conquering and holding territory. A UN Security Council report found that in June 2014 alone “ISIS
seized sufficient Iraqi government stocks from the provinces of Anbar and Salah al-Din to arm and
equip more than three Iraqi conventional army divisions.”92 Data collected by Conflict Armament Research in July and
August of 2014 showed that 20 percent of ISIS’s ammunition was manufactured in the United States — likely
seized from Iraqi military stocks.93 In short, dispersion enabled the spread of ISIS and dramatically raised
the costs and dangers of confronting the group on the battlefield.
Solves Latin America/Middle East
Arms sales fuel drug trafficking and corruption in Latin America and oppressive
regimes in the Middle East absent scrutiny – CP solves
A. Trevor Thrall and Caroline Dorminey, 6-3-2018, Thrall, associate professor at the Schar School of
Policy and Government at George Mason University and a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, Dorminey,
policy analyst at the Cato Institute, "A New Framework for Assessing the Risks From U.S. Arms Sales",
https://warontherocks.com/2018/06/a-new-framework-for-assessing-the-risks-from-u-s-arms-sales/
Finally, U.S. weapons sales in the name of battling terrorism and insurgency undermine U.S. national
security when they are made to corrupt regimes and to nations with a history of human right
violations. American firepower can enhance regime security and enable oppressive governments to
mistreat minority groups and wage inhumane actions against insurgents or
terrorist groups. Currently, Saudi Arabia is waging
war in Yemen using primarily American weapons, which the United States has continued to provide
even though the Saudis have been cited repeatedly for human rights violations and targeting civilian
populations . In countries where serious corruption is endemic, American weapons can be diverted from their intended recipients and
wind up in the wrong hands. For example, as
a result of military and police corruption, the small arms and light weapons
that the United States sends to Mexico and to several other Latin American countries in support of the
war on drugs often facilitate the very crimes they were meant to stop.
Solves Blowback
Solves blowback – states likely to turn against us have visible red flags – grounds for
ending sales under the CP
Arms Sales Have Many Potential Negative Consequences
Though arms sales are of marginal value to national security and the pursuit of national interests, their
negative consequences are
varied and often severe. Arms sales can spawn unwanted outcomes on three levels: blowback against
the United States and entanglement in conflicts; regional consequences in the buyer’s neighborhood, such as the dispersion
of weapons and increased instability; and consequences for the buyer itself, such as increased levels of corruption, human rights abuses, and
civil conflict.
Though the goal of arms sales is to promote American security and U.S. interests
Effects on the United States.
abroad, at least two possible outcomes can cause serious consequences for the United States. The first of
these — blowback — occurs when a former ally turns into an adversary and uses the weapons against
the United States . The second — entanglement — is a process whereby an arms sales relationship draws the United States into a greater
level of unwanted intervention.
Blowback. The fact that the United States has sold weapons to almost every nation on earth, combined with frequent military intervention,
means that blowbackis an inescapable outcome of U.S. arms sales policy. American troops and their
allies have faced American-made weapons in almost every military engagement since the end of the
Cold War, including in Panama, Haiti, Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, and Syria. And even where the
United States has not yet engaged in combat, American arms sales have bolstered the military capabilities of
adversaries once counted as friendly.
Blowback can occur in at least three ways. First, a previously friendly regime becomes unfriendly. For example, the
United States sold
billions of dollars in weapons to the Shah of Iran during the 1970s in the hopes that Iran would
provide a stabilizing influence on the Middle East. The sales included everything from fighter jets for air campaigns to
surface-to-air missiles to shoot down enemy fighters.70 After the 1979 revolution, however, Iran used those weapons
in its war with Iraq and enabled the new Iranian regime to exert its influence in the region. Panama,
the recipient of decades of American military assistance, as well as host to a major military base and
9,000 U.S. troops, was a similar case. In 1989, Gen. Manuel Noriega — himself a CIA asset for more
than 20 years — took power and threatened U.S. citizens, prompting a U.S. invasion that featured
American troops facing American weapons. 71
Blowback also occurs when the United States sells weapons to nations (or transfers them to nonstate actors)
that, though not allies, simply did not register as potential adversaries at the time of the sale. The United
States, for example, sold surface-to-air missiles, towed guns, tanks, and armored personnel carriers to Somalia during the 1980s. Few
officials would have imagined that the United States would find itself intervening in Somalia in 1992, or that the United
States and its allies would provide billions in weapons and dual-use equipment to Iraq in an effort to
balance against Iran, only to wind up confronting Iraq on the battlefield to reverse its annexation of
Kuwait. 72
And finally, blowback can occur when U.S. weapons are sold or stolen from the government that bought them
and wind up on the battlefield in the hands of the adversary. For example, the Reagan administration
covertly provided Stinger missiles to the Mujahideen, who were fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan during the 1980s;
they in turn sold them off eventually to Iran and North Korea, among others. More recently, the Islamic State
managed to capture from the Iraqi government a stunning number of Humvees and tanks the United States had sold to Iraq to rebuild its
military capabilities after the 2003 invasion, as well as enough small arms and ammunition to supply three divisions of a conventional army.73
These examples of blowback demonstrate how difficult it can be to forecast the long-term outcomes of arms sales and how obvious it is that
selling weapons carries a number of risks. Predicting what exactly will happen is hard, but predicting that arms
sales to clients with red flags are likely to end badly is quite easy. Iraq was a fragile state ravaged by a
decade’s worth of American intervention and rife with terrorism and civil conflict; to transfer such
large quantities of weapons to its military and police force under such conditions was to invite
disaster.
Solvency – Regimes
Arms sales to ‘high risk’ nations arm violent regimes and instability in Latin America
and Africa
Regime Effects. Finally,arms sales can also have deleterious effects on recipient nations — promoting
government oppression, instability, and military coups. As part of the war on drugs, America inadvertently enabled the
practice of forced disappearances. In the cases of Colombia, the Philippines, and Mexico, American weapons feed a
dangerous cycle of corruption and oppression involving the police, the military, and political leaders.94
Though the United States provides weapons to Mexico ostensibly for counternarcotics operations, the
arms transferred to the country often end up being used by police to oppress citizens, reinforcing the
“climate of generalized violence in the country [that] carries with it grave consequences for the rule
of law.”95 Similarly, in Colombia and the Philippines the United States has supplied arms in an effort to
support governments against external threats or internal factions and to combat drug trafficking, but with mixed
results. A study of military aid to Colombia found that “in environments such as Colombia,
international military assistance can strengthen armed nonstate actors, who rival the government
over the use of violence.”96
American assistance programs, like foreign military officer training, can increase
Recent research reveals that
the likelihood of military coups. U.S. training programs frequently bought by other nations, most
notably International Military Education and Training ( IMET), gave formal training to the leaders of the 2009
Honduran coup, the 2012 Mali coup, and the 2013 Egyptian coup.97 In these cases, the training that was
supposed to stabilize the country provided military leaders with the tools to overthrow the
government they were meant to support.
Solvency – Entanglement
Solves war – selling to countries involved in conflict increases pressure to intervene
Entanglement. Arms sales raise the risk of entanglement in two ways. First, they can represent early steps down the slippery
slope to unwise military intervention. Consider a case like the Syrian civil war or the many cases during the Cold
War in which the United States wanted to support rebels and freedom fighters against oppressive
governments.74 In the majority of those cases, American leaders were wary of intervening directly .
Instead, the United States tended to rely on money, training, and arms sales. But by taking concrete steps like arms sales to
support rebel groups, Washington’s psychological investment in the outcome tends to rise, as do the
political stakes for the president, who will be judged on whether his efforts at support are successful
or not. As we saw in the Syrian civil war, for example, Barack Obama’s early efforts to arm Syrian rebels were
roundly criticized as feckless, increasing pressure on him to intervene more seriously.75
History does not provide much guidance about how serious the risk of this form of entanglement might be. During the Cold War, presidents
from Nixon onward viewed arms sales as a substitute for sending American troops to do battle with communist forces around the world. The
result was an astonishing amount of weaponry transferred or sold to Third World nations, many of which were engaged in active conflicts both
external and internal. The risk of superpower conflict made it dangerous to intervene directly; accordingly, the Cold War-era risk of
entanglement from arms sales was low.76 Today, however, the United States does not face nearly as many constraints on its behavior, as its
track record of near-constant military intervention since the end of the Cold War indicates. As a result, the risk of arms sales
helping trigger future military intervention is real, even if it cannot be measured precisely.
The second way in which arms sales might entangle the United States is by creating new disputes or
exacerbating existing tensions. U.S. arms sales to Kurdish units fighting in Syria against the Islamic
State, for example, have ignited tensions between the United States and its NATO ally Turkey, which
sees the Kurds as a serious threat to Turkish sovereignty and stability.77 Meanwhile, ongoing arms sales to
NATO nations and to other allies like South Korea and Taiwan have exacerbated tensions with Russia,
China, and North Korea, raising the risk of escalation and the possibility that the United States might
wind up involved in a direct conflict.78
Regional Instability/Embargo Key
Risky arms sales prolong conflict and topple regional stability – uniquely causes
instability in Africa and the Middle East – embargoes key to end fighting
Regional Effects. Arms sales do not just affect the recipient nation; they also affect the local balance of
power, often causing ripple effects throughout the region. Though advocates of arms sales trumpet their stabilizing
influence, as we have noted above, arms sales often lead to greater tension, less stability, and more conflict.
Because of this — and the complementary problem of weapons dispersion — the regional impact of arms sales is less
predictable and more problematic than advocates acknowledge.
arms sales can make conflict more likely.79 This may occur because recipients
Instability, Violence, and Conflict. First,
of new weapons feel more confident about launching attacks or because changes in the local balance
of power can fuel tensions and promote preventive strikes by others. A study of arms sales from 1950 to 1995, for
example, found that although arms sales appeared to have some restraining effect on major-power allies,
they had the opposite effect in other cases, and concluded that “increased arms transfers from major
powers make states significantly more likely to be militarized dispute initiators.”80 Another study
focused on sub-Saharan Africa from 1967 to 1997 found that “arms transfers are significant and positive
predictors of increased probability of war.”81 Recent history provides supporting evidence for these findings: since 2011,
Saudi Arabia, the leading buyer of American weapons, has intervened to varying degrees in Yemen,
Tunisia, Syria, and Qatar.
arms sales can also prolong and intensify ongoing conflicts and erode rather than promote
Second,
regional stability. Few governments, and fewer insurgencies, have large enough weapons stocks to
fight for long without resupply.82 The tendency of external powers to arm the side they support, however
understandable strategically, has the inevitable result of allowing the conflict to continue at a higher level of
intensity than would otherwise be the case . As one study of arms sales to Africa notes, “ Weapons
imports are essential additives in this recipe for armed conflict and carnage.”83
Third, this dynamic appears to be particularly troublesome with respect to internal conflicts. Jennifer Erickson, for example, found that
recipients of major conventional weapons are 70 percent more likely to engage in internal conflicts
than other states. Though halting arms sales alone is not a panacea for peace and stability, arms
embargoes can help lessen the destructiveness of combat in both civil and interstate wars simply by
restricting access to the means of violence. 84
Finally, because of their effects on both interstate and internal conflict, arms sales can also erode rather than promote regional stability. As
noted in the previous section, where
the United States seeks to manage regional balances of power, arms sales
often create tension, whether because the American role in the region threatens others or because
American clients feel emboldened. The Middle East, for example, has seesawed between violence
and tense standoffs for the past many decades, at first because of Cold War competition and more recently because of the American
war on terror. The notion that increased U.S. arms sales since 9/11 made the Middle East more stable is far-fetched to say the least. Similarly,
though many argue that American security commitments to countries like Japan, Taiwan, and South
Korea have produced greater stability, there is a strong case to be made that the opposite is now true.
American support of South Korea has driven North Korea to develop nuclear weapons; the presence
of U.S. missile defense systems in South Korea has aggravated China, and American support of Taiwan
produces continual tension between the two powers.85
Circumvention Turn
1NC – Circumvention DA
1NC – Circumvention DA
The ATT sets extremely prohibitive restrictions on the US that are Constitutionally
impossible---that causes the US to breach
Bromund 13 (Theodore R. Bromund, Senior Research Fellow in Anglo–American Relations in the Margaret Thatcher Center for
Freedom, 3-13-2013, “The U.S. Cannot Fix the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty“, Heritage Foundation, https://www.heritage.org/global-
politics/report/the-us-cannot-fix-the-un-arms-trade-treaty, accessed 7-17-2019) wl
The essence of any ATT is that it supposedly will lead to creation of a national
Rejection of Support for Resistance to Tyranny.
import and export control system for conventional arms. It will also require exporting nations to “ take
appropriate measures to prevent the diversion [of arms] to the illicit market or for unauthorized end
use.”[ 49] It is a given that the Assad regime of Syria, a U.N. member state, will claim that the insurgents seeking to overthrow it are both illicit and unauthorized. Thus, any ATT
will throw up a high legal barrier to the U.S. or any other signatory arming individuals seeking to overthrow a tyrant. Providing arms in this manner is
commonly known as the Reagan Doctrine, but it has been a bipartisan instrument of U.S. foreign policy since the end of the World War II. Incompatibility with the
U.S. Export Control Reform Initiative. The Obama Administration is currently attempting to reform the U.S. export control system. The basic principle of this
reform is that the U.S. should build higher walls around fewer items, and that many items that are neither sensitive nor dangerous (e.g., tires for military vehicles) should not be subject to the
Whether this reform effort will succeed remains to be seen, but it aims
elaborate controls that rightly pertain to satellites or tanks.
in a sensible direction. It is also basically at odds with any ATT, which will always seek to expand the scope of the items that it covers.[50] While
the U.S. asserts that “the Treaty will correspond with and be supportive of U nited S tates Export Control
Reform,” it is hard to reconcile a reform process that seeks to decontrol items with a treaty that seeks
to control them.[51] Incompatibility with the U.S. Decision-Making Model on Exports . The criteria that
the U.S. considers before transferring conventional arms are set out in Presidential Decision Directive
34, issued by President Clinton on February 17, 1995. The directive is well crafted and carefully balanced. The George W. Bush Administration retained it, and the Obama
Administration has not revised or discarded it. The directive states that the U.S. will apply a broad range of criteria to each arms transfer decision and make each decision on a case-by-case
basis. The criteria are to be considered as a whole, not as a checklist that must be met item by item.
While the latest draft of the ATT is certainly an improvement on the original chairman’s Draft Paper, which set out a much more extensive set of criteria, it still takes
essentially a checklist approach to export assessments.[52] Any ATT is extremely unlikely to allow signatories to balance human
rights concerns against their fundamental national interests. Yet on occasion, as illustrated by U.S. arms sales to Saudi Arabia, this is exactly
what the U.S. needs to do. Thus, the ATT is not compatible with the existing U.S. decision-making model.
the ATT is itself a moving target. Interpretations of its human rights criteria will only become
Furthermore,
more restrictive over time. Even now, the opposition Labour Party in Britain is calling for an export control system based on a “pre-emptive” risk assessment, which
would “place greater emphasis on existing social political and economic drivers of conflict that we now know would offer a better assessment of emerging threats and dangers of future
instability.”[53]
The Problem of Legal Control.The U.S. should be careful in negotiating and signing any treaty for a number of reasons. One reason is that the U.S.
applies legal scrutiny to virtually every action. A treaty like the ATT—which covers an enormous range of
transactions, contains many undefined terms, and applies to a huge body of U.S. law, code, practice, and policy— offers unlimited
opportunities to create currently unforeseen legal challenges and obstacles. This proliferation of lawyers and law can be extremely
dangerous to the security of the U.S. and its allies and to stopping genuinely irresponsible arms transfers. For example, in late 2002, U.S. and Spanish forces stopped a North Korean ship
carrying 15 Scud missiles hidden beneath sacks of cement to Yemen. The U.S. eventually allowed the ship to proceed after a lengthy internal legal wrangle that left U.S. allies perplexed at the
U.S. conclusion that it lacked the legal authority to confiscate the missiles.[54] No matter what it thinks it is doing now, the Administration cannot evade this problem, which is inescapable as
long as this type of legal review remains deeply embedded in the U.S. military and security decision-making system. The Second Amendment. Describing the ATT as a gun grab treaty is
The problem is much more subtle, and focusing on the very minimal risks of a gun grab distracts
unhelpful.
from the serious and longer-term problems posed by the ATT.[55] Both the Non-Aligned Movement (120 nations) and the overlapping African Group (54
nations) want civilian possession of firearms included in the ATT. While Canada is staunchly supportive of civilian possession, Mexico and a number of other Central and South American
nations are bitter opponents. Many nations in the European Union have little interest in supporting civilian possession, and there is even less support for the U.S. view that individual self-
defense is an inherent right. The U.N. itself is the home of the Program of Action on small arms and the International Small Arms Control Standards (ISACS). It argues that the “arms trade
must…be regulated in ways that would…minimize the risk of misuse of legally owned weapons” and campaigns against “community attitudes” that “contribute to the powerful cultural
conditioning that equates masculinity with owning and using a gun, and regards gun misuse by men as acceptable.”[56]
Scholars as senior as Harold Koh, former Dean of the Yale Law School and the State Department’s Legal Adviser during President Obama’s first term, have argued that “the only meaningful
mechanism to regulate illicit [international] transfers is stronger domestic regulation,” and that “[s]upply-side control measures within the United States” are essential.[57] For their part, while
asserting that the ATT would have no impact on domestic firearms ownership, treaty-supporting NGOs simultaneously state that the tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut, has “opened the debate
within the United States on weapons controls in ways that it has not been opened in the past.”[58]
It is therefore no surprise that defenders of Second Amendment rights view the ATT with profound skepticism and believe the treaty’s advocates are being less than fully candid in their
assertions that the ATT would have no domestic effects. The regular statements by the Administration are too general to reassure, such as the recent statement by U.S. Deputy Permanent
Representative to the Conference on Disarmament Walter S. Reid in the 2012 First Committee debate that the ATT must not infringe “on the constitutional right of our citizens to bear arms.”
The statements are also made in the context of U.N.-based negotiations, when the U.N., the NGOs that are driving the negotiations, and most of the nations negotiating the treaty believe in
and practice gun control.[59]
. Any ATT that emerges from the

Although the current draft text has improved thanks to U.S. efforts, its flaws only exacerbate this underlying problem
negotiating process will likely offer this and future U.S. administrations a number of justifications to impose further
administrative controls on firearms, and it is certain to subject the U.S. to continual pressure at every future ATT review conference to move closer to the so-
called international consensus on this issue. This pressure will be applied not just to the U.S. government. It could affect importers, exporters, and manufacturers, and the individuals that work
for them or buy from them.
The ATT is not a gun grab, but it does create many openings for the slow, steady exertion of
administrative pressure at home and international pressure from abroad.[60] If the ATT does not have this intent, then it
should, as recommended above, contain a clear and explicit civilian exemption. The unwillingness of the NGOs and the U.N. member states to support such an exemption speaks volumes
about their purposes.
The Fallacies of the Loophole Hunt. The current concern of NGOs—and the nations that support the treaty—to find its loopholes is ultimately pointless. The loopholes are not in the treaty.
The treaty is the loophole .

In mid-December 2012, a Russian official, in the course of denying that Russia was arming Syria by way of Turkey, stated: “If it has been necessary to ship any military hardware or weapons to
Syria, this would have been done through the established procedure rather than in an illegal way.”[61] Given that the U.S. wants only “a good, short document that spells out principles of
what states must do,” it is unlikely that anything in the treaty will disrupt Russia’s “established procedure,” make this procedure illegal, or force Russia to behave any better.[62]
Indeed, long before the negotiations began in July 2012, the U.N. Institute for Disarmament Research found that the world’s nations wanted most of all a provision recognizing their inherent
right to buy, sell, and transfer arms. That is exactly what the ATT will do. The transfer criteria and the rest of the treaty are window-dressing that will affect only the nations that take them
seriously.[63] In the world of the ATT, irresponsible arms transfers are always the fault of the other guy.
The U.S. argues that an ATT will and must “increase the U.S. ability to demarche countries which engage in the
irresponsible transfer of arms.”[64] In other words, the ATT will be a tool for the U.S. to use in its diplomacy. For example, it will allow the U.S. to put a little more pressure on Russia to stop
arming Syria. That assertion is less reasonable than it appears to be.
First,treaties work both ways. If the ATT increases the U.S.’s ability to demarche other countries, it will
also increase their ability to demarche the U.S ., and since the U.S. is a law-abiding country, arguments based on
the rule of law are particularly effective in the U.S. When coupled with the fact that the U.S. has the largest foreign arms sales in
the world, the risk that the treaty will be turned against the U.S. is obvious.
While the U.S. obviously has a considerable ability to resist foreign pressure, that ability is not limitless.
After all, the U.S. entered into the ATT negotiations in large part because it felt itself unable to resist the
pressure for them. This dynamic will continue to operate if and when the ATT comes into existence.
Second, because the treaty will be based on national implementation and recognize a nation’s sovereign right to buy, sell, and transfer
arms, it will not create a binding obligation that would prohibit any particular transfer . Far from
controlling the arms trade, the ATT legitimizes it.[65] Third, the claim that the U.S. can use the treaty to
pressure other countries sounds reasonable. However, if Luxembourg, for example, signs the ATT, that fact will not give Luxembourg any additional
ability to pressure anyone. The U.S. ability to pressure other nations derives not from its signature on a treaty, but from the U.S. status as a superpower. Arguments that treaties create legal
pressure on the lawless only make sense to those who themselves are so law-abiding that they cannot imagine others remaining unmoved by an appeal to law.
The idea that the U.S. can use the ATT to exert pressure on others is also belied by recent U.S. experiences in human rights diplomacy. On November 12, 2012, the U.S. was reelected to the
U.N. Human Rights Council. The U.S. won fewer votes (131 of the possible 193) in this election than Gabon, an autocracy ruled by the same party since 1968, and the unfree nations of UAE,
Cote d’Ivoire, Kazakhstan, and Ethiopia—which received at least 178 votes each.[66] More broadly, the record of the world’s many human rights treaties in actually improving human rights in
oppressive nations is extremely poor. Saudi Arabia may have pledged to eliminate discrimination against women, but it has done no such thing in practice.[67]
These facts are significant because, although the ATT is described as a treaty on the arms trade, in many ways it is a human rights instrument. It is
it will also
promoted as such by human rights organizations, its standards are human rights standards, and it can be expected to operate as a human rights treaty. Regrettably, that means
share the biases of the U.N.’s human rights institutions, which reflect the reality that in a world with
many unfree nations, the U.N. and its institutions naturally reflect the priorities and champion the causes of the unfree. Expecting the ATT and the
institutions that it creates to behave any differently is naïve. In the realm of human rights, that is wrong. When human rights reach into
the realm of international security and the arms trade, it is both wrong and dangerous.
It is too often forgotten that the U.S. has the most comprehensive export control system in the world, a fact that even the treaty’s
proponents have conceded. Their enthusiasm for the U.S. inclusion in the treaty is therefore motivated either by a naïve
belief in treaties , by a desire to change the U.S., or both . In practice, the ATT will change U.S. law and/or policies or it
will not. If it does not change them, it is extremely difficult to understand why the ATT would compel any other signatory to make any changes. If the ATT does change U.S. law or policies, then
the Administration’s claim that it will not and must not is inaccurate.[68]
The fundamental problem with the ATT is that it embodies an approach to

The Problem of Transnational Legal Norms.
international law that departs profoundly from the approach of the U.S. Constitution , which created the U.S. government as the
agent and voice of the American people. In a recent speech, Koh summarized the nature of this new approach:
Make no mistake: this is not your grandfather’s international law, a Westphalian top-down process of treatymaking where international legal rules are negotiated at formal treaty conferences,
to be handed down for domestic implementation in a top-down way. Instead, it is a classic tale of what I have long called “transnational legal process,” the dynamic interaction of private and
public actors in a variety of national and international fora to generate norms and construct national and global interests…. Twenty-first century international lawmaking has become a swirling
interactive process whereby norms get “uploaded” from one country into the international system, and then “downloaded” elsewhere into another country’s laws or even a private actor’s
internal rules.
[69]
Under this new approach, the U.S. government is not merely or even primarily supposed to transmit the choices of the American people into the world at large. It is supposed to receive the
views of the world at large and transmit them to—or impose them on—the American people. This is particularly troubling because what Koh describes as norms might just as well be described
as the policies that he prefers. Since there is no obvious way to decide which norms will prevail in particular circumstances, the implication is that lawyers like Koh have the right—or even the
obligation—to pick and choose as they see fit, with the additional proviso that their preferences have the force of law. That is not an approach fit for a democracy.
The fundamental conflict in the U.S. position on the ATT is that an ATT that is based on sovereignty ,
cannot simultaneously be based on “common international standards” if those
which is what the U.S. claims it wants,
standards are in practice defined by the ever-evolving sentiments of the “international community” and regularly
tightened by the treaty conferences that will be dominated by the unsatisfied majority.[70] This problem is particularly pressing in the context of the
ATT, which concerns matters of national security and constitutionally protected liberties, involves so many actors that
are deeply skeptical of the U.S., and contains vague standards ( e.g., IHL and IHRL ) that are constantly
being redefined in ways that the U.S. cannot fully control. The U.S. may assert and sincerely believe that its arms transfers are fully compliant
with all applicable IHL and IHRL standards, but many nations will disagree. Under Koh’s doctrine, the U.S. has no clear basis for standing its ground.
Indeed, it will be argued that it has a positive legal obligation to accept widely held contrary views.
Trump will ignore treaty rules and breach the treaty instead.
Conrad and Ritter 17 (Courtenay and Emily, 3/1/17, both are associate professors of political science at the University of California
at Merced. "A Trump moratorium on international treaties could roll back human rights — here at home"
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/03/01/a-trump-moratorium-on-international-treaties-could-roll-back-human-
rights-here-at-home/?utm_term=.382260fabcc6)
But none of these three treaties include explicit secession clauses. When
North Korea announced in 1997 that it would
withdraw from the ICCPR, the U.N. Secretary-General pointed out that the ICCPR makes explicit no
formal process for withdrawal, and thus, signatories cannot withdraw from the treaty. Even if the
United States cannot formally withdraw its commitments to international human rights treaties, the
Trump administration could follow in the footsteps of North Korea, acting as if it is no longer
obligated to international law, both in word and repressive deed. And much of the power of international
law is not in the obligation itself but in the expectations that it creates among relevant audiences. Yes, public
perception of the role of international law in government action matters. Imagine, for example, that the United States withdraws support from
the Convention Against Torture. Although government torture would remain illegal under U.S. domestic law, international treaties help
strengthen the perceived legitimacy of victims’ claims against the government. When victims of rights violations think that courts are
emboldened to protect them, they are more likely to bring suit against authorities — even more likely than they would have been under
domestic laws alone. Victims think that international law helps their case and that the government is at least to some extent constrained by it.
In our book, we argue the public belief that treaties such as the Convention Against Torture bring legitimacy to claims and causes governments
to repress less. Because
courts are more likely to hear claims of rights violations when governments are
committed to international treaties, executives violate rights less to avoid legal costs. Our research, available
ungated here, shows that leaders who are secure in power are especially likely to be constrained by obligations to human rights treaties. With
the 2020 election a long way off, the Trump administration is in a strong position of power. Yet our work suggests that
the administration — with an independent court system and a portion of the populace ready to use legal means to oppose its policies — has
meaningful grounds to expect that human rights treaties would bind repressive practices. This
expectation of constraint may
lead the administration to opt out of future or existing obligations that constrain executive policies,
particularly those that might be considered rights violations. This may be one reason for the proposed executive order
— and potentially a step backward in the protection of human rights in the United States.
Outright violations of treaties make managing great power tensions impossible and
creates a precedent that justifies dangerous unilateralism by others
Robinson 18 (Nathan J. Robinson, editor of Current Affairs, 4-14-2018, “Why Does International Law Even Matter?“, No Publication,
https://www.currentaffairs.org/2018/04/why-does-international-law-even-matter, accessed 7-16-2019)
One reason I think violations of international law do need to be taken seriously is that international law
is very recent and very fragile. It is actually less like “law” than a collective pact , one that is often difficult to
enforce and which depends on the good-faith participation of the various parties. It is a bit like engineering
cooperation in a prisoner’s dilemma. It’s very difficult, because it requires every party to limit their concern for
their own self-interest in order to maximize the collective good. And if one of them betrays the others,
the whole tentative cooperative system instantly collapses.
In 21st century international relations, this could mean utter catastrophe. The great powers have to
get along , because their mutual possession of nuclear arms means that the stakes of conflict are
incalculably high . A functional cooperative pact among the nations, that holds each of them to a set of humane
is essential . People make fun of the United Nations and its impotence, but everyone who cares about the
principles,
future of the human race should be invested in curing that impotence and making sure UN procedures do mean
something. Here, procedure is substance to a certain degree, because when the world adopts a process that achieves consensus, there is
peace, and when it doesn’t, there isn’t, regardless of the substantive question being debated.
That’s why I think it’s actually incredibly

dangerous and irresponsible for the U nited S tates (and now France and the UK)
to treat international law as a meaningless set of guidelines that can be violated at will . If they don’t
feel bound by it, why should any other country? The brazenness with which, for example, Israel has spat upon the
international community’s processes endangers all of us, because it slowly erodes the weak bonds that keep the world from collapsing into war.
That’s a huge difference with ordinary civil disobedience: Martin Luther King’s actions posed no threat to the country’s
survival. The laws he violated had a very stable and brutal enforcement system, and his disobedience served to improve them rather than
undermine them. The U nited S tates’ refusal to play by the rules set by the international community, on the other
hand, seriously threatens to create a world in which nations follow no rules at all. Even high-stakes domestic “rule
of law” disputes pale in significance here: perhaps Obama’s implementation of DACA was unconstitutional, and perhaps that set a precedent
for expanded executive power that would come back to bite the left under Trump. But I don’t care very much, because it helped a bunch of
kids, and it didn’t “erode the constitutional order” in any way that I find too terribly troubling. On the other hand, Obama’s expansion of
presidential war powers does seem to me somewhat troubling, because the more unchecked military power presidents have, the more
authoritarian the executive branch can potentially be. How much I care about “rule of law” questions depends on what the stakes are in
undermining the rule of law. If they’re not particularly high, then I’m not going to fetishize procedure and the Constitution. But if the law does
seem like it’s serving a very important function in holding together institutions and preventing anarchy (the bad kind rather than the good
kind), then violations of law should be taken very seriously. (This is a major indictmenxt of Democrats who did not hold President Obama
accountable for the more serious and threatening expansions of executive power.)
UQ
AT: Trump
Trump has formally complied with international law up to now
Wuerth 17 (Ingrid Wuerth, Helen Strong Curry Professor of International Law at Vanderbilt Law School, 3-29-17, “International Law and
the Trump Administration“, Lawfare, https://www.lawfareblog.com/international-law-and-trump-administration, accessed 7-17-2019)
The Trump administration has conspicuously—and surprisingly—complied with international law during its
first months. For example, yesterday’s climate order notably does not announce a withdrawal from the Paris
Agreement, despite campaign promises to do so. Perhaps the Trump administration realizes that international law
supports its policy positions on the S outh C hina S ea, No rth Ko rea, Iran, and on other vitally important
issues. Or perhaps the President recognizes that the “art of the deal” rests upon a framework for
generating compliance with deals—and that law, including international law, is an important way of doing so. Or
maybe violations of international law will begin tomorrow. It is still too early to know for sure.
Nevertheless, the President’s record so far with respect to international legal obligations gives surprising reason for
optimism , as the Paris Agreement illustrates. Consider the U nited N ations, to which the Trump administration has
signaled it will cut funding dramatically. While doing so may have a variety of negative policy effects, the
U nited S tates is not under a legal obligation to fund many of the programs that it currently does. In directing a re-
assessment of funding to the United Nations, the Trump Administration has at times apparently distinguished between
voluntary contributions, which are apparently slated for very large across the board cuts, and legally mandatory
contributions, which may be evaluated differently. Even legally required contributions to peacekeeping operations,
which total $2.5 billion annually, could be curtailed without violating U.S. legal commitments simply by reducing
overall expenditures. Under-performing missions could be eliminated, thus bringing down the overall peacekeeping budget. This appears to be
the approach the administration is taking.
To be sure, some Republicans have long favored curtailing mandatory U.S. funding to the United Nations, and the U.S. has been in arrears on its
mandatory payments during various administrations, including under President Obama. Although full payment with U.N. obligations thus seems
unlikely, nor is it a dramatic departure from past practice.
The administration did signal a retreat from future international legal obligations in a draft executive order
declaring a moratorium on new multilateral treaties. But the moratorium, if imposed, would not be very significant in
practice . The draft executive order would be to put a stop to new treaties, meaning international agreements
approved by a supermajority of the Senate, with an exception for treaties implicating issues of “international concern”—such as national
security, trade and extradition. But we have already seen a major slow-down in international agreements that successfully go through the
advice and consent process in the Senate, which approved 20 treaties during the Obama administration and 163 treaties during the eight years
of the Bush 43 administration. At most, President Trump will continue a trend that has been well underway for
years.
Finally, the Trump administration has not violated international law , at least not yet. Here, the Paris Agreement,
mentioned above, is the most important example. President Trump did withdraw from the T rans- P acific P artnership,
but that agreement had not entered into force. International law not only permits but sometimes requires
withdrawal from a convention not yet in force; as long as a state remains a signatory, it cannot act
contrary to the object and purpose of the treaty under Article 18 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. Notably,
both of the President’s executive orders on immigration contained language specifically designed to
ensure compliance with U.S. international legal commitments such as those imposed by the Convention Against
Torture. See, for example, article 12(e) of the March 6, 2017 order and Section 5(e) of the January 27, 2017 order. Whether or not these
provisions bring (or brought) either of the immigration orders fully into compliance with international law is not entirely clear, but then again,
their compliance with domestic constitutional law was and is not clear either.
Looking forward, it would also be possible for the President to withdraw from the international nuclear deal with Iran, known as the Joint
Comprehensive Plan of Action, without violating international law, because that agreement is not legally binding. Similarly, yesterday’s
executive order on climate change may all but ensure that the United States will not meet its pledges under the Paris Agreement, but failure to
do so is not a violation of that Agreement. The Agreement does bind the United States to report on its emissions, to undergo international
review, and to establish future benchmarks for emissions. These binding commitments fall short of requiring the United States to reduce
emissions, but they are non-trivial, potentially significant obligations.
Jack Goldsmith recently argued that “we are witnessing the beginnings of the greatest presidential
onslaught on international law and international institutions in American history.” In support, he cites numerous important
developments including gutting of State Department capacity, the elimination of important domestic organizations related to
international relations, and disengagement with international courts. It is true that formal compliance with international law,
even if it does continue, may pale in overall significance when compared to these broader developments. But formal
compliance with international law is important . And it also serves U.S. interests around the world, as we
seek to ensure compliance with international law from countries such as North Korea, Russia, China,
Iran, and others.
Link
2NC – L – Constitutionality
ATT fails---ambiguous norms, implementations failures, and unconstitutionality
Bromund 19 (Ted Bromund, Senior Research Fellow in the Margaret Thatcher for Freedom at The Heritage Foundation, 5-7-2019, “The
End Of The Arms Trade Treaty, An End To Illusion“, Forbes, https://www.forbes.com/sites/tedbromund/2019/05/07/the-end-of-the-arms-
trade-treaty-an-end-to-illusion/#3bfa72a32869, accessed 7-19-2019) wl
The Arms Trade Treaty ( ATT ), which President Donald Trump announced on April 26 that he would unsigned, is fundamentally
unserious. It embodies the fantasy that the path to a better world rests in the piling up of unverifiable
promises. Its illusions are a distraction from the problem it purportedly seeks to solve.
The ATT requires signatories to create a system of national controls for the import and export of all
conventional arms , from pistols to battleships. The U.S. already has such a system, formed by the Gun Control
Act of 1968 and the I nternational T raffic in A rms R egulations. The U.S. system isn’t perfect, but it’s entirely reasonable to prevent U.S.
exporters from selling to Iran as easily as they can sell to Britain.
Unfortunately, the
ATT’s activist backers aren’t interested in being reasonable. They don’t want just any
system of national controls on exports. They want one that can be relentlessly tightened to achieve the
policy outcomes they prefer. They want not a treaty, but a straightjacket.
When the Obama administration entered office in 2009, it faced a dilemma. The campaign for the ATT was already so far along that it was clear
that, one way or another, there was going to be a treaty. The only question was whether it would be made in the U.N. or outside of it.
The administration wanted to keep the ATT inside the U.N. The alternative was to hand the negotiations over to the same left-wing NGOs that
had already forced treaties on land mines and cluster munitions into existence, treaties about which even the Obama administration had grave
reservations. It had similar concerns about the ATT, on which it laid down red lines aplenty.
Foremost among these was that the ATT had to include everyone. As ATT Special Negotiator Donald Mahley put it in
2010, “ not getting a universal agreement would make any agreement less than useless .” After all, a
universal agreement would, in theory, constrain everyone.
That universal ATT never happened. Russia, China, and Iran, among many major irresponsible players in the
international arms market, have never signed on — and never will. But, reluctant to rock the boat, the Obama
administration junked its own red lines and helped vote the ATT into existence through the U.N. General Assembly. Secretary of State John
Kerry signed it a year later.
Not only is the ATT far from universal. It is also aspirational, a pious expression of an intention to be virtuous — later.
After all, if the world’s nations genuinely wish to improve their import and export controls, they can do so. They have
all the power they need without a treaty.
The real problem is that many nations are too incompetent to have meaningful controls, while bad actors —
such as Iran — have no interest in them. The ATT has all the plausibility of an effort to eliminate crime
by passing a law making it illegal. If such a plan could work, it would not be necessary.
In practice, the
treaty binds only the U.S. and a few European exporters. Worse, it will bind us ever more
tightly as time passes. At the heart of the ATT are the flexible concepts of international humanitarian
law (formerly known as the laws of war) and international human rights law. If you change those, you change the meaning of
the treaty — and, thus, U.S. policy.
So the activists got their straightjacket, one that can be tightened by revising the concepts on which it is based. As
Harold Koh, then
the State Department’s Legal Advisor, put it approvingly in 2012, the point of treaties such as the ATT is
“that norms get ‘uploaded’ from one country into the international system, and then ‘downloaded’ elsewhere into
another country’s laws or even a private actor’s internal rules.”
Under this approach, the U.S. government is not supposed to transmit the choices of the American people into the world at large: It is supposed
to receive the views of the world at large and transmit them to (or enforce them upon) the American people. If
international law
changes to make it illegal to arm the state of Israel, for example, the ATT will be there to enforce that change
on the U.S.
Opponents commonly describe the ATT. as a U.N. gun grab. True, many activists behind it are old-time gun controllers. But it is more subtle
than that. The
point of the ATT, as Koh implied, is not to rewrite the Constitution. It is to use transnational
legal process to change the Constitution’s meaning. The ATT is not so much a gun grab as it is a grab at
the sovereignty of the United States.
In its own terms, theATT is a miserable and predictable failure. It requires reporting of arms imports and exports,
which its members have failed to do. It is running a substantial annual deficit because most of them, far from fixing their import
and export systems, do not even pay their bills (unlike the U.S., which foolishly pays in more than $150,000 a year).
The only use the activists have made of the treaty is to sue Britain for selling arms to Saudi Arabia. By contrast, after Flight MH-17 was shot
down in 2014, a leading ATT activist in the U.S. held “today’s globalized environment”—not Russia—liable for supplying the missile that downed
the plane.
That evasion is telling. The

ATT is the brainchild of avowedly progressive Western activists who love to
blame their own governments, but who cannot bring themselves to criticize anyone else. As they seek
to enforce and expand the treaty, they bring to their campaign the belief that it’s the West—and in particular, the U.S.— that
deserves condemnation and correction, not Russia, Iran, or China.
The ATT is founded on illusions. A treaty cannot make the incompetent competent, or the malevolent
good. We do not need treaties that bind only the democracies or encourage the West to focus on blaming itself, and
our Constitution requires no “downloaded” norms.
The U.S. cannot cure the folly of others in signing onto this treaty, but we can rid ourselves of it. And that is what the president has done.
The ATT is unconstitutional---so hide ur kids, hide ur wives, the ATT is coming for ur
GUNS!!!
Bolton and Yoo 19 (John Bolton, National Security Advisor of the United States and man who wants to fight Iran; and John Yoo, law
professor at the University of California at Berkeley April 14, 2013, 7-19-2019, “Obama'S United Nations Backdoor To Gun Control“, WSJ,
https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887324504704578413110123095782#articleTabs%3Darticle, accessed 7-19-2019) wl
Even before his most ambitious gun-control proposals were falling by the wayside, President Obama was turning for help to the United Nations.
On April 2, the United States led 154 nations to approve
the A rms T rade T reaty in the U.N. General Assembly. While much of
the treaty governs the international sale of conventional weapons, its regulation of small arms would
provide American gun-control advocates with a new tool for restricting rights. Yet because the
Constitution requires that two-thirds of the Senate give its advice and consent to any treaty, Second Amendment
supporters still have a political route to stop the administration.
Like many international schemes, this

treaty has seemingly benign motives . It seeks to "eradicate the illicit
trade in conventional arms and to prevent their diversion to the illicit market," where they are used in civil wars
and humanrights disasters. The treaty calls for rigorous export controls on heavy conventional weapons , such
as tanks, missiles, artillery, helicopters and warships.

Yet, as with many utopian devices, the
treaty fails the test of enforcement. Some of the world's largest arms
traffickers either voted against the agreement or abstained. The U.S., quite rightly, already has the world's
most serious export controls in place, while nations such as North Korea, Syria, Iran, Russia and China
will continue to traffic in arms with abandon.
But the new treaty also demands domestic regulation of " s mall a rms and l ight w eapons." The treaty's Article 5
requires nations to "establish and maintain a national control system," including a "national control
list." Article 10 requires signatories "to regulate brokering" of conventional arms. The treaty offers no
guarantee for individual rights , but instead only declares it is "mindful" of the "legitimate trade and
lawful ownership" of arms for"recreational, cultural, historical, and sporting activities." Not a word about the right to possess guns
for a broader individual right of self-defense.
Gun-control advocates will use these provisions to argue that the U.S. must enact measures such as a
national gun registry, licenses for guns and ammunition sales, universal background checks, and even a ban of certain weapons. The treaty
thus provides the Obama administration with an end-run around Congress to reach these guncontrol holy grails.
As the Supreme Court's Heller and McDonald cases recently declared, the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right "to keep and bear
Arms" such as handguns and rifles. Congress's
power to regulate interstate commerce remains broad, but the
court's decisions in other cases -- even last year's challenge to the Affordable Care Act -- remind us that those powers
are limited.
International treaties don't suffer these limits. The Constitution establishes treaties in Article II (which
sets out the president's executive powers), rather than in Article I (which defines the legislature's
authority ) -- so treaties therefore aren't textually subject to the limits on Congress's power . Treaties still
receive the force of law under the Supremacy Clause, which declares that "This Constitution, and the Laws of
the U nited S tates which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the
Authority of the U nited S tates, shall be the supreme Law of the Land."
Some have argued over the years that this difference in language between laws and treaties allows the latter to
sweep more broadly than the former. In Missouri v. Holland (1920), Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes followed this
logic to declare that no "invisible radiation from the general terms of the Tenth Amendment" applies to the
Treaty Power. Congress could win greater favor from the courts for gun-control measures, or President Obama could issue executive
orders for a gun registry and background checks, on the claim that he is implementing the treaty.
Missouri read the treaty power broadly under the Supremacy Clause at a time when the courts gave Congress's powers short shrift, but the
decision was fundamentally mistaken. The Supremacy Clause referred to treaties "made under the Authority of the
U nited S tates" not to expand their scope -- but to grandfather in existing agreements such as the Peace Treaty with Great Britain.
In Reid v. Covert (1957), a plurality of justices agreed that the treaty power could not undermine the Bill
of Rights , rightly trying to close the huge loophole that Missouri had erroneously opened.
The attempt to advance gun control through the A rms T rade T reaty might surprise average Americans, but
not liberals, who have been long frustrated by the Constitution's limits on government. Gun-control statutes, like any others, have to survive
both the House and the Senate, then win presidential approval. It
is far easier to advance an agenda through treaties ,
unwritten international law and even "norms" delivered by an amorphous "international
community."
Opponents of capital punishment have used treaties to press the Supreme Court to stop the death penalty in Texas. Women's rights groups
advocate an international convention that would achieve the goals of the failed Equal Rights Amendment. And supporters of bans on "hate
speech" invoke international norms to defeat First Amendment objections. There also is
an international legal doctrine that
during the period when a country has signed but not yet ratified a treaty, it must take no measures
that defeat the treaty's object and purposes. Under some liberal theories, this would allow the
president to put some measures of the new arms treaty into effect by executive order.
Fortunately the
Framers required that the president submit all significant international agreements to the
Senate, which must consent to the treaty with the same supermajority needed to send a constitutional amendment to the
states or to override an executive veto.
The Senate should block this latest effort to evade the Constitution's controls on federal power . There
could be no greater justification for senators to exercise their veto over treaties than the cause of
protecting the individual liberties of Americans -- including the right to bear arms.
2NC – L – Trump
Trump rejects international constraints placed upon him
Koh 17 (Harold Hongju Koh, Sterling Professor of International Law at Yale Law School 2017, “The Trump Administration and International
Law“, Yale Law School Legal Scholarship Repository,
https://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=6215&context=fss_papers, accessed 7-19-2019) wl
The emerging Trump philosophy seems to be a general rejection of the Obama approach: not "engage-translate-
leverage," but rather, "disengageblack hole-hard power." Wherever possible, the Trump instinct seems to be
to disengage-unilateralism, or, as he calls it, "America First."' 5 The Trump approach does not value concerted
efforts to translate existing legal rules but rather claims that there are no rules that bind our conduct.
Under this worldview, the U nited S tates should act based on its perceived national interests, not
international rules. The Trump approach seems grounded on claimed national rights, not the
universal rights on which this country was founded and that form much of the foundation of modem international
law . Finally, the emerging Trump approach seems to rest almost entirely on hard power, offering no
visible strategy for bilateral and multilateral diplomatic engagement or any attendant role for the State
Department. 16 Trump and his team have shown little or no inclination to apply an approach that would allow
America to leverage the legitimacy of lawful options into a more creative set of proactive solutions to pressing
international problems.
The ATT places constraints Trump’s administration ideologically doesn’t believe in

Trump 19 (President Donald J. Trump, 4-26-2019, “President Donald J. Trump is Defending Our Sovereignty and Constitutional Rights
From the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty“, White House, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/president-donald-j-trump-is-
defending-our-sovereignty-and-constitutional-rights-from-the-united-nations-arms-trade-treaty/, accessed 7-19-2019) wl
PROTECTING AMERICA’S INTERESTS: President Donald J. Trump is putting America first and ensuring we are not bound
by the United Nations (UN) misguided Arms Trade Treaty (ATT).
Today, President Trump announced that he will never ratify the ATT and will ask the Senate to return it.
The ATT purports to set international standards for trade in conventional arms, including everything from
firearms to military aircraft.
The previous Administration signed-on to the treaty in 2013, but it waited three years to ask the United States Senate to ratify it in the 11th
hour of that Administration.
The ATT is being opened up for amendment in 2020 and there are potential proposals that the U nited
S tates cannot support.
The ATT fails to truly address the problem of irresponsible arms transfers, while providing a platform
for those who would seek to constrain our ability to sell arms to our allies and partners.
The President has made clear that he will never surrender American sovereignty and rights.
DEFENDING OUR SOVEREIGN RIGHTS: President Trump is protecting our country’s sovereignty and standing up for our constitutional rights.
President Trump has pledged to defend America’s sovereignty and always put America first and this decision follows through on
that pledge.
The President has repeatedly acted to protect and preserve our sovereignty, including by taking strong
action to head off possible investigation of U nited S tates military and intelligence personnel by the
International Criminal Court.
There is a track record of the ATT being used by groups to try and overturn sovereign national
decisions on arms exports.
For example, organizations sued the U nited K ingdom under the treaty to try and prevent a legal transfer of
arms to Saudi Arabia.
By announcing the U nited S tates will not join the ATT, President Trump is ensuring this agreement will not
become a platform to threaten Americans’ Second Amendment rights.
The U nited S tates export controls have long been considered the gold standard for engaging in
responsible arms trading and we will continue to use them under our own laws.
The ATT is simply not needed for the United States to engage in responsible arms trade.
America will continue to abide by U nited S tates laws that ensure our arms sales are implemented after
careful legal and policy reviews.
A MISGUIDED AGREEMENT: The ATT fails to actually address the problem of irresponsible arms transfers.
The ATT will only constrain responsible countries while allowing the irresponsible arms trade to continue.
Currently, 63
countries are completely out of the agreement, including major arms exporters like Russia
and China.
The ATT cannot achieve its chief objective of addressing irresponsible arms transfers if these major
arms exporters are not subject to it at all.
Trump takes every opportunity

Koh 17 (Harold Hongju Koh, Sterling Professor of International Law at Yale Law School 2017, “The Trump Administration and International
Law“, Yale Law School Legal Scholarship Repository,
https://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=6215&context=fss_papers, accessed 7-19-2019) wl
At this writing, the Trump Administration has been in office for a little over nine months, a tumultuous period
that has disrupted the world of international law. A looming question is whether the Trump
Administration's many initiatives will permanently change the nature of America's relationship with
international law and its institutions. Is there a counter-strategy to increase the odds that those international obligations will be
faithfully executed?
This Lecture will argue first that there is such a counter-strategy-the same theory that I have been applying for most of my professional career
both as a scholar and as a practitioner: Transnational Legal Process.2 Second, that during the first half-year of the Trump
Administration, we have been watching this counter-strategy play out, by transnational actors both inside and outside the U.S.
government, to mitigate the Trump Administration's efforts to break, stretch, or violate international law .
Third, what is ultimately at stake is a struggle between competing visions of a future world order. In the short term, this unfolding
counter-strategy is an appropriate response to curb the new Administration's excesses and to
preserve America's constitutional obligations to comply with binding international standards. But more
fundamentally, this approach serves as an important counter-measure to prevent the slow backsliding of
our Kantian postwar systent into a more cynical, Orwellian system of global governance far less
respectful of democracy, human rights, and the rule of international law.
He does not care about violating treaties even when they are written into US
statute—muslim ban proves
Dakwar 17 (Jamil, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Human Rights Program, 2/2/17, "All international laws Trump's Muslim
ban is breaking" Al Jazeera. https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2017/02/international-laws-trump-muslim-ban-breaking-
170202135132664.html)
One of the reasons international

law is so valuable is because the international community of nations has
developed it as protection against such abuses, both in our country and around the world, often in the name of national
security.
International law has learned from the past and made explicit that none of these violations can be excused by an
appeal to national security, nor should they be permitted by an appeal to xenophobia.
The U nited N ations Refugee Convention requires that the US provide protection and safe haven to those facing
persecution. By shutting the door to refugee admissions, whether temporarily or indefinitely, Trump's order
flagrantly violates that core obligation . This order also breaks with the long US tradition and history (with
some abhorrent exceptions that should never be repeated) of opening its doors to refugees.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees and International Migration Organization noted this proud tradition in a joint
statement in reaction to the executive order. "The long-standing US policy of welcoming refugees has created a
win-win situation: it has saved the lives of some of the most vulnerable people in the world who have in turn enriched and strengthened
their new societies," the statement read. "The contribution of refugees and migrants to their new homes worldwide has been overwhelmingly
positive."
Article 3 of the Refugee Convention makes clear that all signatory states "apply the provisions … to refugees without discrimination as to race,
religion or country of origin". In 1980, Congress enacted the Refugee Act to bring the US into conformity with
these obligations after ratifying the 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees.
The legislative and negotiating histories of the Refugee Convention further make clear that discrimination by
contracting states against different groups of refugees is a direct violation of the treaty.
While governments are responsible for designing their own refugee resettlement programmes, these programmes must conform to
international obligations. They must select refugees for resettlement only on the basis of their needs, regardless of nationality, ethnicity,
religion, or other related characteristics.
While the Convention allows exclusion of certain persons from refugee protection - for example, if they committed war crimes - this exclusion is
determined on a case-by-case basis and certainly does not allow any sort of blanket ban against a group of people or nationality.
By halting admission of refugees from Syria, Trump has carved out an impermissible exception to a
key US treaty obligation for a vulnerable community, one based solely on that community's country of origin.
This is a clear violation of the Refugee Convention.
The national security argument
President Trump has further publicly and falsely stated that his order will protect our national security. But the
UN High Commissioner for Refugees, acknowledging states' legitimate interests in maintaining public security and combating terrorism, has
warned against the effects of making exceptions, or, in his words, "the erosion of long-standing refugee protection principles".
The most fundamental refugee legal principle incorporated into the Refugee Convention and obligatory
even outside Convention ratification, is that of non-refoulement or not returning someone to a place where they are likely
to be subjected to persecution.
This principle is widely understood to be an "essential … component of international refugee protection" and is echoed in another core human
rights treaty to which the US is a state party, the Convention Against Torture (PDF).
Our core obligations under international law cannot be disposed of in times of real or, in this case, perceived political or national security crises.
To the contrary, it is in times of alarm, when governments are tempted to bow to their fears, that sticking to our core obligations and
maintaining strong American leadership on the international stage is most important.
While Trump's order places a moratorium on refugee admissions and an indefinite halt on resettling refugees from Syria, the order leaves an
exception for "religious minorities".
And while the order's language is neutral, the president stated in a recent interview with the Christian Broadcasting Company that he wants to
provide priority to Christian refugees.
While the order doesn't bar all Muslims from entering the US, barring immigration entry from seven majority-Muslim
countries, especially when paired with his national security team's record of Islamophobia, leaves no doubt that Muslims are
the target of this order.
Racial profiling
But President Trump's un-American and unconstitutional action doesn't just violate the Refugee Convention - it flies in the face of other sources
of international law that bind us.
The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, or ICERD, to which the US is bound, requires states
parties to "guarantee the right of everyone, without distinction as to race, colour, or national or ethnic origin, to equality before the law."
US violations of this treaty precede the Trump administration, and have already been so flagrant and obvious that
nearly identical concerns were addressed by the ICERD's committee after 9/11.
The Committee expressed concern at the US government's discriminatory anti-terrorism measures and
remarked that "measures taken in the fight against terrorism must not discriminate, in purpose or effect, on the grounds of race, colour,
descent, or national or ethnic origin."
In 2008, the Committee specifically addressed the US government's racial profiling of Arabs, Muslims, and South Asians after the 9/11 attacks
and the development of the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System for nationals of 25 countries, all located in the Middle East, South
Asia or North Africa.
It observed that "measures taken in the fight against terrorism must not discriminate, in purpose or effect, on the grounds of race, colour,
descent, or national or ethnic origin."
Aside from the institutionalized discrimination of Trump's Muslim ban, there is growing concern that it could be applied by border officials to
sanction discriminatory questioning, profiling, and treatment of Muslim, South Asian, and Arab citizens and non-citizens at airports and
elsewhere.
Discrimination of the vulnerable
The executive order also contravenes the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights ( ICCPR ), another treaty to
which the US is a state party.
Article 26 of the ICCPR requires equal treatment before the law of all persons, without discrimination on any ground, including race, religion, or
national or social origin.
Article 4 of the ICCPR notes that even in a "time of public emergency which threatens the life of the nation", states cannot take any action to
stray from their obligations that involve discrimination "solely on the ground of race, colour, sex, language, religion or social origin".
Trump's executive order further violates the ICCPR's prohibition against discrimination and equal protection before
the law. The order is clearly discriminatory, requiring separate and unfair treatment of entire groups of people based on their
national origin, Muslims in particular.
The Trump executive order not only denies individuals an opportunity for individualised review, but it has also
resulted in the detention, denial of counsel, and removal of individuals with prior authorisation to enter the US.
Under human rights law, people are guaranteed an opportunity to adequately defend against
deportation, especially under the ICCPR and Convention Against Torture.
The UN's Human Rights Committee, charged with monitoring compliance with the ICCPR, has already concluded that "xenophobia against non-
nationals, particularly migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers, constitutes one of the main sources of contemporary racism and that human
rights violations against members of such groups occur widely in the context of discriminatory, xenophobic and racist practices."
The international community has seen this before, and it has wisely created mechanisms to stop history from repeating itself.
The highest UN refugee officials have issued statements in recent years, anticipating and proscribing actions such as Trump's. After 9/11, the
UN High Commissioner for Refugees stressed that "[a]ny discussion on security safeguards should start from the assumption that refugees are
themselves escaping persecution and violence, including terrorist acts, and are not the perpetrators of such acts."
More recently, in response to the 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris, the High Commissioner expressed concern about states ending refugee
resettlement programs or making refugee resettlement harder. "We are deeply disturbed by language that demonises refugees as a group," the
High Commissioner's spokeswoman said. "This is dangerous as it will contribute to xenophobia and fear."
Just this week, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi expressed deep concern about the "uncertainty facing thousands of
refugees around the world who are in the process of being resettled to the United States."
He estimated that 20,000 refugees in precarious circumstances might have been resettled to the US during the 120 days covered by the
suspension.
He noted that the people his agency refers to governments for resettlement are the "most vulnerable - such as people needing urgent medical
assistance, survivors of torture, and women and girls at risk" and that "new homes provided by resettlement countries are life-saving for people
who have no other options".
Reciprocal measures
Meanwhile, in mere days since the order was signed, many countries are considering taking reciprocal measures against US citizens. Trump's
measure may likely further endanger the religious minorities he purports to defend.
International companies, academic institutions, and even the international air transport association have raised serious concerns regarding the
detrimental impact of the order on their staff and ability to conduct business. Even Trump's own employees took a bold and public stance
against the ban.
Trump's Muslim ban has enraged world leaders and was condemned by UN officials. The new
secretary general of the UN, Antonio Guterres, said that Trump's executive actions "violate our basic
principles … [and] are not effective if the objective is to indeed avoid terrorists to enter the United States."
And on Wednesday, several UN human rights experts issued a joint statement blasting Trump's immigration
ban as discriminatory and in violation of US human rights obligations.
It shouldn't take the chancellor of another country or the top refugee and human rights officials in the world to tell
President Trump that fear and xenophobia are no excuse for discrimination.
But if he won't listen to the UN or Chancellor Merkel or concerned companies, academic institutions, transport associations, human rights
organisations, and over 100 diplomats, maybe he should listen to former US President Ronald Reagan, supposedly a hero of his. In 1980, a year
after the Refugee Act was signed into law, the new president, just a few months into his presidency, re-affirmed the US' commitment to
welcome the exiled.
AT: Fiat
Ratification is just the legal signing into US law---each country interprets the treaty
differently---means ratification isn’t enforcement bc that’s not what the ATT does
The ATT requires legislation---means ratification is still subject to Congress’
interpretation
Scoville 13 (Ryan Scoville, Associate Professor of Law at Marquette University, 8-15-2013, “A Response To The Bolton & Yoo Op-Ed
On The Arms Trade Treaty“, Marquette University Law School Faculty Blog, https://law.marquette.edu/facultyblog/2013/08/15/a-response-to-
the-bolton-yoo-op-ed-on-the-arms-trade-treaty/, accessed 7-19-2019) wl
One final point: I was surprised that Bolton

and Yoo did not address the issue of whether the ATT would be self-
executing, given that a non-self-executing ATT would require implementing legislation and, therefore,
could not possibly enable the Administration to circumvent Congress . On my reading, non-self-execution is
likely. The provisions of Articles 5 and 10, for example, rather clearly contemplate domestic acts of
implementation after ratification . Moreover, many have interpreted the Supreme Court’s 2008 decision
in Medellin v. Texas as favoring, if anything, a presumption against self-execution. I don’t see anything in
the relevant provisions that would overcome that presumption.
Non-self-executing treaties are open to interpretation

Comstock 17 (Audrey Lynn Comstock, pre-doctoral fellowship at the University of California, Los Angeles, January 2017, “DOMESTIC
LEGISLATURES AND INTERNATIONAL LAW: EXPLAINING STATE PARTICIPATION AND COMPLIANCE WITH UNITED NATIONS HUMAN, RIGHTS
TREATIES“, Cornell University,
https://ecommons.cornell.edu/bitstream/handle/1813/47866/Comstock_cornellgrad_0058F_10129.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y,
accessed 7-19-2019) wl
Beyond the monism and dualism distinction, statescan differentiate between selfexecuting and non-self-executing
status of treaties and address the issue of supremacy separately. In some states, once a state commits to treaty law it
becomes automatically incorporated in domestic laws. In these states, domestic law considers treaty
law to be self-executing. In other states, treaty incorporation is not automatic upon commitment.
These states consider treaty law as not self-executing . In these states, the legislature must pass additional
measures to incorporate treaty law into domestic law . This distinction is similar to the
monism/dualism debate, however increasingly treaties have self-executing status written into the text. This causes variation
between state approaches to international law and limits within the treaty. More nuance exists when states
change interpretations over time and make further distinctions between issues of self-execution and supremacy. For the purposes of this
dissertation, I focus on the monist/dualist divide but will discuss issues of self-executing versus non-self-executing as they arise.
Internal Links
2NC – I/L - Breach
Breaching international treaties cedes US international authority
Amirfar 18 (Catherine Amirfar, partner at Debevoise & Plimpton LLP; and Ashika Singh, associate in the International Dispute Revolution
Group at Debevoise, Summer 2018, “The Trump Administration and the “Unmaking” of International Agreements“, Harvard International Law
Journal, https://harvardilj.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/15/HLI201_crop-1.pdf, accessed 7-18-2019) wl
For example, whilethe emissions-reduction pledges in the Paris Agreement are non-binding political
commitments, its procedural provisions do create legally binding obligations under international law.20
Therefore, President Trump could not “undo” the Paris Agreement with the stroke of a pen; in order for U.S.
withdrawal to be effective as a matter of international law, the withdrawal provisions in the Agreement must
be followed. Under Article 28 of the Paris Agreement, a country may give notice of its intention to withdraw after three years have elapsed
from the Agreement’s entry into force on November 4, 2016. Withdrawal will then take place one year after the receipt of the notification. In
August 2017, the United States submitted a formal notice of withdrawal.21 But U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Agreement could only take
effect from November 4, 2020—notably, the day after the next U.S. presidential election. Under Article 68 of the VCLT, such withdrawal could
be revoked at any time before it takes effect. Accordingly, if the U nited S tates ceases implementation of at least the binding
elements of the Agreement before then, there is significant risk the U nited S tates would be in breach of
international law , as the U nited S tates remains bound by its Paris Agreement commitments until withdrawal
takes effect. While not within the scope of this Essay, it suffices to say that a breach of international law by the U nited
S tates would have significant foreign policy ramifications, including for the ability of the U nited S tates to
hold other countries accountable for their conduct as well as for breaches across a broad array of
international agreements, reaching far beyond climate change to national security, international
criminal cooperation, and trade, to name a very few.
Of course, international law does not address the question of who within the State may act to terminate a treaty and how withdrawal might
affect domestic law, which is left to domestic schemes.22
Exit clauses incentivize violation

Helfer 05 (Laurence R. Helfer 05, Vanderbilt law professor, “Exiting Treaties “, Virginia Law Review, Volume 91,
http://www.virginialawreview.org/sites/virginialawreview.org/files/1579_0.pdf, accessed 7-16-2019)
Uncertainty is a pervasive feature of international affairs. Denunciation clauses reduce uncertainty by

giving states a low cost exit option if an agreement turns out badly. All other things being equal, such clauses
encourage the ratification of a treaty by a larger number of states than would be prepared to ratify in the absence of
such a clause.57 They may also enable states to negotiate deeper or broader commitments than would be attainable
for treaties without unilateral exit.58 Taken together, these ex ante benefits of exit counsel negotiators to include
broad and permissive withdrawal clauses in the treaties they draft.59
Although the ex ante benefits of exit may be considerable, treaties that permit easy denunciation also
create ex post costs that may impede future cooperation. One such cost is that states will overuse exit
clauses and invoke them (or credibly threaten to) whenever economic, political or other pressures make compliance costly or
inconvenient.60 But the risks extend beyond such opportunistic behavior. Fearing that their treaty partners today may
quit a treaty tomorrow, states that prefer to cooperate have a reduced incentive to invest the resources needed to comply with the
agreement.61 These incentives suggest that governments seeking to make treaties more durable should eliminate or restrict exit opportunities,
a position directly contrary to the ex ante perspective favoring broad exit rights.
These competing perspectives on the costs and benefits of exit reveal that a principal challenge facing
treaty negotiators is to set optimal conditions on exit ex ante so as to deter opportunistic uses of exit clauses ex post
after the treaty has entered into force.62 Treaty
restrictions that are too easy to satisfy will encourage selfserving
denunciations and lead to a breakdown in cooperation. Restrictions that are too onerous will
discourage such behavior, but may prevent the parties from reaching agreement in the first instance,
or, if agreement is reached, may lead to widespread treaty violations if the costs of compliance rise
unexpectedly.63
AT: Exiting Treaty Worse
Exiting is better than violating treaties—blatant violation undermines all of
international law. Exit is legal and usually leads to better engagement and alternative
formations within international law.
Helfer 05 (Laurence R. Helfer 05, Vanderbilt law professor, “Exiting Treaties “, Virginia Law Review, Volume 91,
http://www.virginialawreview.org/sites/virginialawreview.org/files/1579_0.pdf, accessed 7-16-2019)
INTRODUCTION
THE international legal system is grounded on a fundamental principle: pacta sunt servanda — treaties must
be obeyed .1 States, or more precisely the government officials who represent their interests at diplomatic
negotiating conferences, are masters of their treaty commitments. No state can be forced to accept a treaty without
its consent, nor can it be compelled to join an intergovernmental organization against its will. Once a state has assented to a
treaty and has successfully shepherded it through its national approval process, however, it must observe its treaty
commitments in good faith.
International law takes a dim view of challenges to this meta norm of treaty adherence. Claims of invalidity, changed circumstances, and other
exculpatory doctrines are narrowly construed, with the result that most unilateral deviations are viewed as breaches of a treaty. True, a
state may lawfully suspend adherence to a treaty or even cast it off altogether where another party has materially violated the
agreement. But such reciprocal acts of noncompliance, suspension, and abrogation are governed by an
elaborate set of limiting doctrines designed to avoid the vicious cycles of breach and counter-breach
that would quickly cause interstate cooperation to unravel . 2
Neither treaties nor the geostrategic context in which they are embedded are static, of course. When shifts in the political landscape or
domestic preferences undermine a treaty’s objectives or render its terms unduly burdensome or obsolete, international law directs states to
eschew unilateral action in favor of negotiation with their treaty partners. The plausible outcomes of such collaborative efforts are constrained
only by the parties’ ingenuity. They range from a temporary suspension of the treaty, to a modification of its terms, to wholesale abrogation of
the agreement with or without the adoption of a fresh set of treaty commitments.3
Yet buried at the back of most modern international agreements, and often overlooked by scholars, are provisions that call into question
international law’s unequivocal command that states must either obey treaties or cooperate in abrogating or revising them. Such provisions,
known as denunciation or withdrawal clauses, permit a state to “exit” from a treaty that the state had previously ratified and that is otherwise
valid and in force.4
Distilled to their essence, exit clauses create a lawful, public mechanism for a state to terminate its treaty
obligations or withdraw from membership in an intergovernmental organization. Denunciation and withdrawal are also
fundamentally unilateral acts. They do not require the consent or approval of other states and may often be
effectuated simply by providing notice to the other parties. Moreover, a state that invokes these clauses to quit a treaty occupies a very
different position from a state that breaches its treaty commitments. An exiting state faces different burdens and benefits,
different prospects of being sanctioned, different reputational consequences, and different responses by other parties than a state that
breaches an international agreement.
Treaty clauses that authorize exit are pervasive. They are found in a wide array of multilateral and
bilateral agreements governing key transborder regulatory issues, including human rights, trade, environmental protection, arms
control, and intellectual property. More intriguingly, exit clauses impose different types and degrees of restrictions on a state’s ability legally to
withdraw from a treaty and the obligations it imposes. And occasionally, exit clauses are absent altogether, raising the possibility that exit may
be implicitly precluded as a matter of international law. This textual variation suggests that governments may be as interested in negotiating
the conditions and contours of exit as they are in bargaining over a treaty’s substantive terms.
States that invoke denunciation clauses do so to achieve different objectives. For example, states have exercised their option to exit a treaty as
a result of shifts in the preferences of domestic in terest groups, changes in treaty obligations, or expansions of the functions of
intergovernmental organizations.5 These developments may create a disconnect between national interests and international commitments
that lead a state to pursue a policy of disengagement, as occurred, for example, when North Korea withdrew from the Nuclear Non-
Proliferation Treaty and when the United States withdrew from the compulsory jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice.6
The consequences of withdrawal are also diverse. They include: isolation (as in the case of North Korea); unilateral or bilateral alternatives (the
latter reflected in the Article 98 agreements that the United States negotiated after “unsigning” the treaty establishing the International
Criminal Court);7 a la carte multilateralism (for example when Caribbean nations withdrew from a human rights treaty and then attempted to
re-ratify the same treaty with a reservation concerning the death penalty);8 and the creation of a new treaty regime with competing norms or
institutions (as occurred when Iceland denounced the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling and, together with other pro-
whaling states, established the North Atlantic Marine Mammal Commission).9 In these and other examples, exit
provides a
mechanism for states to disengage from or radically reconfigure existing forms of international
cooperation.
At other times, however, states pursue exit (and threats of exit) not to dissociate themselves from future cooperation with
other na tions but, as Albert Hirschman famously explained in the domestic context, as a strategy to increase their voice
within an intergovernmental organization or treaty-based negotiating forum.10 The United States’ denunciation in the 1970s
and 1980s of the agreements establishing the International Labor Organization (“ILO”) and the United Nations Educational, Social and Cultural
Organization (“UNESCO”) follow this pattern.11 In each instance, the
U nited S tates used exit and threats of exit—and the loss of
organizational support and funding these entailed—to pressure the organizations to change their behavior, after which it
renewed its membership. The Soviet Union and its allies pursued a similar approach in the 1950s, temporarily withdrawing from but later
rejoining the World Health Organization (“WHO”), UNESCO, and the ILO.12 More recently, the United States and the European Communities
used an exit strategy to close the Uruguay Round of trade talks that created the World Trade Organization (“WTO”). They withdrew from the
old General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (“GATT”)—a treaty that gave special benefits to developing countries—and then also ratified the
new WTO Agreement as a “single undertaking,” forcing developing nations to accept a broad package of obligations favorable to United States
and European interests.13
Given the prevalent use and diverse design of denunciation and withdrawal clauses, it is surprising that the subject of
exiting treaties has received so little attention in international law and international relations (“IR”)
scholarship. A few legal scholars deplore denunciation in passing as “a mask for anarchy, a practice
which weakens the whole structure of treaty-created international obligations.”14 This negative view may reflect the fact that the history of
treaty exit includes one of international law’s darkest episodes— the failure of the League of Nations.15 Most legal scholars, by contrast,
assume denunciation and withdrawal clauses to be mere boilerplate provisions that states negotiate rarely and invoke even less frequently.16
IR theorists, too, have mostly ignored the study of when and why states quit a treaty. Rather, these scholars have framed the two alternatives
available to treaty parties as either cooperation or defection. Yet the ability of states to exit from international
agreements—and from their costs and benefits, their avenues of persuasion and influence, and their information-sharing, monitoring, and
sanctioning mechanisms—belies the assumption that states face only a dichotomous choice between
complying with treaties on the one hand or violating them on the other.
Viewed even more broadly, taking treaty exit seriously complicates existing understandings of interstate cooperation and compli ance with
international law, whatever their disciplinary provenance. When the option to exit is factored into the doctrinal rules of international law and
the paradigms of IR theory, it calls into question assumptions and hypotheses that each discipline has taken for granted. Conversely,
understanding when and why states exit treaties—or simply preserve their right to do so—helps to resolve certain
theoretical and doctrinal puzzles that have long troubled scholars of international affairs.
The pervasiveness of treaty exit clauses and their largely unexamined theoretical and empirical implications highlight the
need for a comprehensive interdisciplinary study of why governments negotiate clauses that authorize
denunciation and withdrawal, the forms such clauses take, the functions they serve, and the conditions under which states actually invoke the
clauses to abandon their treaty commitments. This Article will provide a theoretical and empirical framework for understanding treaty exit and
will lay the groundwork for future interdisciplinary research.
Before proceeding, however, two cautionary notes are in order. First, treaty exit provisions do not exist in a vacuum. Rather, they often operate
in tandem with or as an alternative to myriad other flexibility devices—such as subject matter and membership restrictions, reservations,
duration and amendment rules, escape clauses, and renegotiation provisions—that treaty makers use to address the pervasive uncertainty of
international affairs.17 The first parts of this Article will hold these other risk management tools constant to identify the distinctive
characteristics of exit and will isolate their influence on interstate cooperation and treaty compliance. The Article’s concluding Sections will
relax this assumption to consider the relationship between exit and other treaty-based tools that states use to address uncertainty and manage
risk.
Second, and notwithstanding the linkages among these treaty design provisions, exit occupies a unique and somewhat paradoxical position at
the juncture of international law and politics. In particular, exit has both cooperation-detracting and cooperationenhancing attributes. On the
one hand, exit can be the ultimate act of disrespect for international rules and institutions. A state that absents itself from international
organizations or agreements may effectively discredit those entities in the eyes of other states or domestic interest groups. On the other hand,
exit can have a law promoting function . Particularly given the international legal system’s relatively anarchic environment, in
which surreptitious shirking of treaty obligations is often plausible, a state’s decision to follow the rules of the game,
publicize a future withdrawal, and open itself to scrutiny demonstrates a kind of respect for
international law . One of this Article’s objectives, therefore, will be to begin the complex process of disentangling the cooperation-
detracting functions of exit from its cooperation-enhancing and law promoting functions and to explore the relationships among them.
The remainder of this Article will proceed as follows. Part I will identify six distinctive characteristics of exit and distinguishes them from the
breach of a state’s treaty commitments. I will return to these attributes of exit throughout the Article, amplifying their functions and explaining
their relationship to existing theoretical paradigms. Parts II and III will describe the lack of attention to exit issues in, respectively, international
law and IR scholarship. These parts will identify and analyze implicit but mistaken assumptions and omissions in each scholarly approach and
illustrate how introducing an exit option into the theoretical mix enriches our understanding of the forms and functions of treaty-based
cooperation. Part IV will explore the significance of exit for international law and politics. It will identify four unsettled or unexplored issues of
interstate cooperation, two doctrinal and two theoretical, and consider how the analysis of exit developed in this Article helps to resolve those
issues.
2NC – Courts Fail
Judicial checks don’t have real teeth---it is only normative, but Trump doesn’t care.
Simon Waxman 17. Freelance writer and editor, whose work appears in The Washington Post, New
Republic, The Boston Globe, Los Angeles Review of Books, and elsewhere. 2-21-2017. "Trumping Judicial
Review." Washington Spectator. https://washingtonspectator.org/trump-judicial-review-waxman/
The courts have not ruled on the merits and legality of the executive order, so this churlish nod to judicial deference appears to be another feint. What is clear is
that judges are not just going to play along with Trump’s agenda. How many rebukes can he take? How long before he devises his own plan to get his way?
Given Trump’s character and history, and given the hard-right boundary-pushing of this White House,
there is good reason to expect that the administration will press, subvert, and ignore the Court as it
deems necessary , daring the House to draw up articles of impeachment in order to maintain checks and balances in
Washington. Throughout his career in politics and business, Trump has shown that nothing short of
coercive power will contain him. Traditions, truths, behavioral norms, and moral warrants are
irrelevant; all that matters is whether adversaries can bring force to bear. He asks for neither
permission nor forgiveness. Thus has Trump repeatedly avoided his civic duty to pay taxes and bullied his way out of contracts. Where law is on his
side, he will always self-aggrandize, even if conventional notions of the right or good demand otherwise. Where the law is against him, he has relied on his money
and lawyers to escape prosecution. If he cannot do that, he at least avoids accepting responsibility for wrongs committed and harms done. For instance, early in his
career, when the federal government sued his real estate firm for discriminating against black renters, Trump settled without admitting guilt. And, as a series of
reports in The Washington Post by David Fahrenthold document, Trump abused his charitable foundation for purposes of self-dealing and relied on dodgy tax
schemes to get away with it. During his presidential campaign, Trump was endlessly chastised for ignoring all the usual political norms. He has not released his tax
returns, defending the choice exclusively on the grounds that he isn’t required to do so. Similarly, he refuses to resolve his conflicts of interest, instead doing the
least the law requires while throwing a few small bones to a public anxious about corruption. He repeatedly lied about the incidence of crime and terrorism and has
continued to do so in office. When questioned on these and other fabrications, he and his adjuncts inflate them. They are never chastened. His Department of
Homeland Security initially continued to carry out his executive orders on immigration and refugees even after federal courts had stayed them, demonstrating the
administration’s hostility even to judicial constraint. The
point here is not to recap but to recognize something that seems
intrinsic to Trump’s character: he is incapable of restraint. He does what he wants and challenges
others to hold him accountable . This is a dangerous disposition in a president. As a private citizen,
Trump had to respect the law to some degree, lest its coercive power get in his way. As president, he
is still enjoined to respect the law, but it is now his job to carry out that law. This means that the
credible threat of legal coercion is much reduced. He can do as he wishes and refuse to execute the
law against himself . He may not succeed, but only if it is politically impossible. Surely this can’t be, though. The president, we are inclined to believe, is
not above the law. Indeed, the Constitution tells us as much. But this is just a fine phrase. The president is only beholden to law if he
believes he is or if someone can force him to be. For in our system the courts can only speak; they
cannot act. The courts, including the Supreme Court, may tell the president he is wrong on the law,
but the material force of the federal government is invested in the executive. The White House can carry on as it
pleases, limited only by the will of the voters exercised every four years or by Congress, through the impeachment power. No less a luminary than President
Abraham Lincoln showed as much. In 1862 he rejected the Supreme Court’s ruling in Dred Scott v.
Sanford, which held that Congress had no power to regulate slavery in U.S. states and territories. Yet Congress voted that year to prohibit slavery in all existing
and future territories, and Lincoln signed the law. In doing so, Lincoln arguably followed a bit of wisdom offered by another American of high standing, Thomas
Jefferson. In 1810 Jefferson wrote, “A strict observance of the written laws is doubtless one of the highest duties of a good citizen, but it is not the highest. The laws
of necessity, of self preservation, of saving the country when in danger are of higher obligation.” This is a stunning argument for unconstrained executive authority
in times of crisis. It
is not hard to envision Trump, who is convinced that the United States is in mortal peril from immigrants and terrorists,
acting on a similar sense of righteousness. What is more, when Lincoln rebuffed the Supreme Court, he may have been acting on his
constitutional authority. We are used to thinking of the Court as the final arbiter of what the law is and what
the Constitution allows. But a vigorous strain of legal thought, mostly confined to conservative
intellectuals, holds that this “judicial supremacy” is a myth—that the Constitution nowhere grants the
Court power to review and nullify laws. On this reading, the Court appropriated such power in the case of Marbury v. Madison (1803), and
nearly everyone has spent the past two hundred years deluding themselves. The legal thinking behind this view is complex and certainly open to debate. Indeed, it
is a minority position primarily associated with unyielding originalists, often aligned with the Federalist Society. What is more, originalism cuts both ways here. For
instance, the Georgetown Law Professor Randy Barnett has defended judicial supremacy, which he also calls “judicial equality,” through close reading of the
framers. He contends that the “Judicial Power” in the Constitution, as the framers understood it, encompasses authority to review and void unconstitutional laws.
(Why an originalist account should be necessary or itself supreme—originalism and analogs being absent from the Constitution—remains mysterious.) Whatever
the arguments pro and con, the Trump administration is an ideal vehicle for the conservative case against judicial review. Trump
is surrounded by
extreme political and policy entrepreneurs who have already shown themselves willing to upset even
the least controversial expectations. Top adviser Steve Bannon has made no secret of his intent to transform government at every level.
Trump’s refusal to release his tax returns and place his assets in a blind trust break decades of precedent. Since the first day of his campaign, he has dispensed with
half a century of carefully cultivated GOP dog-whistling in favor of explicit racism. With respect to judicial review specifically, policy chief Stephen Miller has
proclaimed the administration’s disdain. During a recent appearance on Face the Nation, he accurately noted that the president enjoys
“very substantial” power over national-security policy. But he asserted new legal doctrine in claiming
that any such policy “will not be questioned.” He also said, “We have a judiciary that has taken far too much power and become in many
cases a supreme branch of government.” An administration unconstrained by foresight, facts, procedure, and
morality, consumed by ideological zeal, is well placed to challenge judicial review. It is, after all, just a tradition,
according to the sorts of constitutional interpreters likely to be embraced in this Oval Office. And even if the courts do not acquiesce to
such monumental revisionism, the administration is the entity tasked with enforcing court decisions,
which means that precious little can stop it. The courts can still give the administration much of what it wants without inviting challenges
to their powers of review. The Supreme Court conceded to Roosevelt while preserving its authority. And many speculate that the justices played along with the
2012 case against the Affordable Care Act because they knew that, if they struck down the law’s central provisions, the Obama administration would find a way
around them. Had Obama succeeded in circumventing the court, he would have revealed the essential
powerlessness of a judiciary dependent on the executive’s will. But do you expect the Trump administration to play that card
only once? Are men such as Trump and Bannon, demonstrably ruthless in their pursuit of financial and political gain, to be trusted with such powers of intimidation?
At the moment, we can only wonder, but what we know of them counsels severe doubt. We
should consider both of these real
possibilities: that the administration will question the authority of the judiciary to determine the
legality of its actions and that the administration, when rebuked, will refuse to comply with court
orders . In either circumstance, judges themselves present no obstacle to a defiant executive. Only Congress,
exercising its power to impeach, and the voters, can slow the administration down. For opponents of judicial
review, this is precisely as it should be. For anyone who values the courts as effective sources of checks and balances,
this is a troubling moment.
Responds very slowly to subsequent infractions---means the executive can easily outmaneuver.
Darren A. Wheeler 09. Assistant professor of political science at Ball State University, author of
Presidential Power in Action: Implementing Supreme Court Detainee Decisions. 12/2009. “Checking
Presidential Detention Power in the War on Terror: What Should We Expect from the Judiciary?”
Presidential Studies Quarterly, vol. 39, no. 4, pp. 677–700.
The first argument against the Supreme Court serving as an effective check on presidential detention power in the war on terror is that the
judiciary simply takes too much time to make decisions (Rehnquist 1998). This does not mean that it takes longer to
resolve detainee cases than other types of cases in the federal judicial system, but rather that the entire judicial decision-making
process itself is one that simply takes a lot of time . The workload of the federal court system has consistently
risen over the past several decades (Carp and Stidham 2001). Both civil and criminal cases usually take years to wind
their way through the federal judicial system and reach the Supreme Court. Even then, the Supreme
Court may decide not to hear a case , or it may simply remand the case back to the lower courts for further proceedings.
Some cases travel up and down the federal judicial system multiple times, with decisions at each level
often taking months or even years . This lengthy process can be referred to as “judicial time,” and it is a
recognition that courts often take longer to make decisions than many other political actors. The concept of “judicial time” is similar in some
respects to Stephen Skowronek’s (1993) idea of thinking about a president’s ability to impact policy in terms of cyclical “political time,” as it also
highlights the importance of looking at policy making in a temporal context. The time it takes for courts to make decisions— especially relative
to other actors—is the key. While the judiciary contemplates cases before it, other actors may not be inclined
to wait for judicial resolution of policy issues, opting instead to take action on their own terms and
timetables (Moe and Howell 1999a, 1999b). It is fair to say that lengthy deliberation is an institutional feature of the
judicial system and, indeed, even a reflection that the judiciary is functioning in the manner in which it was intended (Hamilton, Madison,
and Jay 1961). The courts are supposed to be deliberative and sort through often complicated legal arguments. This phenomenon of judicial
time is not inherently good or bad, but it can influence the policy-making process and the decision-making calculus of other political actors
(Rehnquist 1998). When the Supreme Court is pressured to act quickly, institutional procedures and norms
can break down and the Court can respond poorly. The World War II case of Ex Parte Quirin (1942) involving the use of
military tribunals to try suspected Nazi saboteurs is a prime example. Upon capturing eight Nazi saboteurs who had landed on the shores of the
eastern United States, President Franklin D. Roosevelt quickly devised a special military tribunal to try the suspects instead of prosecuting them
in civilian courts. The Supreme Court hastily convened a special session (after the tribunal hearings had already commenced), heard oral
arguments, and issued a decision against the defendants in a period of only a few days. The saboteurs were eventually found guilty and several
were executed. It wasn’t until three months later that the Supreme Court issued an opinion justifying its hurried decision, an opinion that
Justice Felix Frankfurter later remarked was “not a happy precedent” (Fisher 2003). A more contemporary example, Bush v. Gore (2000),
engenders similar criticism. In a decision that effectively handed the presidency to George W. Bush, the Court’s involvement from start to finish
could be measured in a mere handful of days. The opinions that resulted from this case, many critics contend, reflected the hurried nature of
the Court’s judgment (Correspondents of the New York Times 2001; Greenhouse 2001). On
the other hand, the ability to make
decisions with dispatch has been trumpeted as a strength of the executive branch since the founding .
This is especially true when it comes to war powers . One of the primary arguments that Alexander Hamilton made in the
Federalist Papers for placing the commander-in-chief authority in the executive branch lay in the belief that presidents have the ability to act
quickly and decisively in military matters needed to protect the nation. President Bush responded proactively to policy questions in the war on
terror in cases involving detainees. The president quickly put detainee policies into place, and reactive efforts on the part of the courts and
Congress to modify those policies have proven especially difficult (Ball 2007; Schwarz and Huq 2007; Wheeler 2008). It can
truly be said
that the executive and the judiciary often operate at very different speeds. This can complicate
judicial efforts to check executive power (Koh 1990; Moe and Howell 1999a, 1999b; Wheeler 2008).
Trump would win the showdown

Eric Posner, Professor of Law, The University of Chicago Law School, and Adrian Vermeule, Professor
of Law, Harvard Law School, March 2011, The Executive Unbound, p. 52-4
We now turn from Congress to the courts, the other main hope of liberal legalism. In both economic and security crises, courts are marginal
participants. Here two Schmittian themes are relevant: that
courts come too late to the crisis to make a real
difference in many cases, and that courts have pragmatic and political incentives to defer to the executive,
whatever the nominal standard of review. The largest problem, underlying these mechanisms, is that courts
possess legal authority but not robust political legitimacy. Legality and legitimacy diverge in crisis conditions, and the
divergence causes courts to assume a restrained role. We take up these points in turn. The Timing of Review A basic
feature of judicial review in most Anglo-American legal systems is that courts rely upon the initiative of
private parties to bring suits, which the courts then adjudicate as "cases and controversies" rather than as abstract legal
questions. This means that there is always a time lag, of greater or lesser duration, between the adoption of
controversial government measures and the issuance of judicial opinions on their legal validity Common
lawyers sometimes praise this delayed review precisely because the delay ensures that courts are less likely to set precedents while crises are
hot, precedents that will be warped by the emotions of the day or by the political power of aroused majorities." Delayed
review has
severe costs, however. For one thing, courts often face a fait accompli. Although it is sometimes possible to
strangle new programs in the crib, once those measures are up and running, it is all the more difficult for
courts to order that they be abolished. This may be because new measures create new constituencies or
otherwise entrench themselves, creating a ratchet effect , but the simpler hypothesis is just that officials and the public
believe that the measures have worked well enough. Most simply, returning to the pre-emergency status quo by judicial
order seems unthinkable ; doing so would just re-create the conditions that led the legislature and
executive to take emergency measures in the first place. For another thing, even if courts could overturn or
restrict emergency measures, by the time their review occurs, those measures will by their nature already have
worked, or not. If they have worked, or at least if there is a widespread sense that the crisis has passed, then the legislators and
public may not much care whether the courts invalidate the emergency measures after the fact. By the
time the courts issue a final pronouncement on any constitutional challenges to the EESA, the program will either have increased liquidity and
stabilized financial markets, or not. In either case, the legal
challenges will interest constitutional lawyers, but will lack
practical significance. Intensity of Review Another dimension of review is intensity rather than timing. At the level
of constitutional law, the overall record is that courts tend to defer heavily to the executive in times of
crisis, only reasserting themselves once the public sense of imminent threat has passed . As we will discuss in
chapter 3, federal courts deciding administrative cases after 9/11 have tended to defer to the government's assertion of security interests,
although more large-number work is necessary to understand the precise contours of the phenomenon. Schmitt occasionally argued that the
administrative state would actually increase the power of judges, insofar as liberal legislatures would attempt to compensate for broad
delegations to the executive by creating broad rights of judicial review; consider the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), which postdates
Schmitt's claim. It is entirely consistent with the broader tenor of Schmitt's thought, however, to observe that the
very political forces
that constrain legislatures to enact broad delegations in times of crisis also hamper judges, including judges
applying APA-style review. While their nominal power of review may be vast, the judges cannot exercise it to the full in times of crisis. Legality
and Legitimacy At a higher level of abstraction, the basic problem underlying judicial review of emergency measures is the divergence between
the courts' legal powers and their political legitimacy in times of perceived crisis. As Schmitt pointed out, emergency
measures can
be "exceptional" in the sense that although illegal, or of dubious legality; they may nonetheless be
politically legitimate, if they respond to the public's sense of the necessities of the situation.71 Domesticating this point and
applying it to the practical operation of the administrative state, courts reviewing emergency measures
may be on strong legal ground, but will tend to lack the political legitimacy needed to invalidate
emergency legislation or the executive's emergency regulations. Anticipating this, courts pull in their horns. When the
public sense of crisis passes, legality and legitimacy will once again pull in tandem; courts then have more freedom to invalidate emergency
measures, but it is less important whether or not they do so, as the emergency measure will in large part have already worked, or not. The
precedents set after the sense of crisis has passed may be calmer and more deliberative, and thus of
higher epistemic quality—this is the claim of the common lawyers, which resembles an application of the Madisonian vision to the
courts— but the public will not take much notice of those precedents, and they will have little sticking
power when the next crisis rolls around.

Impacts
XT---International Norm IL
If Trump undermines multilateralism, the global order will transition to a new
hegemonic power
Jones 17 (Maureen Jones, Graduate Faculty in Liberal Studies at the City University of New York, September 2017, “TRUMPING NORMS:
WHITHER THE INTERNATIONAL LIBERAL ORDER?“, City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works,
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=3348&context=
gc_etds, accessed 7-18-2019) wl
III. Multilateral Treaties, Agreements, & Partnerships
At the end of World War II, a consensus formed amongst world leaders about the optimal approach for
preventing future wars. They believed that the best strategy to confront anarchy and other threats in international politics, would
be to form alliances, make treaties, and establish international institutions. This tactical change led to the
emergence of the norm of multilateralism in international relations . Multilateralism refers to
“coordinating relations among three or more states in accordance with certain principles” (Ruggie, 1992). The concept
of multilateral agreements and alliances was not to encroach on an individual nation’s sovereignty, but to
provide the constructs by which to prevent future world wars. Within this framework, the norm of
multilateralism has been successful . The post WWII era has witnessed a flourishing of multilateral agreements, alliances, and
partnerships. Examples of multilateral institutions and agreements range from the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, the World
Health Organization, World Bank, and UNICEF to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and Treaty of Rome. While this is not to
claim that all multilateral efforts have surpassed or even met their goals, the global network of institutions, agreements, etc., have proven
successful in the fundamental goal of stemming world war.
A critical part of the success of multilateral agreements is the role that the hegemonic power has in
diffusing and supporting them. Since the end of WWII, America and its leaders have embraced this role and
reinforced the norm. As George Sørenson details:
…liberal scholars overwhelmingly tend to agree with realists and Marxists as concerns the relationship
between power and international institutions; it requires a hegemon , a dominant military and economic
power, to create and develop an international order, 20 because in the absence of such a power, liberal rules
cannot be enforced around the world… without hegemonic power , conflict is the order of the day. (2017)
The U.S. has immensely benefitted from the role of the hegemonic power. The hegemonic platform
enabled the past thirteen U.S. presidents to promote American national interests throughout the world and diffuse its
norms, laws, and values globally.
President Trump’s rhetoric throughout his campaign and during his first six months in office, has
sought to undermine the
norm of multilateralism. He has frequently attacked multilateralism, as he views the world through a
transactional, nationalist lens . Trump prefers to view the world economy as a zero-sum game, in which negotiations will result in a
“winner” and “loser”. His belief in zero-sum negotiations derives from his previous experience in the real estate business. Unfortunately, this
outlook does not work in the multiparty international system, in which the ideals of community and cooperation, to burden-share and confront
the world’s problems in partnership, such as climate change, have become the norm.
The concept of a zero-sum game in regard to climate change is especially perilous. In negotiations to reduce emissions and protect the
environment, there are no singular winners or losers. The
failure to protect the environment will result in consequences and
disasters for every country, regardless of which country made the most or least amount of concessions during treaty and
agreement negotiations. Trump’s insistence on conducting negotiations and reviewing previous agreements and treaties for
areas in which to “win,” suffers from a profound lack of understanding of the benefits of multilateralism and will
prove highly unproductive, if not disastrous.
It is critical to challenge the conservative theory that multilateralism negatively impacts sovereignty and
threatens democracy. This is important in the Trump Administration as many of 21 his advisors subscribe to conservative and other
right-wing values. This belief among conservatives derives from the notion that multilateral treaties impede
domestic law and American democracy by permitting foreigners to create binding laws (Kaye, 2013). The perceived
adverse impact on American democracy fails to recognize the hegemonic power that America enjoys
and its ability to frame treaties and agreements towards its interests. Furthermore, as Robert Keohane, Stephen Macedo, and
Andrew Moravscik discuss, multilateralism enables a pooling of democracy which permits:
…Democratic polities to achieve policy goals together that none could realize alone. Without reciprocal cooperation, governments
cannot reach domestic goals such as slowing global warming, liberalizing the international economy, integrating communication
systems, combating terrorism, and regulating multinational corporations (2009).
With regard to multilateralism, Trump has hurled his harshest attacks at the United Nations and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). Trump has
compared the U.N. to a political game and called it an underperformer (Parker, 2016) & (Nelson, 2017). Beyond his verbal attacks, Trump has
proposed slashing American contributions to the U.N., with specific cuts designated for peacekeeping missions. These cuts would severely limit
the U.N.’s and its agencies’ abilities to fulfill their missions. Trump’s recommendations came in the form of his budget proposal to Congress. In
subsequent explanations, Trump stated that he believed the amount of funding that the U.S. contributes to the U.N. is “unfair”, as U.S.
contributions compose twenty-two percent of the U.N.’s core budget (Nichols, 2017). Despite the high percentage of overall funding, the
number is based upon agreements in the U.N. General Assembly and are reflective of the U.S. economy. The U.N. is perhaps one of the most
effective 22 venues that the U.S. has had in diffusing its norms and values. The notion of reducing staggering amounts of funding would
severely limit the U.N.’s functional capacity and have the potential to wreak internal havoc, as budgetary measures would likely have to be
renegotiated and the viability of the organization would be questioned. In the end, an organization that has served for decades as a proponent
of numerous U.S. values and interests would be severely crippled, which could result in a highly unstable international order.
The TPP was a multilateral free trade agreement negotiated by the Obama Administration. Its principle aim was to “reduce trade and
investment barriers among 12 Pacific Rim countries, including the United States” (Ikenson, 2016). By pushing for the TPP, the U.S. sought to
reassert its presence in the Pacific. Indeed, the TPP would have overwhelmingly aligned with American norms and practices, especially with
regard to trade. This was evidenced by some of the protections and restrictions that the TPP included, such as, intellectual property protections
for American technologies, labor protections, protections for endangered wildlife, support for trade unions, and the elimination of harmful
child labor practices (USTR.gov, 2016).
In addition, TPP would have provided a counter-balance to the rise of China’s influence in political and economic arenas, especially within
China’s regional sphere. China’s rise threatens the international liberal order as the PRC often does not follow established norms and practices.
The TPP had enormous potential, as it would have forced China to loosen the protectionist measures it has on its markets and lead to further
opening (Naughton, Kroeber, De Jonquieres, & Webster, 2015) Furthermore, the twelve-nation bloc would have had greater negotiating power
in trade negotiations with China and the potential to force China to conform with additional trade norms. 23
The decision of Trump to walk away from the TPP is exceptionally ill-conceived. As Trump spoke of TPP throughout his campaign, he was unable
to identify if China was even part of the TPP (Friedman, 2017). Trump’s misinformed belief that he can negotiate a “better” trade deal with
China bilaterally, than in aligning the U.S. under TPP, will likely lead to a lessened position of the U.S. vis-à-vis Asia, generally and with China
specifically. The bargaining power of a single actor will rarely outweigh a twelve-bloc alliance, such as TPP. Trump’s misbegotten calculus on TPP
could prove a tragic retrenchment stemming from his woeful lack of understanding of the international liberal order, its norms, or value the
necessity for the hegemonic power.
The norm of multilateralism has always held a critical role in the international liberal order. The threat that President Trump poses to that
norm, could result in severe degradations of international institutions and organizations and established multilateral treaties, agreements, and
partnerships. Trump’s beliefs about the impacts of multilateralism on America are demonstrably facile and unfounded. America, especially as
the hegemonic power that guarantees most international institutions and partnerships, often experiences the most gains from multilateralism.
Furthermore, Trump’sdeparture from viewing the global order through lenses of cooperation and
community to ones of transactional and nationalist stances, will, in the end, likely harm America and Americans most. The
global loss of the hegemonic guarantor will result in a creation of space for a new hegemonic power to
rise, potentially an American adversary . Finally, a rejection of multilateralism will likely result in lost
opportunities and intentional avoidances of America. Allies and adversaries alike, will strive to create
new multilateral agreements and alliances. They will seek opportunities with actors that they believe 24
will uphold agreements and have a serious interest in pursuing mutually beneficial multilateral
accords.
AT: US not influential
If the thesis of the Modeling adv is true and that the ATT sets international norms, it is
equally true undermining it degrades international norms
The great powers dictate global governance---not the other way around
Cui 16 (Shunji Cui, Associate Professor of International Politics and Deputy Director in the Department of Political Science, School of Public
Affairs at Zhejiang University5-27-2016, “Great Power Management in International Society“, OUP Academic,
https://academic.oup.com/cjip/article/9/2/181/1745012#35829954, accessed 7-18-2019) wl ***edited for ableist language
***GG = Global governance
As Hurrell notes, the

hierarchical order established by the great powers during the 19th century remained
‘extraordinarily powerful and influential throughout the twentieth century’ including in the formation
and functioning of the expanding set of IGOs. 114 The great powers will continue to play a crucial role in the
world order even as GG extends beyond traditional GPM: ‘unsurprisingly, in debates on world order, it is the
voices of the most powerful that dominate the discussion .’ Even the work of a dedicated liberal institutionalist such as
Ikenberry makes strong links between great powers and the creation and function of IGOs. 115 So while
global governance involves both a wider range of actors and a more consensual, horizontal, and negotiated character, it
might still better be seen as necessarily entangled with GPM rather than as a replacement for it. The
great powers still have the resources and interests to dominate IGOs. The management of international
society is certainly not confined to an exclusive great power club as it was during the 19th century, but GPM
remains, both as an institution of international society and as a core component of GG . As argued in the
previous section, there are strong reasons for pessimism about GPM, whether because of general autism [internalization] among
the great powers, or rivalry between authoritarians and democracies, or inability to adjust to the entry
of non-Western great powers into the club. If GPM breaks down, we will be offered a case study of whether the new form of
horizontal GG can operate strongly, or even at all, by itself. This will be of considerable theoretical interest to IR, but
rather unpleasant for those who have to live through it.
Modelling Adv.
trump crushes LIO – 1NC
Trump smashes the liberal order
John Feffer, 2018. John Feffer is the director of Foreign Policy In Focus at the Institute for Policy
Studies. The Nation. 3/26/18. “Donald Trump Has Been True to His Word on Human Rights”
https://www.thenation.com/article/donald-trump-has-been-true-to-his-word-on-human-rights/
SMASHING THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY The Trump administration has continued to wage America’s ongoing wars across the
Greater Middle East and Africa. At various moments, the president himself has also threatened to attack
both North Korea and Venezuela. And with Pompeo heading for the State Department and the even more Iranophobic and bloodthirsty John
Bolton becoming national security adviser, a military conflict with Iran may well be in the offing. So far, however, the only new “war” President Trump has
launched is a metaphoric one against the international community—with all-too-real consequences. He promptly
withdrew from the Trans-Pacific Partnership and then the Paris climate accord, while regularly threatening to
deep-six a multilateral nuclear agreement with Iran signed by the Obama administration—all acts reflecting his disgust
for anything that smacks of internationalism (or Obama himself). His assault on the global human rights order
has been even more dramatic. One of his first gestures was to re-impose a “global gag rule” restricting US
funding for organizations worldwide that provide family-planning assistance. Over the summer, his administration
quietly prepared to close the State Department office that investigates genocide and war crimes . In October, it announced its
future withdrawal from the UN cultural organization UNESCO (because of alleged anti-Israel bias). Soon after, the administration pulled out of a
global migration pact that Obama had enthusiastically endorsed the year before. A month later, it cut funding for the UN Relief
and Works Agency, which helps Palestinian refugees, and is now preparing to reduce cooperation with
the International Criminal Court. Its biggest target so far, however, has been the UN Human Rights Council. UN
Ambassador Nikki Haley presented that council with an ultimatum: “If it fails to change, then we must pursue the advancement of human rights outside of the
council.” Although the Council has yet to bend to US demands, Trump and company are undoubtedly uninterested in its “reform.” (Washington hasn’t even
bothered to replace its special representative on the Council.) No international initiative has proven too small for his administration to target, even the Extractive
Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), a global standard implemented by 52 countries whose task is to reduce corruption in the energy and mining sector. As
Adam Davidson commented in the New Yorker, “[T]he Trump Administration is actively implementing, in real policy, its avowed distrust—even contempt—for
international compacts designed to improve the lives of people around the world. Abandoning EITI is not for show; it is a move toward dismantling the architecture
of global governance.” At a gut level, Donald Trump just hates “globalism,” which represents the antithesis of his America First doctrine. If he gets his way, the
United States will not simply withhold its support for global initiatives, it will undermine any kind of global planning or cooperation that has a peaceable bent to it.
Just as British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher believed only in individuals, not “society,” Trump dismisses the UN and believes only in powerful actors. As his
then-loyal adjutants, National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster and former chief economic adviser Gary Cohn, put it in a Wall Street Journal op-ed in May 2017, “The
world is not a ‘global community’ but an arena where nations, nongovernmental actors, and businesses engage and compete for advantage.” Thanks to the Trump
team, the international community is quickly devolving into World Wrestling Entertainment. At first, the new president’s global belligerence had a certain unifying
effect. Even as the United States withdrew from the Paris climate accord, for instance, the last two holdouts (Syria and Nicaragua) signed on and the rest of the
world’s nations recommitted themselves to achieving the agreement’s goals without US participation. In the face of a possible US withdrawal from the Iran nuclear
deal, the other signatories (Europe, Russia, China, and Iran) redoubled their efforts to preserve it. But bullies have a pernicious influence on
social norms, which means that a single powerful rule-breaker can do much to undermine global institutions. As such, the Trump administration’s
withdrawal from the climate deal has largely deflated that global effort. The Europeans have reluctantly agreed to form a working group with the United States on
altering the Iran nuclear deal, while the Iranians recently indicated that they might withdraw from it if the Europeans can’t keep Washington on board. Having
broken the international rules of the road, Trump is now rewriting them to reflect his extreme version of American exceptionalism. After
the genocidal
bloodletting of World War II, the UN, and its foundational documents on human rights represented a
different, more humane trajectory for the world. Donald Trump is attempting to rewind world history to
an earlier era of blood and soil, of a nationalism red in tooth and claw , and of unfettered capitalism. He has
brokered an informal alliance of autocrats and financiers worldwide against the UN and human rights
more generally. In this reincarnated version of an older order, the rich and the strong will prosper—at least for a while. Trump and friends will make out like
bandits—at least for a while. And until citizens unite across borders to rescue the human rights order from this onslaught, the weak and the
outnumbered will have ever fewer places to turn on an increasingly heartless planet .
LIO resilient – 1NC
No need for democracy promotion---the liberal order is resilient
G. John Ikenberry 18, Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Chicago, Milbank Professor of
Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University in the Department of Politics and the Woodrow
Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, March 2018, “Why the Liberal World Order Will
Survive,” Ethics and International Affairs, Vol. 32, No. 1, p. 19-22
But does this vision of power transition truly illuminate the struggles going on today over international order? Some might argue no—that the
United States is still in a position, despite its travails, to provide hegemonic leadership. Here one
would note that there is a durable infrastructure (or what Susan Strange has called “structural power”) that
undergirds the existing American-led order. Far-flung security alliances, market relations, liberal
democratic solidarity, deeply rooted geopolitical alignments —there are many possible sources of
American hegemonic power that remain intact. But there may be even deeper sources of continuity in
the existing system. This would be true if the existence of a liberal-oriented international order does not in fact require hegemonic
domination. It might be that the power transition theory is wrong: the stability and persistence of the existing post-war
international order does not depend on the concentration of American power.
In fact, international order is not simply an artifact of concentrations of power. The rules and institutions
that make up international order have a more complex and contingent relationship with the rise and
fall of state power. This is true in two respects. First, international order itself is complex: multilayered,
multifaceted, and not simply a political formation imposed by the leading state. International order is not “one
thing” that states either join or resist. It is an aggregation of various sorts of ordering rules and institutions. There
are the deep rules and norms of sovereignty. There are governing institutions, starting with the
United Nations. There is a sprawling array of international institutions, regimes, treaties, agreements,
protocols, and so forth. These governing arrangements cut across diverse realms, including security
and arms control, the world economy, the environment and global commons, human rights, and
political relations. Some of these domains of governance may have rules and institutions that narrowly reflect the interests of the
hegemonic state, but most reflect negotiated outcomes based on a much broader set of interests.
As rising states continue to rise, they do not simply confront an American-led order; they face a wider
conglomeration of ordering rules, institutions, and arrangements; many of which they have long
embraced. By separating “American hegemony” from “the existing international order,” we can see a
more complex set of relationships. The United States does not embody the international order; it has
a relationship with it, as do rising states. The United States embraces many of the core global rules and
institutions, such as the United Nations, International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, and World
Trade Organization. But it also has resisted ratification of the Law of the Sea Convention and the Convention on the Rights of the Child
(it being the only country not to have ratified the latter) as well as various arms control and disarmament agreements. China also embraces
many of the same global rules and institutions, and resists ratification of others. Generally speaking, the more fundamental or core the norms
and institutions are—beginning with the Westphalian norms of sovereignty and the United Nations system—the more agreement there is
between the United States and China as well as other states. Disagreements are most salient where human rights and political principles are in
play, such as in the Responsibility to Protect.
Second, there
is also diversity in what rising states “want” from the international order. The struggles
over international order take many different forms. In some instances, what rising states want is more
influence and control of territory and geopolitical space beyond their borders. One can see this in China’s efforts
to expand its maritime and political influence in the South China Sea and other neighboring areas. This is an age-old type of struggle captured in
realist accounts of security competition and geopolitical rivalry. Another type of struggle is over the norms and values that are enshrined in
global governance rules and institutions. These may be about how open and rule-based the system should be. They may also be about the way
human rights and political principles are defined and brought to bear in relations among states. Finally, the struggles over
international order may be focused on the distribution of authority. That is, rising states may seek a greater role in
the governance of existing institutions. This is a struggle over the position of states within the global political hierarchy: voting shares,
leadership rights, and authority relations.
These observations cut against the realist hegemonic perspective and cyclical theories of power
transition. Rising states do not confront a single, coherent, hegemonic order. The international order
offers a buffet of options and choices. They can embrace some rules and institutions and not others.
Moreover, stepping back, the international orders that rising states have faced in different historical eras
have not all been the same order. The British-led order that Germany faced at the turn of the twentieth century is different from
the international order that China faces today. The contemporary international order is much more complex and
wide-ranging than past orders. It has a much denser array of rules, institutions, and governance
realms. There are also both regional and global domains of governance . This makes it hard to imagine
an epic moment when the international order goes into crisis and rising states step forward—either China
alone or rising states as a bloc—to reorganize and reshape its rules and institutions. Rather than a cyclical dynamic of rise
and decline, change in the existing American-led order might best be captured by terms such as
continuity, evolution, adaptation, and negotiation. The struggles over international order today are
growing, but it is not a drama best told in terms of the rise and decline of American hegemony. If the
liberal international order endures, it will be because it is based on more than American hegemonic
order. To be sure, the United States did give shape to a distinctive post-war liberal hegemonic system,
and many of its features— including the American-led alliance system and multilateral economic
governance arrangements—are themselves quite durable . But the broader features of the modern
international order are the result of centuries of struggle over its organizing principles and institutions.
Rising states face an international order that is long in the making, one that presents these non-
Western developing states with opportunities as well as constraints. The struggles over the existing international
order will reshape the rules and institutions in the existing system in various ways. But rising states are not simply or primarily
“revisionist” states seeking to overturn the order; rather, they are seeking greater access and authority
over its operation. Indeed, the order creates as many safeguards and protections for rising states as it creates obstacles and constraints.
For example, the World Trade Organization provides rules and mechanisms for rising states to dispute trade discrimination and protect access
to markets. After all, more generally, it was this liberal-oriented international order—its openness and rules—that provided the conditions for
China and other rising states to rise. Indeed, if the liberal international order survives, it will be in large part due to the fact that the
constituencies for such an order that stretch across the Western and the non-Western worlds are larger than the constituencies that oppose it.
We can look more closely at these sources of continuity and constituency.
LIO bad - 1NC
Liberal world order is bad—it isn’t effective and doesn’t help to solve world crises
Kim Ghattas 16, a journalist for the BBC and author who covered the US State Department, “One
person’s world order can be another’s disorder,” https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/in-
theory/wp/2016/01/28/one-persons-world-order-can-be-anothers-
disorder/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.0751c8b251b6
When President George H.W. Bush spoke of a new world order, he envisioned “a world where the United Nations … is poised to fulfill
the historic vision of its founders” and a “new partnership” of nations … based on consultation, cooperation and collective action,
especially through international and regional organizations.
Twenty-five years later, we face the complete opposite. As Peter Maurer, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross,
said last summer, the world order is a system “that does not seem to have international institutions
with the ability to negotiate solutions to conflicts or to the big, increasing and accelerating
impact of crisis.”
Conflicts across the globe have created enduring humanitarian crises and a population of 60 million refugees, stretching the international
system to a breaking point. The world’s new disorder, as some call it, has many parts — including the 2008 financial crisis and
Russian interventionism. But nothing exemplifies the current dysfunction of the international system and the
gap in empathy and understanding between the West and the rest more than the Syrian conflict and the response to the refugee crisis.
As long as the wars were far away and the refugee camps out of sight, the
comfortable lifestyle in Western countries
and isolationist tendencies of their leaders meant there was little empathy for the “other.” The
debate about military support or intervention in Syria is a separate one, but in 2015 the United Nations received only 56 percent of the
funds it needed to address the Syrian crisis.
Strangely little attention was paid even to the security consequences of a festering humanitarian
problem. However, when the refugees of a distant war wash up on Europe’s shores, it becomes clear that “living apart together”
doesn’t work anymore. At the World Economic Forum in Davos last week, German President Joachim Gauck said that “no other
problem has divided and jeopardized the E.U. more than the refugee problem.”
And yet there is still little real leadership today on the issue , despite the threat to Europe’s borders or the security
concerns about radicalized European citizens returning from Syria. At the same time, the refugee population is placing a destabilizing
burden on Syria’s neighbors — Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon — which together are hosting more than 3.5 million refugees. The global
summit on refugees that President Obama will host at the United Nations won’t take place until September.
The liberal world order was designed by the West and mostly for the West , but it provided great human
and economic progress to other states and is still a model that many people aspire to. (After all, refugees fleeing conflict in Syria or
Afghanistan aren’t flocking to Russia or Iran.)
no treaty signaling – 1NC
Trump dislikes symbolic treaties – he’ll always reject them
Bromund 19 – Theodore Bromund is a Senior research fellow in Anglo-American relations.
5/29/19. “Treaties in the Age of Donald Trump,” https://www.heritage.org/global-
politics/commentary/treaties-the-age-donald-trump
The United States enters into an astonishing number of international agreements. So far in 2019,
we’ve signed 13 of them. The list of the U.S. bilateral treaties alone — not including multilateral treaties like NATO — runs to more than 500
pages.
Almost all of these are practical agreements, about everything from archaeological
protection to the foreign treatment of Social Security payments. They’re meant to solve
small, real problems. And because there are a lot of small, real problems in the world, there are a lot of small agreements.
And, that’s great. This is how diplomacy is supposed to work.
The Trump era hasn’t seen the death of the dull side of international agreements. And that’s the part that does most of the actual work. By and
large, the big, bold treaties don’t do much heavy lifting.
Not all big, bold treaties are useless or bad. NATO’s a great example of one that works. So’s the World Trade Organization.
But too many big treaties, like the one on the arms trade that Trump dumped, are merely symbolic statements.
We don’t do symbolism. When the United States ratifies a treaty, it becomes law. Under the
Constitution, we’re not allowed to use treaties to signal virtue. We use them to make binding commitments.
Trump’s not averse to international agreements. He’s simply a skeptic about a few of those
big, bold treaties. The Post’s belief that this amounts to a crisis of global governance is wrong. In fact, the meat of solving problems,
as a nation and as individuals, is in the little things we do every day.
He is right to be skeptical. Those big, symbolic treaties aren’t how we do diplomacy as a

nation. They contain promises we have no way of keeping, and no intention of keeping. They’re symbolic; they don’t work. And they’re a
distraction from necessary, day-to-day diplomacy.
Trump’s not killing treaties. He’s killing the danger posed by the symbolic agreements he
dislikes. By opposing them, Trump’s not opposing treaties. He’s paying them the compliment of taking them seriously.
2NC Trump
Trump kills US cred – decks multilateral institutions and allows China to fill our
leadership role – the aff can’t solve
John Haltiwanger 18, politics reporter at Business Insider, 6-22-18, “America’s global reputation will
take ‘years to repair’ from the Trump era, experts warn”, https://www.businessinsider.com/us-global-
standing-will-take-years-to-repair-from-trump-2018-7
In this context, many

are concerned Trump is doing immense damage to America's global standing by
pushing away allies and taking the word of foreign adversaries over US intelligence agencies.
A majority of Americans ( 61%) feel the US is less respected across the globe with Trump in the White
House, according to an NBC News/SurveyMonkey poll released Wednesday.
Meanwhile, experts warn it
could take "years" for the world to trust the US again as Trump continues to
attack the international institutions it played a fundamental role in building following World War II,
especially the NATO alliance and the United Nations.
David Rothkopf, a foreign policy expert and visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, warned against hyperbolic
assessments of the impact Trump can have on America's place in the world.
"Nothing is irrevocable," Rothkopf told Business Insider. "Much of America's global standing is based on factors that Trump won't or can't
greatly diminish — from the vitality of our economy to our innovation, the strength of our armed forces to our history."
But Rothkopf also noted that Trump

does have the capacity to do "long-term damage to our alliances, our
crucial international relationships and the international system that has been essential to our peace
and stability since World War II."
These relationships
could recover quickly, Rothkopf said, but "underfunded institutions" may take longer to
recover. What will take longest to address is the "degree to which countries like China or groups of
countries like the EU take the lead in our absence."
Rothkopf also warned of the broader impact of Trump's tendency to cozy up to authoritarians such as Putin and his willingness to meet with
North Korea's Kim Jong Un.
"It will be hard to reverse the gains of dictators and opportunists who take advantage of Trump
policies to extend their influence ," Rothkopf said. "And it will take a long time for the world to trust US
stability again ... several election cycles for them to tell whether Trump was an aberration or just a
symptom of a greater problem with America."
Célia Belin, a visiting fellow in the Center on the United States and Europe at the Brookings Institution, expressed similar sentiments.
"No damage is ever irrevocable when it comes to global standing, but it could take years to repair ," Belin
told Business Insider, adding that the US is becoming an "unreliable and untrustworthy actor" under Trump.
Trump has routinely made misleading claims about the way in which NATO functions and financial commitments member states have made,
sometimes incorrectly suggesting other member states owe money to the US for protection.
NATO was established upon the notion of collective defense, outlined in Article 5 of the alliance's
founding treaty. But Trump has even called into question whether the US would honor Article 5 under
his leadership, suggesting he would be reluctant to deploy the US military to come to the defense of
other member states.
Concurrently, critics of Trump have blasted him for UN-related decisions such as pulling out of the
landmark Paris climate accord.
As Trump pushes traditional allies away, nations will become "increasingly reluctant" to view it as a
reliable partner , Belin said, adding, "Allies and partners will now refuse to trust America blindly."
"Trump's damage to US standing will be depend on how long he stays in power, and on how other
nations rebalance and diversify away from the US ," Belin said.
Brandon Valeriano, the Donald Bren chair of armed politics at Marine Corps University, agrees Trump's impact on America's global standing will
the next administration will have its work cut out for it because
likely be "temporary" for the most part. But he said
of Trump in terms of "resetting and restoring" the global order.
"Put simply, we will regress and spend lots of time trying to recover ," Valeriano told Business Insider.
Heather Conley, director of the Europe Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the transatlantic alliance the US
helped build post-World War II was on a "slow yet steady slide" when Trump entered the White House, but added that he has "put a heavy foot
on the accelerator to hasten its decline."
Conley said part of the problem is there is no general consensus in the US for what its role in the world should
be moving forward.
the US needs to "repurpose" the transatlantic alliance for a "new generation of
Accordingly, Conley said
Americans and Europeans in the 21st century before it is too late," warning the trends of "isolationism,
nativism and anti-Semitism" are currently testing America's relationship with its traditional allies in a
deeply unsettling way.
Daniel Nexon, an associate professor in the School of Foreign Service and the Department of Government at Georgetown University, said
Americans should be "extremely worried" about Trump's approach to foreign policy if they truly "care
about the core infrastructure of American international leadership ."
Nexon told Business Insider it's too soon to determine whether Trump has done permanent damage to America's global standing, but said that
in electing him as president, the US essentially demonstrated it's not capable of choosing
"competent" leaders. This sends a troubling message to the wider world and erodes trust in the US as
a world power, Nexon said.
"We elected someone who devalues and denigrates our core allies and partners. While other Republican elected officials - and some members
of the administration - voice support for American allies and traditional American international values, they certainly aren't checking Trump in
the way that foreign allies and partners hoped," Nexon said.
With Trump at the helm, Nexon said European and other historic US allies will begin to think, "Even even if
we survive his presidency, there's nothing to stop Americans from electing another person like him."
2NC US not key to multilat
The US isn’t key to multilateralism – Russia, China, and regional powers are replacing
its role. And, the plan is net worse – US assumptions that it is indispensable worsen its
foreign policy
Gordon Adams 18, professor Emeritus at the American University School of International Service, 6-
26-18, “A new world is dawning, and the US will no longer lead it”, https://theconversation.com/a-new-
world-is-dawning-and-the-us-will-no-longer-lead-it-98362
From pulling out of treaties to denigrating allies to starting trade wars, the impulsive actions of
President Donald Trump are upending the international order that has been in place since the end of
World War II.
But even before Trump’s belligerent foreign policy positions, America had been gradually losing its
dominant role in world affairs.
A power shift among the nations of the world began at the end of the Cold War and has been accelerating this century.
It is not as simple as saying “America is in decline,” since America remains a powerful country. But
American global power has
been eroding for some time, as I argue in the Foreign Policy Association’s “Great Decisions 2018” volume. The power of
other countries has grown, giving them both the ability and the desire to effect global affairs
independently of U.S. desires.
I am a foreign policy scholar and practitioner who has studied U.S. foreign policy through many administrations. I believe this
global
trend spells the end of the “exceptional nation” Americans imagined they were since the nation was
founded and the end of the American era of global domination that began 70 years ago. We are no
longer the “indispensable” nation celebrated by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright at the end of the last century.
Since the end of WWII, the U.S. has been the central player in the international system, leading in the
creation of new international organizations like the United Nations, NATO, the International
Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
American diplomacy has been essential to multinational agreements on trade, climate, regional
security and arms control. Americans could and did claim to be at the center of a “rules-based
international order.”
Those days are gone.
Not only do China and Russia contest America’s global role, a growing number of other countries are
asserting an independent and increasingly influential role in regional economic and security
developments.
Neither American political party has come to grips with this sea change. Until they do, U.S. global
actions are likely to be less effective, even counterproductive.
The power shifts are increasingly visible. In
the Middle East, the U.S. hoped for decades to isolate Iran as a pariah
and weaken the regime until it fell.
Today, that goal is unimaginable, though national security adviser John Bolton continues to imagine it.
Iran is and will remain an increasingly assertive and influential power in the region, defending and
promoting its interests and competing with the Saudi regime.
The Russians are in the Middle East region for good, building on their long-standing relationship with
the family of Syria’s dictator.
Turkey, a rising regional power, acts increasingly independent of the preferences of the U.S., its NATO
ally, playing its own hand in the regional power game.
The U.S. helped unleash these trends with the strategically fatal invasion of Iraq in 2003 – fatal, because it permanently removed a regional
leader who balanced the power of Iran. The failure to create a stable Iraq stimulated regional religious and
political conflicts and rendered ineffective subsequent U.S. efforts to influence current trends in the
region, as the continually ineffective policies in Syria show.
In Asia, decades of U.S. condemnation and efforts to contain the rise of Chinese power have failed. An
assertive China has risen.
China now plays almost as powerful a role in the global economy as the U.S. It has defended
an authoritarian model for economic growth, armed artificial islands in the South China Sea, and
built a military base in Djibouti. China has created new multilateral organizations for security
discussions and one for infrastructure loans, which the U.S. declined to join. It has developed a global lending
program – the Belt and Road Initiative – and has stepped into a stronger global role on climate
change. And China is spreading its political and economic influence into Africa and Latin America.
The U.S. cannot slow Chinese economic growth nor contain its power. China is changing the rules,
whether the U.S. likes it or not.
Japan moves toward a renewed nationalism and has removed restrictions on its defense
Elsewhere in Asia,
spending and the deployment of its military in the face of growing Chinese power.
North Korea behaves more and more like a regional power, winning a direct meeting with the U.S.
president while making only a general commitment to denuclearize. The prospect of a unified Korea
would bring into being another major regional power center in the Northern Pacific.
the Philippines and Australia, hedge their bets by improving bilateral relations with
Other countries, like
China. And India is a growing economic and military presence in the Indian Ocean and Southeast Asia.
Nor will the U.S. contain the rise of Russia , whose government poisons its citizens overseas and kills dissenters at home. At
Russia is rebuilding its military and intruding in others’ elections. The Russian regime
the same time,
is threatening its near neighbors and actively engaging in the Middle East.
Russia is consciously and
President Vladimir Putin asserts Russia’s interests and role in the world, like any other great power.
actively rebalancing the power of the United States, with some success.
Military power, the American global trump card, is not as useful a tool as it once was.
While the U.S. continues to have the world’s only global military capability, able to deploy anywhere,
it is no longer evident that this capability effectively sustains U.S. leadership. Clear military victories
are few – the Gulf War in 1991 being an exception. The endless U.S. deployment in Afghanistan carries
the whiff of Vietnam in its inability to resolve that country’s civil war.
Meanwhile, the militaries of other countries, acting independently of the U.S., are proving effective,
as both Turkish and Iranian operations in Syria suggest.
The transition to this new era is proving difficult for American policy-makers.
The Trump “America First” foreign policy is based on the view that the U.S. needs to defend its interests by acting alone, eschewing or
withdrawing from multilateral arrangements for trade, economics, diplomacy or security.
Trump praises “strong” nationalistic leadership in authoritarian countries, while democratic

leadership in allied countries is criticized as weak.
In response, allies distance themselves from the United States. Others are emboldened to act in an
equally nationalistic and assertive way.
Some conservatives, like Sen. John McCain, call for confrontation with Russia and strengthening traditional American alliances, particularly
NATO.
Others, like John Bolton, call for regime change in assertive powers like Iran.
Liberals and many Democrats criticize Trump for alienating traditional allies like Canada, France and Germany while befriending dictators.
Policy-makers once critical of confrontational policies now condemn Trump for failing to confront Russia and China.
A different president in Washington, D.C., will not restore the “rules-based” international order. The
underlying changes in global power relations have already undermined that order.
A neo-conservative foreign policy, featuring unilateral American military intervention, as favored by John Bolton, will only
accelerate the global shift. Liberal internationalists like Hillary Clinton would fail as well, because the rest of
the world rejects the assumption that the U.S. is “indispensable” and “exceptional.” Barack Obama appeared
to recognize the changing reality, but continued to argue that only the U.S. could lead the international system.
America will need to learn new rules and play differently in the new balance-of-power world, where
others have assets and policies the U.S. does not and cannot control.
US pullback from institutions is good – non-Western countries are willing and able to
pick up the slack
Paul D. Miller 18, Professor in the Practice of International Affairs at Georgetown University, 7-5-18,
“Non-‘Western’ Liberalism and the Resilience of the Liberal International Order”, https://www-
tandfonline-com.turing.library.northwestern.edu/doi/full/10.1080/0163660X.2018.1485354, DOI:
10.1080/0163660X.2018.1485354
But for the sake of argument, I will focus on the hard case of liberalism in Africa and Asia, the most clearly non-Western portions of the globe.
Of the 108 non-Western states in the world today, as mentioned earlier, Freedom House ranks 64 of them—
just over half—as “free” or “partly-free” as of 2017. That means that of all the states in the world, about a
third (64 of 195) are free or partly free non-Western states; 43 percent (64 of 146) of all fully or partially
free states are non-Western; and 27 percent of all free states (24 of 87) are non-Western (see table).
This is only a snapshot in time, however—one taken after about a decade of democratic decline across the world.6 To
get a better
sense of the history of non-Western democracy, we can use the Polity IV dataset, compiled by the
Center for Systemic Peace, which ranks a state’s level of freedom every year since 1800 on a scale of -
10 (full autocracy) to 10 (full democracy).7 The data exclude micro-sovereignties, so it undercounts democracy by missing small
democracies such as Tuvalu, Nauru, Micronesia, and others.)
According to this ranking, 70 non-Western states have scored 3 or above (corresponding to the “partly
free” ranking from Freedom House), including 52 that have ranked 6 or above (corresponding to the
“free” ranking), at some point since 1800. This includes many states that had a prior experience of full or partial democracy but
are no longer democracies as of 2015, such as Ethiopia (between 1855 and 1929), Laos (1956–1959), Burma (1948–1961), Singapore (1959–
1962), Sudan (short stints in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1980s), Gambia (1965–1993), Uganda (1962–1965), and even Syria (1944–1957). All
told,
non-Western states have experienced 1,677 country-years of full or partial democracy since 1800.
The bottom line is clear, and easily refutes the straw-man argument that democracy is only possible in
the West—liberal institutions exist in the non-Western world. They are more common in the West (82 of 87 Western
states are free or partly free), which is understandable given that modern liberal democracy was invented in the West and has had a longer
time to take root and spread among states with a broadly similar cultural heritage. But
liberal institutions are real—indeed,
they are prevalent—elsewhere. Moreover, they have a history outside the West, in a few cases
stretching back nearly to the dawn of the contemporary era.
2NC LIO Resilient
LIO resilient – it was built to develop additional support if US leadership recedes
10.1080/0163660X.2018.1485354
Despite criticism from his political opponents, Trump’s view is neither extreme nor, necessarily, racist. Trump’s
understanding of
the relationship between liberalism and national identity falls in the tradition of thinkers like Edmund Burke, Alexis de
Tocqueville, and even George Hegel, insofar as these thinkers stressed the cultural and especially religious
underpinnings of a regime’s characteristics.3 Hegel, in particular, was keen on divining the national spirits that animated and
defined different peoples and suited them to particular forms of government and society. It is reasonable to believe that
liberalism is uniquely Western because European thinkers originally explicated its philosophical
justifications and most of its institutions first appeared in European nations.
But the intellectual lineage of this view does not make it correct. Trump’s view is historically and culturally deterministic, and the facts do not
support his determinism. The history of the relationship between liberalism and Western history is just that—
history. It is not a deterministic blueprint for the future of liberalism, nor its prospects outside of the
West. Non-Western liberalism exists: it is demonstrably possible to have a democracy in a place that did
not experience Western history or produce Enlightenment philosophers. Japan, India, and South Korea are the
most obvious examples of thriving, prosperous, and stable democracies and have been for decades.
Botswana, the Philippines, and Turkey are further examples of democracy at varying levels of stability
and prosperity. They are a small sample of 64 non-Western states that Freedom House ranks “free” (24 states) or “partly free” (40) in
2017.4 Europe and America got there first, but plenty of others followed. Liberal institutions are
separable from Western history, Western heritage, and Western political philosophy.
Even if American power recedes, there are other centers of liberal power in the world.
The reality of liberalism in the non-western world is strong evidence for the resilience and integrity of the
liberal international order , even in the Age of Trump. The greatest victory of the liberal international order was to create
new stakeholders for its own survival outside of its original home. The liberal international order now
has many pillars supporting it. Even if American power recedes or Eastern European democracy backslides, there
are other centers of liberal power in the world. To dismiss non-western democrats as victims of false consciousness is
deterministic and flippant—indeed, it is a form of cultural condescension and “Orientalism,” dismissive of the authentically indigenous
pathways to open societies and accountable governance that have arisen in the non-western world.
2NC LIO Bad
The LIO is bad – shifts the focus from defending democracy at home to appeasing
authoritarian regimes abroad
Thomas Wright 18, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, 9-12-18, “The Return to Great-Power
Rivalry Was Inevitable”, https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/09/liberal-
international-order-free-world-trump-authoritarianism/569881/
China and Russia assessed that Western liberalism and freedom undermine authoritarian rule. Indeed,
many Western policy makers saw this as a desirable side effect: It may be good news for the Chinese and Russian
people, but it is bad news for their regimes. And so, China and Russia began to push back.
We
While Moscow and Beijing correctly diagnosed the threat to their regimes, we were also correct in our refusal to accommodate them.
are constantly told that the liberal order must adjust to make way for China and perhaps Russia, but
that such an adjustment—the reallocation of voting weights at the International Monetary Fund, for example—would be
largely cost free. But this is a fantasy: China and Russia want and need much more than that.
True accommodation would have fundamentally and irrevocably changed the world for the worse.
Addressing Moscow’s fears over the color revolutions would have handed it a veto over democracy in other countries in its neighborhood. It
would mean, at best, turning a blind eye to a massive and coercive Chinese and Russian effort to
pressure Western media outlets, NGOs, and even universities. And it would have turned back the
clock to an era when a few people carved the world up into spheres of influence, rather than a system
where rules, values, and votes play a leading role. A deal—one that actually addressed their insecurities—would
have been a devil’s bargain.
The return to rivalry was inevitable, if tragically so. It is rooted in a clash of social models—a free world and a neo-
authoritarian world—that directly affects how people live. China and Russia are very different powers with different
strategies, but they share the objective of targeting free and open societies to make the world a safer
place for authoritarianism. We are so interconnected and integrated after two decades of globalization that we, and they, are
vulnerable to one another. Hence all of the recent activity from political interference and economic coercion
to cyberattacks and other active measures, which they see as a necessary response to our actions.
China, in particular, has an even more ambitious long-term agenda. Its investments in artificial intelligence (AI) and facial-
recognition technology appear to be giving Beijing the ability to monitor its entire population and
make authoritarian rule efficient and effective. It promises real social goods, such as massive reductions in crime, in
exchange for much greater control over the population. These technologies are highly exportable and will
undoubtedly appeal to authoritarians or wannabe authoritarians the world over. These regimes will
cooperate and share tactics and strategy, while working together to create a world that protects their
interests. We would worry about these technologies anyway, but China’s capability and intention
make the AI challenge especially difficult.
In such a world, it makes little sense to argue that America’s strategic objective should be promoting a
liberal international order. Since that term came into common usage, it implied that China and other non-Western
powers would eventually be brought into the fold. But unlike in the 1990s and 2000s, there is no prospect on
the horizon of a universal liberal order. Instead, there is a free world competing with a neo-
authoritarian world. Yes, it’s a bit more complicated than that. There are fissures and shades of gray on both sides,
and a great deal of connection and shared interests across the divide. But the contest is real.
More importantly, framing the primary goal of American strategy as maintaining a liberal order
completely misses the point. It sends a message to the American people that their job is to maintain
the order far from home because otherwise it will encourage further aggression. This sounds rather
abstract, particularly at a time when external powers threaten liberties at home and among America’s
closest democratic allies.
LIO efforts in the Pacific worry China and cause a security dilemma
Charles Glaser 19, international relations theory scholar, 6-28-19, “The G-20 is discussing the
‘international liberal order.’ That’s a bad place to start a debate”,
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/06/28/g-is-discussing-international-liberal-order-thats-
bad-place-start-debate/?utm_term=.f2b4fa614081
the United States interprets the rules-based

At first glance, these declarations might appear uncontroversial. However,
international order as including U.S. alliances in East Asia. China increasingly views these alliances as
incompatible with its growing power, influence and status in the region. A couple of decades ago, China viewed
the U.S.-Japan alliance positively because the alliance made it less likely that Japan would build a strong military and become a nuclear power.
Today, China views the alliance as a Cold War relic that should be dissolved.
U.S. efforts to preserve the liberal international order in the Pacific, including its commitments to allies such as Japan,
inevitably worry China. The United States is committed to maintaining a free and open Indo-Pacific,
but this requires American naval dominance, which China unavoidably views as threatening. China
relies heavily on seaborne trade, especially because of its dependence on oil imports. In a wartime
situation, the United States could impede the trade routes that China needs, but equally, China's
efforts to build up its military makes the United States fear that China might impede commercial and
military shipping in a war . Security scholars refer to this kind of dynamic, where steps taken by one actor to secure itself provoke
fear and suspicion in others, as a " security dilemma ."
Causes unnecessary confrontation – LIO discussions avoid understanding motivations

Charles Glaser 19, international relations theory scholar, 6-28-19, “The G-20 is discussing the
‘international liberal order.’ That’s a bad place to start a debate”,
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/06/28/g-is-discussing-international-liberal-order-thats-
bad-place-start-debate/?utm_term=.f2b4fa614081
The liberal international order is not a useful concept
As I argue at greater length elsewhere, the concept of the liberal international order obscures more than it
reveals. This is particularly important in the Pacific region, where the clash between great power interests is especially stark. Describing
U.S. policy as a means of preserving the international order, and a free and open Pacific, masks this
conflict of interests, encouraging the United States to misunderstand China's security concerns and the
extent to which some of China's policies may be reactions to perceived U.S. threats. These
misconceptions may in turn lead the United States to exaggerate the threat posed by China, leading to a
negative spiral in which the United States adopts unnecessarily confrontational policies.
The really big question for the United States, as China rises, centers on whether the United States should
retain all of its geopolitical commitments and insist on preserving rules that were established during
the Cold War. Disagreements over the Pacific provide one especially stark example of these dilemmas. Discussions over the
liberal international order, such as the one about to begin at the G-20, very often go around in circles. One
key reason for this is the fundamental problems of international politics are about power, interests
and commitments that the liberal order discourse elides. Framing analysis in terms of preserving the
international order thereby simply assumes away the big questions.
Turn – Western dominance of the LIO is a form of neo-imperialism that provokes

conflict and topples the LIO anyway
10.1080/0163660X.2018.1485354
In his July 2017 speech in Warsaw, Poland, President Donald J. Trump told the world that Western values such as
democracy and human rights were a unique product of Western history. “Our freedom, our civilization, and our
survival depend on these bonds of history, culture, and memory,” he said, warning against the threats that might
“undermine these values and to erase the bonds of culture, faith and tradition that make us who we
are.” He spoke of the history of the communists who sought to “demolish freedom, your faith, your laws, your history, your identity—indeed
the very essence of your culture and your humanity.”1 In Trump’s view, Western values depend on Western heritage;
liberalism is better understood as a cultural outgrowth of European history, not universalizable ideals
that can be adopted by non-Western nations. Trump gave voice to this when he claimed in his foreign policy
campaign speech in 2016 that American foreign policy began to go wrong “with the dangerous idea
that we could make Western democracies out of countries that had no experience or interest in
becoming a Western democracy.”2
the liberal international order is a gigantic exercise in hypocrisy: the West is pulling wool over the eyes of
If Trump is right,
the world, claiming that it champions a set of universal values of fair play and equal rights, while actually
imposing a form of neo-imperialism and Western dominance. Non-Western states that adopt human
rights and democratic governance are victims of false consciousness—dupes at best, quislings at worst—whose
belief in democracy only serves to support Western dominance of their countries. In this view of the
world, Western power and liberal order are inextricably bound together—which bodes ill for the
future of liberal order. As non-democratic states gain power, and as non-western states throw off their illusions, the
world will shuck the liberal international order’s pretensions like a desiccated, brittle, hollow shell.
2NC PA/JCPOA Thump
Pulling out of the JCPOA destroyed credibility – erodes US leadership and means no
Russia/China follow-on
Célia Belin 17, Visiting Fellow for the Center on the United States and Europe at the Brookings
Institution, 10-16-17, “When American politics jeopardize American global leadership”,
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2017/10/16/when-american-politics-jeopardize-
american-global-leadership/
The American presidential system gives the false impression that every incumbent can reset the clock. But when
deals have been
made, the international community has some expectations, and U.S. credibility is on the line . That is why
repudiation of a predecessor’s legacy comes at a cost. Over the next few weeks, many countries will weigh in on the
sanctions debate taking place in Congress. Several of them, including close European allies, will lobby members of
Congress not to follow their president’s leadership. It is never a sign of presidential strength when
foreign leaders contradict the president by going directly to Congress, as Netanyahu famously did on
the Iran deal. Europeans will protest against Congress passing legislation to create automatic snap-
back based on specific “triggers,” and might consider it a violation of the JCPOA. And it could also go further: In
an effort to show the ineffectiveness of Trump’s decision, European diplomats have threatened to use mechanisms
to block secondary sanctions, effectively nullifying the U.S. president’s will. These measures reveal a
sorry state of affairs for the trans-Atlantic camp, highlighting deep divisions between allies and an
unwillingness on the part of Europeans to follow the mood of the moment.
By positioning himself as the anti-Obama, Trump is taking decisions that he has not fully thought through . His
relentless drive to dismantle Obama’s legacy has weakened the word of the world’s most powerful
head of state and is slowly but surely nibbling away at U.S. credibility on the global stage. Congress is given
the opportunity to show that the voice of America still matters, that the United States is committed to some policy consistency, so that
negotiating with the United States does not become an increasingly pointless exercise. If
Congress chooses to unilaterally re-
impose nuclear-related sanctions, it might strengthen President Trump’s leadership domestically, but
it will abdicate U.S. global leadership. In these conditions, Russia, China, or European allies might
decide they don’t need to follow America’s lead.
Withdrawing from the PA wrecked US leadership perception, undermined further

cooperation on US interests, and allowed China to assume a leadership position on
climate change
Jane A. Leggett 19, specialist at the Congressional Research Service, 4-5-18, “Potential Implications of
U.S. Withdrawal from the Paris Agreement on Climate Change”,
https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/IF10668.pdf
The President’s announcement was viewed generally by observers as consistent with the
Administration’s “America First” approach to foreign policy. Although the Administration has arguably
sent mixed signals about its specific foreign policy intentions, some of these signals appear to reflect, among other
things, a skeptical approach toward multilateral organizations and multilateral agreements and a
transactional approach to alliances and international agreements.
Administration’s decision to withdraw from the PA will (1) reduce the U.S.
Some observers argue that the
standing in the world by making the United States an international outlier on climate change, (2)
strengthen perceptions that the United States is withdrawing from its traditional position of world
leadership and becoming more inward-focused or even isolationist, (3) create an opportunity for
China to assume a position of world leadership on climate change and perhaps other issues, and (4)
make the United States appear less reliable as a negotiating partner, which could make it harder for
the United States in the future to secure foreign cooperation for addressing other issues of mutual
interest or to call on other countries to abide by their commitments in other international
agreements. Other observers either disagree with these arguments or argue that they are offset by gains realized for Americans under the
Administration’s approach to foreign policy.
Other nations
responded to the U.S. intent to withdraw largely with restrained expressions of regret;
they rebuffed the President’s proposal to reopen negotiations. Despite initial concerns about the resolve of Parties to
implement the PA without the United States, the most recent meeting of the Parties agreed on most of the “rulebook” for implementing the
PA’s provisions. China’s Special Representative on Climate Change stated, just prior to those negotiations, that “the political influence of the
American withdrawal [from the PA] was quite big.” He said that the
U.S. announcement initially “affected the resolve
and confidence of some other countries.” He opined that the impact of the U.S. decision has since
“dissipated,” in part because of China’s pledge to meet its commitments in full. China “sent out such a
strong political signal,” he said, that it helped “stabilize” international climate change efforts.
Withdrawal from the JCPOA erodes multilateral agreements and challenges the UN –
uniquely undermines non-proliferation efforts
Dan Smith 19, director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, 5-8-18, “US
Withdrawal From Iran Nuclear Deal: One Year On”, http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/05/us-withdrawal-
iran-nuclear-deal-one-year/
Regardless of its views about Iran’s regional policies and actions—or, indeed, about the policies and actions of its
regional rivals such as Israel and Saudi Arabia—the US withdrawal from the JCPOA is ill-conceived and regrettable
for many reasons.
It undermines the value of multilateral diplomacy and raises questions about the sanctity and
sustainability of interstate agreements.
Furthermore, it challenges the authority of the UN Security Council, which has unanimously passed a
resolution endorsing the JCPOA and calling on all UN member states as well as regional and international
organizations to take action to support the agreement’s implementation.
US withdrawal from the JCPOA risks seriously weakening trust and confidence in international
institutions and arrangements that are essential parts of the global security architecture.
In particular, the US
action undermines the global effort for nuclear non-proliferation by sabotaging an
important and effective anti-proliferation agreement. It is to be hoped that the remaining parties to the JCPOA will find
ways to support its continued implementation.
Arms Market Adv.
Solvency
1nc – ATT doesn’t solve internal conflict
The U.S cannot stop the illicit arms trade – export bans don’t solve internal conflict
Bromund 13-Theodore Bromund is a Senior research fellow in Anglo-American relations.
3/13/13. “The U.S. Cannot Fix the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty,” https://www.heritage.org/global-
politics/report/the-us-cannot-fix-the-un-arms-trade-treaty
Blaming Exporters, Not Importers. The ATT places the majority of its obligations on arms exporters,
not importers. This is in line with the tendency of both the U.N. and uncritical believers in arms control to blame problems on
weapons, not on those who use them. Yet it is the importers of the arms, not the exporters or the
arms themselves, that are actually responsible for arming terrorists or committing
human rights violations with the arms in question. The ATT assumes by its very nature
that all signatories are responsible actors, but if they were, the treaty would be
unnecessary. It reflects a world view that blames problems not on the world’s autocracies and ill-governed states, but on the better-
governed places that paradoxically are primarily responsible for negotiating the treaty. Blaming the United States. The history of the
negotiating conference and of the agitation for the ATT shows that the treaty’s proponents are more
interested in blaming the U.S. than they are in focusing attention on the evils of regimes such
as Iran, Syria, China, and Russia. This is in part because the U.S. is amenable to pressure, whereas Iran murders its dissidents. Blaming the U.S. is
safer as well as easier.
Any treaty on the arms trade will focus disproportionate attention on the U.S. and Israel while
placing little or no pressure on regimes that commit enormous human rights abuses and regularly arm terrorists. Any U.S. Administration that
The U.S. has the
supports the negotiation of such a treaty is fashioning a scourge for its own back and the backs of its successors.
world’s most comprehensive export control system and asserts that the ATT will (and
must) require no changes in it.
1nc - ATT fails
ATT fails – reporting requirements prove
Bromund 18 – Theodore Bromund is a Senior research fellow in Anglo-American relations.
8/22/18. “The Failure of Conventional Arms Reporting Under the Arms Trade Treaty,
”https://www.forbes.com/sites/tedbromund/2018/08/22/the-failure-of-conventional-arms-reporting-
under-the-arms-trade-treaty/#34418a269038
The point of the ATT, in theory, is to require nations to apply humanitarian standards to arms
transfers. In practice, the ATT mixes a relentless focus on the purported wrongs of the West — in particular, the U.S., Britain, and Israel — with a steadfast
refusal to recognize that the other institutions failed not because they were badly drafted, but because most of the world’s nations are incompetent, malevolent, or
both. The result is that the ATT is failing just as badly.
Don’t believe me? Let’s look at the evidence, taken solely from the ATT Secretariat and from the supporters of the treaty themselves — specifically, the 2018 ATT
Monitor Report, released on Monday.
The Treaty’s supporters commonly argue that the ATT cannot work if nations do not fulfill
the reporting requirements they have accepted under it. To quote the Monitor, page 97: “Transparency and
reporting remain essential Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) objectives and are a key component of its effective implementation.” On its own, this is an entirely reasonable
argument: transparency and reporting, in various forms, are common to treaties on a wide variety of subjects.
In the ATT, States Parties have pledged to report in at least two, and in practice three, ways. First, they have to submit an initial report on their efforts to implement
the Treaty. But of the 92 reports due when the Monitor was published, only 67 had been submitted, and only 56 are
So only 61 percent of the States Parties have transparently reported on their
publicly available.
implementation efforts.
Nations are then required to update their initial reports as they go about implementing
the Treaty. To date, not a single nation — not one — has submitted an update. That means that the
initial reports submitted in past years, which are now aging or out of date, are increasingly irrelevant or even deceptive guides to actual state practice.
Finally, nations are required to submit annual reports on arms transfers under the Treaty. Of
the 89 required reports, only 36 were
submitted on time, and — as of today — only 48 (covering the year 2017) have been received at all. As
the number of nations party to the Treaty has grown, the number of annual reports received has actually declined: 51 reports were submitted for 2015, 50 for 2016,
and only 48 for 2017. In other words, only 51 percent of States Parties have submitted a current annual report.
as the number of States Parties to the Treaty has grown since 2013 , the
By the by, it’s incredible that,
number of annual reports submitted has fallen . I do not know of any other international institution which mandates
reporting where the volume of reporting was highest in its first year. The normal pattern is that reporting rises over time, and then falls as the requirement
becomes too routine to bother fulfilling. The ATT’s track record is unprecedented, and unprecedentedly poor.
Of the 97 States Parties to the Treaty, only 47 have submitted both an initial report and a current annual report. Even leaving aside the requirement to submit
this means that less half the States Parties to the Treaty are actually
updates to the initial report,
complying with its reporting requirements in their most minimal sense. So if reporting is
an “essential” objective and a “key” component of the Treaty, the only possible
conclusion is that the Treaty is not working in more than half its members.
But of course, this assumes that all these reports are meaningful. One of the features of institutions like the ATT is that they often becomes elaborate exercises in
box-checking, in which the goal is to pile up reports regardless of their quality or utility. Indeed, most assessments — though not all — of reporting under the ATT or
other related instruments are nothing more than counts of the number of reports that have been submitted, made under the apparent assumption that one report
is as good as the next.
The Monitor, to its credit, is an exception to this rule. It examined every arms transfer reported for 2016 between States Parties to the ATT, and checked to see if
the reported export was mirrored by a corresponding reported import. Of the 1,923 transfers, only 172 were mirrored even in part, and only 31 were mirrored
exactly — in other words, a reported export matched exactly with a reported import. So only 1.6 percent of of the reported transfers matched: the other 98.4
percent did not.
So according to the treaty’s own supporters: 1) a majority of ATT nations are not filing
their reports and 2) the reports that are filed are 98.4 percent unreliable or unverifiable.
If reporting is indeed “essential” and “key” to the ATT, as its supporters reasonably
assert, then the ATT cannot be working.
And there is a final consideration. The point of all this transparency and reporting is, supposedly (page 99 of the Monitor), to “allow observers of the ATT to assess
States Parties compliance with ATT obligations.” In other words, it is to allow observers to assess whether or not States Parties are complying with the humanitarian
requirements at the heart of the ATT.
You might think, therefore, that the ATT’s supporters would eagerly comb through the annual reports looking for treaty violations. But as far as getting ahead of
breaking crises goes, this would be a pointless endeavor, because by the time a report is submitted — in late May, if not later — the transactions reported
(inaccurately) in it are at least 5 months old, and could be 17 months old. If you want to figure out what places in the world are likely to be buying guns, don’t
bother with ATT reports: watch CNN.
So all these supposedly vital reports — these often absent and inaccurate reports— are rarely used. Instead of chasing
data, the treaty’s supporters chase ambulances. They focus almost exclusively on high-
profile conflicts and civil wars, on U.S. and British arms exports — with a sideways
glance at the rest of Europe — and on Israel. Exports or transfers from anywhere else
(like Russia) are usually ignored , or alluded to in the passive voice.
Occasionally, having found a Western sin, the treaty’s supporters will then go back to the ATT reports, or other related instruments, to demonstrate that the exports
from Britain, France, or wherever were made, but that is where their research ends — not where it starts.
There is nothing wrong with requiring nations to report their arms exports (and
imports). The U.S. itself does this better than any other nation in the world (and gets no l credit for
it). It is hard to see how foreign policy can be subject to any sort of democratic oversight if the
executive branch is allowed to export what it wants, when it wants.
But you will never get useful bottom-up reporting by mandating it through a top-down treaty . After
all, if every nation out there wants to report their exports and imports, they are free to do so:
there is no need for a treaty. The problem is that most nations don’t want to report, are incapable of reporting, or both. The ATT aspires to
universality, but the closer it gets to universality, the less well it will work.
, even today’s ATT requires transparent reporting to work. But that reporting is
Of course
often lacking. When it is present, it is almost always inaccurate or unverifiable. The data it
contains are, on average, a year old, making it useless in detecting crises before they break. In practice, the treaty’s advocates focus on sensationalizing well-known
conflicts, using the ATT data only as an after-the-fact proof of the malfeasance of Western nations.
by the criteria of its own supporters, the ATT is not working, and it cannot work. That is
Thus,
why the U.S. should not be paying its bills, and why the U.S.’s signature should be
removed from it.
2nc – treaty loopholes
Tons of loopholes:
1. Clients can override and still sell to HR abusers

Jackson 13- Kirk Jackson is an anti-militarist campaigner and has been involved with
various campaigns over the last 20 years. 6/29/13. “The Arms Trade Treaty: A historic
and momentous failure,” https://ceasefiremagazine.co.uk/failure-arms-trade-treaty/
A weak treaty
The Control Arms coalition campaigned hard for a “bulletproof” a rms t rade t reaty, but the
final text is not bulletproof, literally or figuratively. The original wording from 2003 was relatively strong, but by the time the ATT
was adopted by the UN General Assembly in April 2013, its provisions had been so diluted as to render it practically ineffective. The final
text contains a number of serious loopholes and flaws, some of which are outlined below.
1. THE TREATY’S THRESHOLD FOR REFUSING ARMS EXPORTS IS FAR TOO HIGH
The treaty states that arms should not be exported if there is an “overriding risk” of serious
violations of international humanitarian or human rights law. This word “overriding” is open to interpretation . It
could be taken to mean that arms exports should only be stopped in extreme or exceptional
circumstances, or that a state could decide that the risk of abuse was not enough to “override” the perceived benefits of the arms
export.
For example, a supplier could decide that while a client country was likely to commit
human rights abuses, that was not strong enough to override the client’s “right to self-
defence” or “regional stability” or even the need to protect an important “strategic
partnership”. This is particularly apposite for the UK, where the government’s drive to promote arms sales always overrides human
rights concerns.
The original Control Arms draft said that arms transfers should be refused if they were “likely” to be used to commit serious violations. Later
drafts raised the threshold to “substantial risk,” and in 2012 it was further raised to “overriding risk”. The NGOs tried hard to get that changed
back to “substantial,” with support from many countries, but the US insisted that “overriding” must remain.
2. Transparency fails – states can opt out of certain information

2. THE TREATY HAS NO EFFECTIVE REQUIREMENTS FOR RECORD-KEEPING AND
REPORTING
One of the selling points of an ATT was that it would “help introduce new levels of
transparency and accountability” to an otherwise murky trade by requiring comprehensive record-keeping and public
reporting of all arms transfers.
On this issue, the treaty has failed . Whereas the original draft required states to submit annual reports on
be published by an international body, the final text only requires states to
arms transfers to
record a minimal list of arms exports that need not even include the type, model,
quantity or value of the exports.
States are supposed to submit this minimal information to a UN Secretariat, but this information
will not be published, and states are allowed to leave out anything they deem as
“commercially sensitive or national security information.”
This represents a considerably lower standard of reporting than is currently carried out by some of the world’s largest arms exporters,
including the UK, US and Germany – an outcome that Oxfam warned “risks undermining current best practice in
transparency in the international trade in arms.”

Without proper reporting provisions, there will be no way to tell whether the treaty is effective in stopping any arms exports.
3. The treaty excludes certain types of weapons

3. THE TREATY EXCLUDES CERTAIN TYPES OF WEAPONS
The treaty only covers specific types of conventional weapons. The list excludes certain types of arms including surface-to-air missiles,
armoured troop-carrying vehicles, light artillery, tear gas and, notably, drones. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI)
warned that this failure to reflect modern military technology made the ATT “likely to be a relic before it ever comes into force”.
While the treaty does mention ammunition and components, these are exempt from
some of the treaty’s key provisions. At the insistence of the US, there is no requirement to keep
records or report the export of ammunition or components. Furthermore, states are not required to
regulate the import, transit, trans-shipment, brokering or diversion of ammunition or parts.
Given the key role that ammunition plays in sustaining conflict, this is a huge loophole . It also means
that arms dealers will be able to avoid key regulations by trading in “knock-down kits” – kits of parts
for assembly in the destination country – instead of whole weapons.
4. The treaty doesn’t cover all types of arm transfers

4. THE TREATY DOESN’T COVER ALL TYPES OF ARMS TRANSFERS
Arms transferred as part of a “defence co-operation agreement” – an arrangement

whereby the military forces of two or more countries work together – are exempt from
the treaty. Arguing for this loophole to be closed, Control Arms pointed out that “There is nothing to prevent
States classifying all of their international arms trading operations as ‘defence
cooperation agreements’ thereby circumventing the treaty’s provisions.”
the final text only covers arms
Furthermore, whereas the original draft applied to all types of international arms transfers,
sales, which means that it doesn’t apply to arms that are loaned, leased, bartered or
transferred as gifts or as part of an “aid” package. (It was China that insisted on this, not wanting to be prevented
from giving arms to its allies.)
Finally, the treaty does not cover licensed production agreements, whereby a country that owns the design to a particular weapons system
grants a license to another country to manufacture that weapons system. This type of arrangement has been used by arms companies for
decades as a way of avoiding arms embargoes.
5. No exporter is up to review – zero international spillover

5 . THERE IS NO INTERNATIONAL ASSESSMENT OR ENFORCEMENT
assessing the risk of an arms export is entirely down to the exporting

The responsibility for
country. There is a clear conflict of interest here: a country that wants to export arms will tend to decide
that there is no “overriding” risk.
an exporter’s decisions are not open to international review and there are no
Furthermore,
legal sanctions for violating the treaty. The US made it clear that it would not accept the creation of an international
body to enforce the ATT.
6. The treaty legitimatizes HR abuses

6 . THE TREATY GIVES THE ARMS TRADE LEGITIMACY
One of the treaty’s core principles is “the respect for the legitimate interests of States to
acquire conventional arms to exercise their right to self-defence… and to produce, export, import and transfer
conventional arms”. It focuses specifically on stopping “illicit” trade. However, this

distinction between the “legitimate” arms trade and the “illicit” arms trade is bogus.
The vast majority of international arms transfers, including those to human rights-
abusing governments and conflict areas, are legal. Countries like the US, UK and Russia
supply large quantities of arms to repressive regimes around the world, but the treaty
leaves plenty of scope for them to declare these sales as “legitimate”.
Furthermore, by recognising the “legitimate interests” of states to acquire arms, the treaty
privileges states at the expense of non-state actors such as stateless peoples and ethnic groups
oppressed by their own governments.
the treaty asserts the right of Israel, as a state, to acquire arms for “self-
For example,
defence” but does not accord the same right to the Palestinian people who live under
Israeli military occupation. In this way the treaty could help to reinforce a status quo in
which powerful states militarily dominate marginalised populations.
The treaty also explicitly recognises “the legitimate political, security, economic and commercial
interests of States in the international trade in conventional arms ” (emphasis added). In the final vote at the UN, the
Bolivian delegate abstained, deploring that “the ‘weapons and death industries’ would rest easy knowing that the Treaty favoured their
economic interests,” adding that “priority had been given to profit over human suffering.”
In a treaty whose intent is to reduce the terrible harm caused by the arms trade, there should be no
place for declaring huge swathes of the arms trade to be “legitimate”. As Campaign Against Arms Trade – a sceptic
of the ATT – points out; “there is no such thing as a ‘responsible’ arms trade.”
ATT Doesn’t Solve
ATT sucks---there’s no commitment
Theodore Bromund 18 Senior research fellow in Anglo-American relations, February 22 2018, “Why the
U.S. Must Unsign the Arms Trade Treaty in 2018”, Heritage Foundation,
https://www.heritage.org/global-politics/report/why-the-us-must-unsign-the-arms-trade-treaty-2018
The Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) is one of a number of treaties that work not through verifiable commitments but
by promoting restrictive norms. Over time, as similar treaties have done, the ATT will shape U.S. policymaking, as
the undefined standards at its heart evolve and are applied through political pressure, moral suasion, or
the actions of the courts. Even by the standards of the Obama Administration, the ATT is a substantive failure, and it
lacks congressional support. But for the progressive activists behind the ATT, its inevitable inability to improve the
world’s incompetent and malevolent nations is irrelevant. No U.S. action can eliminate the long-term
risks posed by the ATT, but the U.S. can and should mitigate them by “unsigning” the treaty.
Circumvention
Countries disregard the ATT’s rules---no solvency
Knight 17 – Ben Knight is a journalist at DW. 11/09/17. “UN's Arms Trade Treaty 'too
weak to make a difference’,” https://www.dw.com/en/uns-arms-trade-treaty-too-weak-to-make-
a-difference/a-40452550-0
Diplomats from over 100 countries met in Geneva, Switzerland on Monday to discuss why the United Nations' landmark Arms
ATT),which came into force three years ago, has so far failed to stop the flow of weapons to the
Trade Treaty (
world's war zones.

the ATT now looks like a disappointment ,
Celebrated as a paradigm shift in the regulation of the international arms trade,
according to statements issued by NGOs instrumental in campaigning for it and then drawing it up.
"About half a million people are killed every year by firearms, and millions more are trapped in brutal conflicts fueled by reckless arms sales,"
James Lynch, Head of Arms Control and Human Rights at Amnesty International, said in a statement. "The Arms Trade
Treaty promised to save countless lives by reigning in this massive, secretive industry, but at the moment
weak implementation and a lack of transparency are threatening to undermine it."
The ATT is supposed to commit nations to stopping the export of conventional weapons if, as Amnesty puts it, "there is an overriding risk they
could contribute to serious violations of international human rights or humanitarian law."
A rule no one follows
Attending the third Conference of States Parties to the ATT was Amnesty's Rasha Abdul Rahim, who explained that diplomats there still
considered the treaty "in its infancy."
we are really concerned

"I tend to agree that it's too early to tell what the full impact of the treaty is," she told DW. "However,
with the business-as-usual approach that we're seeing with some state parties. We're
frustrated that we're not seeing as robust and transparent regulation of the arms trade as we would like."
Andrew Smith, spokesman for the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT), said there had always been problems with the ATT. "We aren't
aware of any arms exports that have actually been stopped by the ATT," It's evident that
he said. "
the treaty is too weak to make any meaningful difference."

But, as Amnesty's Rahim pointed out, "it's really difficult to tell" whether the ATT has
had any effect, because "when states don't authorize an arms transfer, they don't
usually give a reason for doing so."
Several countries including Germany, which ratified the ATT in 2014, have guidelines that the government is supposed to follow when it
approves weapons exports, but they remain just that – guidelines, not laws.
CAAT were skeptical because the major arms exporting countries had been getting
behind the ATT while maintaining, like Germany, that they already had robust arms
export controls. The treaty was also being championed by arms companies - not exactly a sign that it was particularly tough.
there are also major shortcomings in the treaty itself," Smith of the CAAT said. "It's not entirely
"But
clear from reading it who would enforce the rules or how they would be enforced, or what
would happen to anyone who broke them ."
Mark Bromley, co-director of the arms control program at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), was more patient.
"People are looking it at through the rubric of previous instruments such as the land mine treaty, which banned a whole class of weapons, and
that was never something the ATT was ever going to do. It was always about a much softer process of trying to create standards about the way
states regulate the arms trade." It's in such an area—persuading countries to be more transparent, for instance—that the ATT summit could
make progress this week.
The destruction of Yemen
The ATT has so far been signed by 130 countries, and ratified by 89, including some of the world's
biggest arms exporters: the UK, France, and Germany. Other major arms exporters, including the US and Israel, have signed
the agreement, but not yet ratified it, while Russia and China have done neither.
Amnesty listed several examples of countries signing the treaty and then ignoring it. For instance, France, the UK, and Italy, who all ratified the
ATT in April 2014, have carried on sending all kinds of conventional weapons to Egypt while the government there continues to brutally crack
down on dissent by killing and torturing thousands of protesters.
the most egregious single example of an ATT signatory ignoring the treaty is the UK's
Perhaps
recent $4.7-billion (3.9-billion-euro) arms deal with Saudi Arabia, a country that has been
leading a relentless bombing campaign in the Yemen Civil War since 2015.
According to Sally Copley, Oxfam Britain's head of campaigns, Yemen is currently suffering "the world's worst humanitarian crisis," involving
both a "borderline famine" and a massive cholera epidemic. "When you are witness to the suffering in Yemen it is hard to understand or excuse
how the UK government talks the talk on arms control while it walks the walk of arms sales," Copley said in a statement. "On the one hand it
fuels a war with massive arms sales while it sends aid to help the people it is harming."
SIPRI figures show exports to Saudi Arabia made up 48 percent of the UK's arms
exports from 2012 to 2016, while in May this year the US agreed a $110 billion worth of potential arms sales to Saudi Arabia.
Those deals included $4.6 billion worth of guided air-to-ground munitions—a total of 104,000 bombs of the type that have been used in the
Yemen war. Other deliveries in 2015-16 included 13,726 anti-tank missiles; 3,870 guided bombs; 60 combat helicopters and 1,279 armored
vehicles and four fighter ground attack aircraft.
ATT Won’t Be Enforced
ATT unpopular---
Theodore Bromund 18 Senior research fellow in Anglo-American relations, February 22 2018, “Why the
U.S. Must Unsign the Arms Trade Treaty in 2018”, Heritage Foundation,
https://www.heritage.org/global-politics/report/why-the-us-must-unsign-the-arms-trade-treaty-2018
In practice, the ATT has achieved nothing. That is no surprise. If a nation wants a control system for its arms
exports, it can impose one: No treaty is necessary . If a nation lacks the desire or the ability to impose
such a system, a treaty will not improve its governance. The ATT contains no verification provisions and
creates no incentives for compliance. In short, it is a perfect example of an aspirational treaty, one defined by pious wishes, not
serious commitments.12
Remarkably, the U.S. has officially recognized that the ATT’s standards are “aspirational.” See “Discussion of Next
Steps for the Arms Trade Treaty,” Stimson Center, April 5, 2013, https://www.stimson.org/discussion-of-next-steps-for-the-arms-trade-treaty
(accessed February 14, 2018).
The low level of national compliance with the ATT’s most minimal requirements demonstrates the
treaty’s substantive failure. Over the ATT’s first two budgets, only 78 of the 140 assessed nations (55 percent) paid into the
treaty.13
Calculated from “Status of Contributions to ATT Budgets,” ATT Secretariat, February 5, 2018,
http://www.thearmstradetreaty.org/images/ATT_Control_Lists/ATT_Finance/2018_02_05_-
_ATT_Budgets_ReceivedContributions_Overview.pdf (accessed February 14, 2018).
Only 49 nations out of 75 (65 percent) submitted the required national report on arms imports and exports for 2016.14
2NC – Outdated
The ATT is not equipped with regulating new tech
Bolton 13 (Dr. Matthew Bolton, Department of Political Science at Pace University New York City; Wim Zwijnenburg, Policy Advisor
Security & Disarmament, 21 March 2013, “Futureproofing the Draft Arms Trade Treaty: A Policy Brief“, International Committee for Robot Arms
Control, https://politicalminefields.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/futureproofing-the-draft-arms-trade-treaty-42.pdf, accessed 7-20-2019) wl
The Problem: ATT Draft Relies on Outdated Categorization of Weapons

The latest (20 March 2013) draft of the ATT states (in Article 2) that it "apply to all conventional arms within the following categories, at a
minimum:
(a) Battle tanks;
(b) Armoured combat vehicles;
(c) Large-calibre artillery systems;
(d) Combat aircraft;
(e) Attack helicopters;
(f) Warships;
(g) Missiles and missile launchers; and
(h) Small arms and light weapons
Later, in
a less stringent part of the draft there are provisions for States to “establish and maintain a
national control system” in order to regulate the export of ammunition/munitions" (Article 6.5) and
“parts and components” (Article 6.6). However, there are no provisions for regulating transfers of
technologies .
We are in the midst of a far-reaching and potentially deeply destabilizing transformation of the arms
industry driven by the growing capabilities of information and communications technology . The most
talked-about expression of this is the increasing use of armed Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) or drones. However,
weapons manufacturers are developing a wide range of robotics weapons on land and at sea, as well as in
the air. Examples include:
The iRobot 710 Warrior: This remote-control ground robotic system has the capacity to be fitted with a variety of modular
attachments, ranging from a camera, robotic ‘hand’, a shotgun or a grenade launcher. The weapons attachments can be sold separately from
the main system and reassembled later.
The UAS Advanced Development Switchblade : A miniature aerial drone and explosive “loitering munition” (the
manufacturers’ phrase), launched from a mortar tube, that can be remotely piloted to seek a target and then be flown ‘kamikaze-style’ into a
target.
There are robotic sea mines under development by several Navies that would navigate either autonomously or through remote
control and detect the presence of a ship or aircraft and autonomously fire on it.
Furthermore, there is an increase use of UAVs, and in the near future other types of unmanned systems, for
military use such as target acquisition for artillery or aerial attacks, or observing and scouting of military targets. These type of
unmanned systems can be bought as a civilian systems, but can be adapted for clear military purposes
and used as such. Considering the rapid developments in unmanned systems, new types of military systems
are also likely to be introduced on the battlefield, while it remains unclear if these systems will be part of
the current scope, nor other existing regulating bodies such as the M issile T echnology C ontrol R egime or the
Wassenaar Arrangement.
This raises numerous potential problems in interpreting how the emerging class of weapons will fit
into the Draft ATT Scope categories listed above. Is the iRobot Warrior a tank? Is it a small arm or light weapon
if it does not have a gun attachment? Is the Switchblade a “combat aircraft”, a “missile” or a
“munition”? Is an underwater military robot a “warship”?
2NC – Destroy Provision
Effective arms control treaties need a destroy provision to succeed
Kaplow 17 (David A. Koplow, Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Cente, 2017, “Eve of Destruction: Implementing Arms
Control Treaty Obligations to Dismantle Weaponry“, Harvard National Security Journal,
https://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/harvardnsj8&div=6&g_sent=1&casa_token=&collection=journals,
accessed 7-20-2019) wl
The corpus of arms control treaties now includes dozens of diverse instruments regulating the possession,
deployment, testing, and use of nuclear, chemical, biological, conventional, and other weapons in various ways. One aspect of these
vital national security tools that has not received sufficient scholarly and practitioner attention concerns the
provisions-contained in some, but not all, of the agreements-that require the parties to destroy , denature, convert,
or otherwise dispose of the now-excess armaments. These various provisions have represented very different
legal and political strategies regarding the specific requirements, standards, and timetables for accomplishing and
verifying the physical task of weapons elimination. The usual balancing act in these provisions attempts to reconcile
the benefits of certainty (by crafting precise legal obligations that specify dismantling procedures and timetables in detail) versus
the benefits of flexibility (by allowing reasonable accommodation for changed circumstances or legitimate difficulties in
accomplishing the destruction). In three prominent instances-concerning chemical weapons, nuclear weapons, and anti-personnel land mines-
that balancing process has gone badly awry, and widespread, long-term treaty violations or evasions
have arisen without adequate remedy or enforcement. This Article provides the first systematic examination of that
diverse state practice, scrutinizing the successes and failures, summarizing the lessons learned, and presenting recommendations for future
arms control efforts. It thus sheds
light on the "back end" of the disarmament process: the mechanisms
through which countries go from a highlevel agreement about the numbers and types of weapons
they will eliminate from their respective arsenals toward the practical phase of accomplishing
destruction.
2NC – Non-compliance
The ATT cannot effectually evaluate if a State is violating its provisions nor enforce
Worster 15 (WILLIAM THOMAS WORSTER, Lecturer of International Law at The Hague University of Applied Sciences, 9/24/2015, “THE
ARMS TRADE TREATY REGIME IN INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTIONAL LAW“, Penn Law: Legal Scholarship Repository,
https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1901&context=jil, accessed 7-19-2019) wl
***CSP = Conference of State Parties
If there is a finding of non-compliance , other treaties are more explicit than the ATT in providing a list
of possible remedies,207 or permitting remedies but leaving the scope open.208 Building on the prior section on review, the
power of the ATT to substantively review individual state’s compliance was not clear ; it is also unclear
whether the ATT CSP can attempt to compel compliance .209 The ATT does give one example of a recommendation that
the CSP could consider, specifically, that the CSP can consider how to promote the universality of the treaty.210 Some authorities, such
as the UNODA, have advocated for a strong universalization policy to promote the ATT as a normative
treaty,211 and this may come to be. However, it shows that the kind of recommendations that the States
Parties envisioned were not along the lines of a vigorous non-compliance procedure, but rather a more mild
promotional approach. The ATT CSP does not appear to enjoy the same degree of authority to adopt rules as
CSPs under other conventions.212 Some authorities have suggested that the power to review reports and issue findings on
compliance is inherent in the power to consider reports .213 One possibility is that the CSP might issue a
“recommendation” that takes the form of a proposed amendment or protocol, which States Parties
were then invited to ratify.214
2NC – No enforcement mechanism
ATTs most likely have no enforcement mechanism---even if they, they won’t be used
Lastly, even if there is no legal effect from certain CSP decisions, there is the possibility that states might want to impose
sanctions or countermeasures on states that do not comply with the ATT. This step of imposing sanctions might
or might not be preceded by a CSP finding of non-compliance, assuming for the moment that the CSP can issues such findings. It could be
that the ATT provides the only sanctions possible, though it is remarkably silent on the matter . On the
other hand, it could be that general international law continues to apply so that other states would have the power to impose countermeasures
in cases of non-compliance. For the purposes of this article, the
author will continue to apply international institutional
law insofar as the CSP functions as an institution.
Furthermore, any material breach of the ATT in the sense of article 60 of the VCLT may also permit not
only countermeasures in case of non-compliance, but also suspension or termination of the ATT.
Again, this article applies international institutional law from a functional perspective, and thus
suspension or termination in case of material breach would be unlikely. Institutional law
contemplates cooperation continuing after breach.418
2NC – Not binding
The ATT sets up the organ, CSP, to enforce its provisions---however its rulings are non-
binding
The usual understanding for CSPs is that their decisions, whether they are called recommendations or
decisions , or something else, are not legally binding ,352 but that does not mean that these views are not contested.353
Fitzmaurice and Merkouris argue that CSP decisions could be understood to be simply another means
of state consent to treaty obligations, as states are free under the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties
to establish the manner of their consent,354 but that view necessitates that CSP decisions be
assimilated to treaties. It has alternatively been suggested that the doctrine of implied powers alone might
result in the legally binding nature of decisions of the CSP,355 but this conclusion is difficult to sustain
since the legally binding nature of the decision would have to be the necessary intendment of the
parties . Given the lengthy experience of the international community with treaties creating CSPs, one
might expect such a provision to now be explicit if it were intended to be granted. In any analysis, the phenomenon is
clearly highly flexible and informal regarding law.
8.2. Explicitly binding
It is generally understood that, even

where the treaty permits the CSP to adopt measures against states for
non-compliance, that the legally binding effect would need to be explicit, or the measures would be considered
non-binding.356 Thus in some cases, the treaty provides that decisions of the CSP are legally-binding,357 but
other substantive decisions are not, such as the rules for emissions trading under the Kyoto Protocol.358 Some CSPs are
empowered to amend the treaty or issue decisions similar to regulations; whereas others establish “enabling
clauses,” authorizing the CSP to adopt rules further elaborating on the obligations in the treaty.359 Where this power to bind
exists, courts have recognized that the decisions would have legal effect.360 This is not the case with
the ATT.
The ATT is worse than the status quo

Parker 13 ( Sarah Parker, Policy Support Officer for the Arms Trade Treaty, June 2013, “The Arms Trade Treaty: A Step Forward in Small
Arms Control? “, Small Arms Survey, http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/fileadmin/docs/H-Research_Notes/SAS-Research-Note-30.pdf, accessed
7-20-2019) wl
*PoA = Programme of Action to Prevent, Combat and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and
Light Weapons in All Its Aspects
However, with
respect to other transactions, namely import, transit, and brokering, the political
compromises required to reach agreement have left the ATT with a series of provisions that are, in many
cases, weaker than existing commitments on small arms transfers agreed more than a
decade ago. Worse still, the ATT has taken the international community a step backwards with respect
to certain other norms, including the duration of record-keeping, a crucial element in efforts to trace
illicit small arms. What this will mean in practice is unclear. All UN member states have undertaken to
fulfil the PoA commitments, including those covering international transfers, and, at this writing, 98 states were parties to
the Firearms Protocol. How states that sign and ratify the ATT choose to implement some of its
recommendations—as opposed to obligations—in light of existing, firmer commitments they may have under the PoA,
the ITI, and Firearms Protocol remains to be seen. But given that the ATT, once in force, will be legally binding and
that it was agreed subsequent to the other instruments, states may perceive its overlapping
provisions as taking precedence over the earlier instruments. Wherever ATT provisions are weaker than their
Firearms Protocol, PoA, or ITI equivalents, the discrepancies could lead to an erosion of existing commitments, or
of their relevance, and a lowering of emerging benchmarks for small arms control.
2NC – Soft Power
The ATT’s enforcement organs use soft power restrictions
In the alternative to “ hard” customary international law , and considering the use of the term “recommendations,”
some authors have suggested that the decisions adopted by a CSP could amount to “ soft law .”413 Soft
law is based on the argument that the full magnitude and variability of legal effect cannot be
explained adequately with the usual binary law/non-law system.414 For purposes of this article, we can simply
observe that even if the decisions of the CSP would not have the typical “hard law” legal effect under
any of the means described above, they would surely have some political consequences.415 This conclusion
was precisely the opinion of the court in the National Resources Defense Council case.416 Along with claims to form hard law,
the CSP will probably have some ability to shame non-complying states.417
[Read the card abt Trump hates Soft power restrictions]

2NC – Loopholes
The ATT is cluttered with too many loopholes
Overton 13 (Iain Overton, director of investigations at the London-based charity Action on Armed Violence., 3-14-2013, “Loopholes and
loose language straighten the Arms Trade Treaty“, AOAV, https://aoav.org.uk/2013/the-dangers-of-an-arms-traders-charter-loopholes-and-
loose-language-in-the-arms-trade-treaty-threaten-its-strength/, accessed 7-20-2019) wl
***AOAV = Action on Armed Violence
At first glance, not effective at all. The

current draft treaty on the table suffers from weak and ambiguous language.
It gives states tremendous wiggle room to go through with arms transactions that would result in
unacceptable armed violence. In effect, it gives them legal cover to continue to do so.
As it stands the
draft treaty could be construed to be almost an arms trader’s charter so loose is the
language. And it undermines all of its provisions by allowing states to continue with their existing arms
contracts even if they go against the obligations of the treaty.
Why is this? Perhaps

because the current position of many member states is for consensus on an
outcome rather than to get the best treaty possible.
But this
is a wrong attitude to take. AOAV believes that member states must not take the easy option.
Dogmatic support for a consensus-based result creates the danger that negotiations are driven
towards a lowest-common denominator outcome and that significant support for efforts to
strengthen the treaty will be ignored.
This bland and unambitious approach to a rare opportunity to improve the world should not be
allowed.
The states negotiating this treaty seem to have forgotten the humanitarian purpose behind it. They seem,
for instance, to have cast aside any discussions related to the victims of armed violence.
It is AOAV’s position that governments, to ensure that this

treaty has a real and lasting impact on the victims and
survivors of armed violence, must go further. The treaty must include provisions committing states to
investing in ensuring victims receive the assistance they need to recover.
If the A rms T rade T reaty really is to make the grade, AOAV believes that players at the UN in March must
close the loopholes that remain open in the draft treaty.
They must remember that they are seeking to regulate instruments of death. This
isn’t trade in televisions or refrigerators.
They must keep in mind the humanitarian impact of this unregulated trade.
They must address the fact that the current draft text does not do enough to increase responsibility and
restraint in international arms transfers, leaving millions of people at the mercy of irresponsible arms
deals.
To have teeth, the

treaty must have strong compliance measures. It is only in such a way that it will be
able to reign in the unscrupulous middle-men who are so often at the centre of illicit and irresponsible
international arms transfers. In this way public reporting on all transfers must become an obligation on UN member states.
Activities such as brokering must also be carefully and comprehensively covered by the treaty. If
all types of arms transfer are not
included, as is currently the case, there is a real risk that a variety of ways in which arms move across borders
or change possession will still be allowed. And there is a real risk that loans, gifts, and barter would go under
the radar , as would transfers taking place from one state to another that take place within one country (e.g. during a military exercise).
Transfers should be denied if there are substantial risks of armed violence as a consequence of such action. It’s as
simple as that.
The treaty as it stands also would not prevent the international transfer of many types of conventional
weapons, including armoured troop-carrying vehicles and many types of military aircraft and
helicopters (including unmanned drones) to countries where there are concerns over human rights.
Another major loophole in the text is that ammunition and parts and components are not
And it goes on.
included in the scope of the treaty. Rather they are addressed under the section on exports. As a consequence,
these crucial items are controlled in a very limited scope.
There are currently no official estimates of the total annual value of authorized transfers of ammunition.
There are no official systems in place to record the flow of ammunition to regions where there are serious
humanitarian concerns and ongoing conflicts. There should be.
The reporting requirements of the existing treaty will do little to enhance transparency in the
international arms trade . There are three fundamental flaws in the provisions on reporting: First, record-
keeping and reporting requirements do not apply to transfers of ammunitions or to parts and components.
Second, there is no provision for national reports to be made publicly available. Third, states are at
liberty to exclude information that is considered sensitive owing to ‘commercial’ or ‘national security’ interests.
Finally, AOAV believes that the treaty must also have a rapid entry-into-force element. Every year,
every month, every hour another violent act is perpetrated, a violent act that we believe is in part
preventable.
Too many shortcomings with the ATT

Brandes 13 (Marlitt Brandes, PhD candidate and Research Associate at the Walther Schücking Institute for International Law, 2013,
““All’s Well That Ends Well” or “Much Ado About Nothing”?: A Commentary on the Arms Trade Treaty“, Goettingen Journal of International
Law, http://www.gojil.eu/issues/52/52_article_brandes.pdf, accessed 7-20-2019) wl
It is obvious from the foregoing that with the

adoption by the General Assembly and the possible entry into force of
the ATT the international community has not reached a situation in which “all’s well that ends
well”.150 The scope of the treaty is non-exhaustive and does not cover ammunition/ munitions and
parts and components in the same way as conventional weapons listed under Article 2 (1) ATT . The
substantive obligations the treaty imposes are often drafted in an imprecise or ambiguous way, which
potentially allows for States Parties to circumvent them . The provisions on implementation are just as
vague and even though the C onference of S tates P arties is tasked with reviewing the implementation of the
ATT, it is only vested with the authority to adopt recommendations regarding it. The formation of the
ATT is therefore not the last step in an already very long-lasting process to impose restrictions on the
flow of conventional arms but rather the first obstacle the international community has finally overcome.
2NC – Political (Congress)
Ratification of the ATT is a bipartisan no-no---they won’t uphold its contents
- This could be great in the circumvention DA
Inhofe 13 (James M. Inhofe, US Senator of Oklahoma, 10-15-2013, “Sens. Inhofe, Moran, Manchin and Half of Senate to White House:
U.S. Will Not Be Bound By U.N. Arms Trade Treaty“, https://www.inhofe.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/sens-inhofe-moran-manchin-
and-half-of-senate-to-white-house-us-will-not-be-bound-by-un-arms-trade-treaty, accessed 7-20-2019) wl
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Sen. Jim

Inhofe (R-Okla.) joined Sens. Jim Moran (R- Kan.) and Joe Manchin (D-W.V.) in
leading a bipartisan group of 50 U.S. Senators in reiterating to President Obama that the Senate
overwhelmingly opposes the ratification of the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty ( ATT ) and will not be bound by its
obligations.
“The
Senate spoke out against the U.N. A rms T rade T reaty this past March when 53 Senators voted for my
amendment to the Senate budget resolution to block U.S. involvement in the treaty,” Sen. Inhofe said. “Despite
clear opposition, the Obama Administration proceeded in misleading the U.N. and making the United States a signatory nation of this treaty. It
is time that the Administration puts this failed effort to rest once and for all and instead focus on the
serious economic and national security problems that threaten our country.”
“The Administration’s recent signing of the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty was a direct dismissal of the bipartisan Senate majority that rejects this
treaty,” Sen. Moran said. “Throughout this process, it has been disturbing to watch the Administration reverse U.S.
policies, abandon its own ‘red line’ negotiation principles, admit publicly the treaty’s dangerous
ambiguity, and hastily review the final treaty text. Today I join my colleagues in upholding the fundamental individual
rights of Americans by reiterating our rejection of the ATT. The Senate will overwhelmingly oppose ratification, and
refuse to uphold the treaty’s object and purpose.”
“Under no circumstances should this country surrender our gun rights to the control of the U nited
N ations,” Sen. Manchin said. “While we can work toward improving the regulation of the international trade of
weapons, I am very concerned that the rights of law-abiding Americans would be violated by entering
into this agreement. I strongly oppose any treaty that infringes on our Second Amendment rights.”
In the letter to the president, the

Senators outline six reasons why they will not give advice and consent to the
treaty and are therefore not bound to uphold the treaty’s object and purpose.
“We urge you to notify the treaty depository that the U.S. does not intend to ratify the Arms Trade Treaty, and is therefore not bound by its
obligations,” the 50 Senators wrote to President Obama.
The six reasons for opposing ratification of the ATT include:
1. The treaty failed to achieve consensus, and was adopted by majority vote in the U.N. General Assembly.
This violates the red line drawn by the Obama Administration;
2. The treaty allows amendments by a three-quarters majority vote, circumventing the power and
duty of the U.S. Senate to provide its advice and consent on treaty commitments before they are assumed by the United States;
3. The treaty includes only a weak non-binding reference to the lawful ownership, use of, and trade in
firearms, and recognizes none of these activities, much less individual self-defense, as fundamental individual rights. This poses a threat to
the Second Amendment;
4. The State Department has acknowledged that the treaty is “ambiguous.” By becoming party to the
treaty, the U.S. would therefore be accepting commitments that are inherently unclear;
5. The criteria at the heart of the treaty are vague and easily politicized. They violate the right of the
American people, under the Constitution, to freely govern themselves. The language restricts the ability of the
United States to conduct its own foreign policy and allows foreign sources of authority to impose judgment or control upon the United States;
and
6. The State Department has acknowledged that the treaty includes language that could hinder the
U nited S tates from fulfilling its strategic, legal and moral commitments to provide arms to key allies such
as the Republic of China (Taiwan) and the State of Israel.
The letter is signed by a bipartisan group of 50 U.S. Senators including: Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), Joe Manchin III (D-W. Va.), Lamar Alexander (R-
Tenn.), Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.), John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), Mark Begich (D-Alaska), Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), John Boozman (R-Ark.), Richard Burr (R-N.C.),
Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), Jeffrey Chiesa (R-N.J.), Daniel Coats (R-Ind.), Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), Thad Cochran (R-Miss.), Susan Collins (R-Maine),
Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), John Cornyn (R-Texas), Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.), Deb Fischer (R-Neb.), Jeff Flake (R-
Ariz.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Kay Hagan (D-N.C.), Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), Dean Heller (R-Nev.), John Hoeven (R-N.D.),
Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), Mike Johanns (R-Neb.), Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), Mary Landrieu (D-La.), Mike Lee (R-Utah), John McCain (R-Ariz.), Mitch
McConnell (R-Ky.), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Rob Portman (R-Ohio), Mark Pryor (D-Ark.), Jim Risch (R-Ind.), Pat Roberts (R-
Kan.), Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Tim Scott (R-S.C.), Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), John Thune (R-S.D.), Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), David
Vitter (R-La.) and Roger Wicker (R-Miss.).
Scenario 1: Organized Crime
To Do
More cartel violence low now
crime wars defense

Armed Terrorism turn
Ratifying the ATT increases armed terrorism

Theodore R. Bromund 12, PhD, former Associate Director of International Security Studies at Yale
University, 6-5-2012, "Arms Trade Treaty Risks Increasing the Threat of Armed Terrorism," Heritage
Foundation, https://www.heritage.org/terrorism/report/arms-trade-treaty-risks-increasing-the-threat-
armed-terrorism
Terrorism Frequently Cited as a Reason to Negotiate an ATT
The ATT has never focused exclusively on terrorism, but the U.N. General Assembly and influential U.N.
member states have frequently asserted that one reason to negotiate an ATT is to reduce terrorists’
ability to acquire conventional weapons. For example, the most recent substantive resolution in the U.N.
General Assembly on the ATT, Resolution 64/48, adopted on January 12, 2010, states that “problems
relating to the unregulated trade in conventional weapons...can fuel instability, transnational organized
crime and terrorism.” In his April 16, 2012, statement of “Positions for the United States in the
Upcoming Arms Trade Treaty Conference,” Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Countryman said that an
ATT would “help prevent the acquisition of arms by terrorists and criminals.”
The U.N. Has Never Defined Terrorism
It would, therefore, be logical to assume that the U.N. has a definition of terrorism that will apply in the
context of the ATT. But the U.N. has never adopted a definition of terrorism.
In the run-up to the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon “called
again for the creation of an international antiterror accord,” which “has been stymied by disagreements
over what acts and which groups should be labeled as terroristic.” The Chairman of the U.N.
Counterterrorism Implementation Task Force, Robert Orr, noted, “Legally, international law covers
almost everything that you would want it to cover.... [but] if someone is accusing someone else of
engaging in terrorist activities, there’s no clinical definition of whether they are or not.”[1] The ATT
cannot prevent nations from arming terrorists if nations do not agree on who the terrorists are, or on
what constitutes terrorism.
U.N. Security Council Has Already Addressed This Question
The U.N.’s inability to define terrorism has not prevented it from taking action in the past. U.N. Security
Council Resolution 1373, passed unanimously on September 28, 2001, in the wake of 9/11, already
requires all U.N. members to take wide-ranging actions against terrorism, including “eliminating the
supply of weapons to terrorists.” The council is supposedly responsible for maintaining international
peace and security, and, under Chapter 5 of the U.N. Charter, has the power to back up its resolutions
with armed force. The ATT, by contrast, will be based on national implementation and will not fall under
Chapter 5. It will have less authority than Resolution 1373, and yet it is supposed to succeed where that
resolution has palpably failed.
Relevant U.N. Declarations Regularly Legitimate Terrorism

At best, then, the ATT would have no effect on terrorism. But it could easily increase the risk of
armed terrorism. U.N. declarations regularly contain a clause to the effect that the U.N. recognizes:
the right of self-determination of all peoples, taking into account the particular situation of peoples
under colonial or other forms of alien domination or foreign occupation, and...the rights of peoples to
take legitimate action in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations to realize their inalienable
right of self-determination.
This quotation comes from the Chairman’s Draft Paper, the closest equivalent to a draft ATT currently
available.[2] But it is also part of many other U.N. declarations. For example, the Vienna Declaration and
Programme of Action, produced by the U.N. World Conference on Human Rights in 1993, contains a
nearly identical statement.[3] As it is also included in the ATT’s precursor, the 2001 U.N. “Programme of
Action to Prevent, Combat, and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its
Aspects,” the precedent for its incorporation into the ATT has been clearly established.[4]
Those new to the U.N. system may not realize the meaning of this clause. It was originally intended by
African nationalists to refer to the European colonial empires, and by Islamic nations to refer to the
Palestinians (“peoples under...foreign occupation”). The African context has faded, but the coded
reference to Israel—and to India, because of its dispute with Pakistan over Kashmir—has endured. In
recent years, the clause has also come to be understood as a reference to the U.S. and allied presence
in Iraq and Afghanistan. The entire clause, therefore, recognizes the supposed right of Hamas,
Hezbollah, the Taliban, and other terrorist organizations—in the name of pursuing the “inalienable
right of self-determination”—to attack Israel, India, the U.S., and its allies.
ATT Risks Becoming a “Get Out of Jail Free” Card for Terrorism’s Backers
An ATT that contains this clause would give any nation that wishes to assist a terrorist organization a
“get out of jail free” card. If confronted by the U.S. with the claim that their supply of weapons to
terrorists constituted a violation of the ATT, they could simply reply that the ATT had recognized the
right of all peoples to realize their self-determination, and that the terrorists in question represented
peoples who were engaged in an armed struggle with a nation that did not respect this right. This is why
the U.N. has never been able to define terrorism: Too many U.N. member states argue that what the
U.S. describes as terrorism is a legitimate struggle for self-determination.
Efforts to define terrorism have been blocked by the members of the Organization of Islamic
Cooperation, which contains 56 U.N. member states and has successfully prevented the development
of any definition that would apply, for example, to the terrorist organizations that attack Israel. The
OIC Charter, adopted in 2008, notes that it is dedicated to supporting “the struggle of the Palestinian
people, who are presently under foreign occupation.”[5] This is the same phrase that appears regularly
in U.N. declarations. Since the ATT is centrally concerned with the transfer of conventional arms, it is
particularly important that it does not legitimate the supply of weapons to terrorists. This will be difficult
to achieve: The ATT’s supporters want it to be a universal treaty, i.e., one signed and ratified by all U.N.
member states, but is unlikely that the OIC members will agree to any ATT that does not include this
clause.
What the U.S. Should Do

The U.S. should never sign, and the Senate should never ratify, a treaty containing a clause that
legitimates terrorism. In the July negotiations, this should be a red line, and the U.S. should publicly
state that it will break consensus on the adoption of the treaty text if any such clause—including one
similar to the standard U.N. declaration—appears in it.
Single Policies Fail
No single policy solves cartel violence---corruption, high drug demand, econ

hindrances make it impossible
Jeremy Kryt 17, Writer for the Daily Beast and Huffington Post, 7-12-2017, "Why the Military Will
Never Beat Mexico's Cartels," Daily Beast, https://www.thedailybeast.com/why-the-military-will-never-
beat-mexicos-cartels
Organized crime in Mexico, she says, is simply “too lucrative.” When a designated “kingpin” is arrested or killed by
authorities, the flow of money from the drug trade ensures a former underling or rival will rise up to take
his place.
“Massive military deployment and attacks on cartels cannot defeat or eliminate them and invariably lead to greater levels of violence,” Carlsen
says, because newly empowered factions do battle for the old crime lord’s turf.
According to Carlsen, the flaw lies not just in tactical execution, but in the authorities’ very will to fight—
despite Washington footing much of the bill.
“In Mexico the problem is in the practice as well as the strategy itself. The military can’t defeat the drug cartels,” says
Carlsen, “because it doesn’t want to.
“Police and military are often complicit with drug traffickers,” she adds, in a follow-up email. “Huge quantities of
drugs flow out of (and presumably cash flows into) areas where the military controls access.” The
problem of corruption is not limited to individuals, she notes, it’s “a systemic re-purposing of state
agencies” by the cartels.
Carlsen’s comments on official corruption are also echoed by the narcos themselves. On several occasions I’ve heard cartel members brag
about the ease with which military and police officers can be evaded or, indeed, controlled.
“The soldiers and cops are all Chilangos (natives of Mexico), and most of them are really on our side,” as a cartel sicario, or hitman, for the
Michoacán-based H3 cartel told me this week when we met for an interview on the outskirts of Aquila.
“It’s no problem to run hielo (crystal meth) or whatever through a checkpoint,” said the sicario, who asked to be identified only as Miguel. “All
we have to do is pay them off, and they take it—because they’re Chilangos like us, and they
understand that’s what Chilangos do.”
While covering what Mexicans call the narcoguerra, I’ve had a chance to study our allies’ crime fighting efforts at close range. Their tactics are
loosely modeled on the U.S. counter-insurgency manual, but with one vital difference: Little, if any, attention is paid to winning
hearts and minds.
In rural areas, army units tend to cluster in camps outside of towns, hunkered down behind barbed wire barricades where they have little
opportunity to gather useful intelligence, run thorough foot patrols in red zones, or fraternize with civilian residents.
The use of the Mexican army as a tool for law enforcement has also led to a spike in alleged human rights
violations. Mexico’s top military commander himself recently admitted his troops aren’t up to the task.
Carlsen agrees: “Mexico’s

number of extrajudicial executions is among the highest in the world because
the armed forces frequently shoot first and ask questions never,” she says.
Carlsen goes on to list other specific infractions that communities occupied by the Mexican armed forces are complaining of, including “rape,
sexual violence against civilians, torture, assassinations and beatings.”
Unlike army units, federal police usually bivouac in well-guarded hotels near municipal centers during their deployments—but, as with their
military counterparts, almost all federal patrols are carried out with troops riding in armored trucks or helicopters.
Instead of putting boots on the ground, both soldiers and the SWAT-like federal police race through towns and city streets in armored columns
due to fear of being ambushed. For
the most part, they dismount from their vehicles only at designated
refueling stations or to take on food and supplies. That means there’s little chance to conduct detailed
recon operations or hold face-to-face meetings with civilians—elements essential to successful police
work the world over.
Worst of all, soldiers and federal cops will often remain safely in their bases while cartel forces
actively threaten or even invade communities in force to kill or abduct citizens—as was the case when 43
students were “disappeared” in the southwestern town of Iguala in the fall of 2014.
“There’s been no success with the militarization strategy,” Carlsen says, “and there won’t be in the
future .”
The Mexican drug war will not be won on the battlefield, nor with a single sweeping policy change .
Victory will only come by simultaneously hacking away at the cartels from multiple angles. And some of those steps can be taken by the U.S.
and in the U.S.
Much has been written about how the legalization of marijuana in certain U.S. states has reduced cartel revenues, and there’s no question that
decriminalizing cannabis helped weaken one of their core industries.
But there are also limits to legal weed as a panacea for crushing trafficking organizations. For one thing, most of the Mexican cartels also
specialize in hard drugs like crystal meth and heroin—which are unlikely to be made legal anytime soon, if ever.
In fact, a recent surge in heroin use in the U.S. has been linked to increased opium production in Mexican states like Guerrero. Which illustrates
a vital point: As
long as there is a high demand for illicit substances in the U.S., Mexican cartels will
continue to supply them.
A gradual end to prohibition, coupled with ramped up drug treatment programs in the States, would certainly help the situation. But a focus on
narcotics alone is no longer sufficient, because Mexican crime groups have already diversified into other black market activities. Kidnapping for
profit, extortion, illegal mining, petroleum theft, and even organ trafficking all provide income streams for the gangsters now.
Lopping off the cartels’ many tentacles is a security issue that will require police and soldiers to take a more pro-active approach. Defending
fixed positions is simply not a viable strategy for winning a guerrilla-style war. As
vigilante-turned-policeman Zepeda points
out, authorities also need to have more contact with the civilian populations they’re assigned to
guard, so they can gather valuable intel, and avoid innocent casualties.
Some changes in education and compensation for law enforcement officers might also help stem corruption, says Adam Isacson, chief
security analyst with the Washington Office on Latin America, in an email to The Daily Beast.
Isacson would like to see Mexican authorities “improve police training, salaries, and
professionalization” and “make being a police officer a career and not a low-status job,” he says.
“Make the justice system work to reduce the horrific impunity rates for crimes like homicides, punish corrupt government personnel, and take
apart organized crime networks, especially those producing and transshipping drugs,” Isacson advises.
Just as drugs flow north across the border—weapons are flowing south. Improved gun control, especially for assault rifles and handguns, could
go a long way toward eroding the cartels’ collective firepower. That’s another short-term fix that ought to be easy to implement, provided
politics don’t get in the way.
In the long term, however, the most effective way to rein in the cartels will be to make them economically
obsolete . To do that, the state will have to provide viable, mainstream opportunities for the 46.2 percent
of Mexicans who live in dire poverty.
“When young people from impoverished families have no options, the chances that they will in some
form become associated with the trafficking and consumption of illicit drugs goes way up,” says Carlsen,
who cites economic hardship as a “major factor” behind the cartels’ hydra-like ability to endlessly regenerate themselves.
Independent research shows that U.S.-backed free trade agreements like NAFTA have also hindered
legitimate economic growth in Mexico—contrary to what Mr. Trump would have you believe—thus
driving many to flee their homes and seek greener pastures in El Norte.
In other words, the U.S. is backing economic policies that inadvertently help bolster organized crime groups, and foster illegal immigration,
while spending millions of taxpayer dollars to fight those same problems.
Structural factors make organized crime inevitable

Katharina Kiener-Manu 18, "Organized Crime Module 6 Key Issues: Structural Factors," May 2018,,
https://www.unodc.org/e4j/en/organized-crime/module-6/key-issues/structural-factors.html
A study of 59 countries found both State and economic failure to result in these outcomes and highlighted that a corrupt judiciary and the existence of
black market activities emerged as the strongest political and economic correlates of organized crime .
(Sung, 2004) Of course, organized crime has also thrived in circumstances characterized by strong government
structures, but the important feature is the extent to which the operation of government agencies
reflects the interests of the public versus the private interests of corrupt officials or organized criminal
groups.
In addition to State failure, the structure of the international system in itself can be seen as a contributing factor
to the formation of criminal opportunities for organized crime . Some scholars contend that transnational crime is
driven by structural differences between countries . From this perspective, inequalities of various kinds, the so-
called "criminogenic asymmetries," embedded in the international system, create circumstances that
criminal organizations are able to capitalize on. (Passas, 2001; Zabyelina, 2014) From this perspective it can be argued that if one
country makes a particular conduct legal whereas another government criminalized it, transnational
organized crime can take advantage of the discrepancies between competing legal jurisdictions. These
discrepancies are viewed as mechanisms by which illicit markets are created and trafficking routes
developed. (Block and Chambliss, 1981) For instance, because of the absence of effective enforcement of laws against the
illicit organ trade and public tolerance of these practices, certain countries have attracted transplant
tourists seeking organ donors. Likewise, cross-border illegal waste disposal is driven in part by different standards in environmental protection.
Table. 6.1. Structural factors assumed to create opportunities for organized crime
Asymmetry of controls The difference in ability of States to implement border controls and enforce
laws.
Asymmetry of resources The disparity of allocation of natural and human resources in the
international system.
Asymmetry of prices The disparity between States in terms of the distribution of economic assets and
income.
Asymmetry of investments The disparity between investments of States in domestic crime prevention
and criminal justice vs. reinforcing international legal, institutional and operational capacities (the
former being considerably higher than the latter).
Legal asymmetries Disharmonization of legal systems and laws.
In light of the structural predisposition of the international system to make illicit markets profitable, there has been explicit acknowledgment of the fact that the fight against
organized crime should be part of any comprehensive and effective strategy aimed at achieving the
"qualitative" dimensions of development , such as human rights, access to justice, good governance,
rule of law and security. These key dimensions of development are at the very core of the Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs).
The Sustainable Development Goals
The 17 SDGs of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development were adopted by world leaders in September 2015 and came into force on 1 January 2016. The SDGs build on the success of the
The new Goals are unique in that they call for action by
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and aim to go further to end all forms of poverty.
all countries, poor, rich and middle-income to promote prosperity while protecting the planet. They recognize
that ending poverty must go hand-in-hand with strategies that build economic growth and addresses a range of social needs including education, health, social protection, and job
While the SDGs are not legally binding, governments are

opportunities, while tackling climate change and environmental protection.
expected to take ownership and establish national frameworks for the achievement of the 17 Goals.
Countering organized crime is explicitly referenced as a critical target in Goal 16, but the repeated references throughout the
17 Goals to the many manifestations of organized crime-from labour exploitation to poaching and trafficking of protected species of flora and fauna-evidence the fact that organized crime has
become one of the key areas of developmental focus of the United Nations.
The SDGs and organized crime
UNODC particularly
While the SDGs are interconnected and often the key to success on one goal will involve tackling issues more commonly associated with another,
contributes to the achievement of Goal 16 focused on peace, justice and strong institutions and other
related Goals. The figure below shows the main Goals UNODC aims to assist Member States to achieve.
Figure 6.1. UNODC and the SDGs
Addressing organized crime requires a systemic and integrated approach focused on harmonization of
laws and enforcement of regulatory frameworks, human rights protection, building of sustainable
communities and raising social awareness . A systemic approach is required because of the
interlinkages with major global risks such as corruption (both a driver and consequence of criminal
behaviour), fragile states (massive illicit trade often being a cause and nearly always an important
consequence), or economic disparities (which contribute to and are exacerbated by a lack of security
and the rule of law). ( UNODC position paper ; Model United Nations Resource Guide, 2018)
No Solvency---Hezbollah
Hezbollah funds cartels

John Ruehl 17, Contributor to The Interpreter, 9-1-17, "Why is Hezbollah involved in Mexico’s Drug
War?," Medium, https://medium.com/@johnruehl/why-is-hezbollah-involved-in-mexicos-drug-war-
ee64e6c902b9
An internal memo from the Tucson Police Department in 2010 revealed that Hezbollah had been forming ties with Mexican
drug cartels, helping them to launder money while also fueling the weapons and drugs trade. Hezbollah, a
Shia Islamic militant group and political party based in Lebanon, has been active since the 1980s. It is backed primarily by Iran and
Syria, and has continually supported Assad’s forces in the Syrian Civil War. Labelled a terrorist organization by numerous countries and
institutions, it is one of the most powerful non-state adversaries facing the US.
Hezbollah ships tons of South American cocaine to Europe, in order to fund its military operations in the Middle East. But together with Iranian
elements operating in Latin America, a wider geopolitical agenda becomes apparent. In 2011, Iranian forces attempted an assassination against
the Saudi ambassador to the US, aided by Hezbollah and the infamous Los Zetas cartel. Though the attack was thwarted, it points to the ability
of foreign entities to be in a position to strike the US. A 1992 bombing against the Israeli embassy in Argentina has been linked to Hezbollah,
while they are also present in Brazil, Central America, and Mexico.
The group is essentially used as a proxy military force by Iran . There are fears that Hezbollah and other terrorist
groups have been using the instability in Mexico to smuggle operatives and weapons into the US, meaning Iran could be in a position to
undermine American sovereignty in a violent way, without officially declaring war. Weapons
smuggled from Iraq to storage in
Mexico by Hezbollah support the idea that the group is at least providing weapons to cartels, or
preparing to use them themselves.
Regardless of Hezbollah’s intentions, their actions would be seriously hindered were it not for the instability in Mexico. The War on
Drugs is impossible to win, because people will always find ways to get drugs. Therefore, the violence
in Mexico will remain constant, or simply relocate. Expect Hezbollah to be where the action is.
Cartel arms are smuggled from Iraq

Grace Wyler 11, Politics Editor and Reporter at Business Insider, 7-14-2011, "Hezbollah Hooks Up With
Mexican Drug Cartels," Business Insider, https://www.businessinsider.com/lulzsec-leak-reveals-
terrifying-ties-between-hezbollah-and-mexicos-drug-cartels-2011-7?source=post_page-----------------------
----
Islamic terrorist groups are setting up shop in Mexico and forming alarming ties with the country's
brutal drug cartels, according to a 2010 internal memo from the Tucson Police Department.
The memo, leaked by the hacker group LulzSec as part of its Arizona Department of Public Safety hack, warns that Hezbollah has
established operations — and a large arms stockpile — in Mexico.
As evidence, it points to the 2010 Tijuana arrest of Hezbollah militant Jameel Nasr, who was allegedly tasked with establishing a Hezbollah
network in Mexico and South America. The
memo also recalls the April 2009 arrest of Jamal Yousef in New York,
which exposed a huge cache of assault rifles, hand grenades, explosives and anti-tank munitions.
According to Yousef, the weapons were stored in Mexico after being smuggled from Iraq by members of
Hezbollah.
The memo warns that consequences of partnerships between Hezbollah and Mexico's drug partnerships could be disastrous for Mexico's drug
war, given Hezbollah's advanced weapons capabilities — specifically their expertise with improvised explosive devices (IEDs). It notes that some
Mexican criminal organizations have started using small IEDs and car bombs, a marked change in tactics that indicates a relationship with
Islamic militants.
Partnerships between Mexican organized crime and Islamic militants are mutually beneficial — and therefore terrifying. The cartels are able to
gain smuggling and weapons expertise, as well as access to cheap heroin from Afghanistan and Iran. The terrorists benefit from Mexico's drug
war lawlessness and its porous border with their primary target: The United States.
No Solvency---Other Countries
Most Mexican small arms don’t come from the US

McMaken 18 (Ryan McMaken, is a senior editor at the Mises Institute, “Stop Blaming Mexican
Violence on American Guns,” 02/23/2018, https://mises.org/wire/stop-blaming-mexican-violence-
american-guns )
Moreover, the often-quoted statistic allegedly showing that as much as 70 percent, or even 90 percent, of
guns seized in Mexico come from the US is not true. That statistic is based only on seized guns that are also traced by the
ATF. How many of all guns seized in Mexico come from the US? According to Stratfor, " almost 90 percent of the guns seized in
Mexico in 2008 were not traced back to the United States ." Nor does the Mexican government ask the ATF to trace all
many of those arms can be traced back to the Mexican government itself .
guns seized in Mexico. This is because
After all, it's not as if Latin America has no locally produced firearms. The 2012 Small Arms Survey notes:
Latin America has a long tradition of gun production, with some manufacturers tracing their history back many decades.
Brazil has the largest arms industry in the region, followed by Argentina. Firearms are also produced by private or
government-owned industries in Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, and Venezuela. While most of the
production is intended to equip the military and law enforcement institutions, some of the production is
for private use ."
The report also refers to "major exporters" of small arms in Argentina, Chile, Mexico, and Brazil. So we
know Mexico contains local arms-producing manufacturers to the point that some are "major
exporters" who also produce arms for government institutions . And government stockpiles are a
source for black markets as well . Even worse, the same government institutions that work to keep firearms
out of the hands of peaceful private citizens, are often in league with the cartels . As a recent New York Times
article noted about local resistance in Michoacan to cartel-sown chaos, "Townspeople formed militias to eject both the
cartel ... and the local police, who were seen as complicit." In other words, there is often no clear line
between law enforcement and the cartels themselves . Often, official law enforcement simply can't be
bothered. Things are even worse when, as one cartel member put it, "soldiers and cops are ... really on
our side." Thus, it shouldn't exactly be a surprise that many of the guns seized in Mexico are coming from official
government sources .
And, other countries sell to cartels

Kuhn and Bunker 11 (David A. Kuhn, VTM Solutions. Robert J. Bunker, Epochal Warfare Studies.
“Just where do Mexican cartel weapons come from?,” Small Wars & Insurgencies, 22:5, 2011,
In addition, grenades
originating from South Korea, Spain, Russia, and Israel have also been turning up in
the hands of the Mexican cartels. These hand grenades are modern – in many cases, new – and of fragmentation
design. The largest number of hand grenades found in recent seizures is of the South Korean K 75 model and can be traced back to lot numbers
[EC-85E605–031 and EC89E605– 073]. There is also direct lot number evidence [EC-89E605–063 et al.] that K 400 models that superseded the K
75 were also seized per leaked SECRET//NOFORN US governmental cable [09Monterrey100].71 These grenades are based on the US M-67
design and are virtually identical in appearance and performance. Also in a 17 March 2009 photograph of a seized weapons cache belonging to
the Gulf Cartel, muzzle-launched rifle grenades were visible. They have been identified as Swartklip HE/AP (High Explosive/Anti-Personnel)
grenades originating from South Africa. As late as March of 2011, additional South
African rifle grenades have turned up in
cartel weapons seizures.72 Furthermore, in a February 2011 STRATFOR document, China has also been identified as
large source of military weapons flowing to the Mexican cartels: Therefore, most of the military
ordnance used by the Mexican cartels comes from other sources, such as the international arms
market – increasingly from China via the same networks that furnish precursor chemicals for narcotics
manufacturing – or from corrupt elements in the Mexican military or even deserters who take their
weapons with them ... . As noted above, China has become an increasingly common source for military weapons like grenades and fully
automatic as sault rifles in recent years.73
Weapons stockpiles in Central America make it inevitable

Kuhn and Bunker 11 (David A. Kuhn, VTM Solutions. Robert J. Bunker, Epochal Warfare Studies.
“Just where do Mexican cartel weapons come from?,” Small Wars & Insurgencies, 22:5, 2011,)
Central American arms connections A

plethora of military small arms, light support weapons, and military
standoff weapons exist due to the intense conflicts that once took place throughout the Central
American region. Large caches of these weapons have now found their way into the hands of the
Mexican cartels operating in both Mexico and throughout Central America. A CONFIDENTIAL US Embassy in Mexico cable [09Mexico880]
in March 2009 estimated that ‘ ... at least 90 percent of military origin weapons (such as grenades and light anti-tank
weapons) are traced to Central American military stockpiles .’52 One example of these assault weapons is the H&K G-3 rifle
(7.62 £ 51 mm NATO/.308 cal) and some Belgium FN FAL rifles also in 7.62 £ 51 mm which are currently in the cartel inventories. These latter
two rifles would also have select fire capability and were likely obtained from weapons caches in Central America where they were originally
involved in the El Salvador conflict over a decade prior. The
cartels are also obtaining hand grenades from legacy
munitions stores from this conflict. Many of the Mexican government’s 5,800 fragmentation grenade
seizures between 2007 and 2010 can be traced back to these stores.53
No Solvency---Drugs
Drugs alt causes

Samuel Stein 15, "How the Cartels Were Born," 3-16-2015,
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/03/mexico-drug-cartel-neoliberalism/
The adoption of free trade, and the deeper integration of the Mexican economy with that of the
United States, dramatically increased cross-border traffic, making it far easier to insert narcotics into
the stream of northward-bound commodities . Some NAFTA rules were of particular help: because maquiladoras
were exempt from tariffs and subject to only minimal inspections, Mexican smugglers began buying
up such factories to use as fronts for shipping cocaine.
Narcotrafficking had formerly been integrated into the PRI corporatist state, an under-the-table
equivalent of labor, peasant, and business organizations. As such it was subject to a certain degree of
regulatory control, and to unofficial taxation, in return for the de facto licensing of smuggling (the
plaza system). The state’s abandonment of this form of corporatist inclusion contributed to the independent growth and power of
organized crime syndicates.
The glorification of wealth and entrepreneurialism provided a cultural environment that boosted the
social standing of narco businessmen. As in the former Soviet Union and other post-communist regimes,
a neoliberal shock treatment simultaneously produced millionaires and gangsters, a twinning that Forbes registered by including them on the
same list.
The weakening of the state and the glorification of “free enterprise” conferred authority and
legitimacy on the private sector in which drug traffickers were now key players . As Peter Watt and Roberto
Zepeda have argued, neoliberals prioritized accumulation of profit over social welfare, ruthless competition over cooperation, and the
sanctification of private property and wealth over community and civic responsibility. These propositions — the cornerstones and guiding
principles of free-market ideology — also formed the dominant ideology of crime syndicates.
No Solvency---Ghost Guns
Cartels use homemade ghost guns

Richard Winton 18, crime writer for the Los Angeles Times, 7-6-2018, "L.A. gangs stockpile untraceable
'ghost guns' that members make themselves," Los Angeles Times,
https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-la-gangsters-homemade-guns-20180706-story.html
Authorities said they are seeing more gangs turn to homemade guns as it becomes more difficult to
acquire real ones.
“Criminalsare making their own weapons because they cannot buy them legally … or they are paying
other people to make those guns for them to get around the gun laws,” said Bill McMullan, special agent in charge
of ATF’s L.A. Field Division. “This is a trend among Southern California gangs.”
Investigators seized 45 firearms, as well as fake police ballistic vests, and eventually arrested 10 alleged gang members involved in the
manufacture and sale of so-called ghost guns to criminals.
These weapons are effectively unknown to law enforcement, making them difficult to track or trace.
Investigators say ghost guns begin as partially manufactured weapons. A

buyer can legally purchase a partial built lower
receiver, which is not part of a firearm that is required to be stamped with a serial number when sold.
An unfinished lower receiver, sometimes referred to as an “80% receiver,” can legally be purchased without a serial number from a seller who
is not a federally licensed firearms dealer as long as it is missing the key components that would make it a firearm.
The lower receiver then can be completed easily by drilling a few remaining holes into the unfinished metal shell. It is then ready for a barrel,
trigger mechanism, stock and upper receiver to be attached.
Investigators explain that those forbidden from purchasing a gun, such as felons and those with
documented mental health issues, can still buy the partial lower receiver and then buy the other parts
of the weapons off the internet.
In 2013, John Zawahri killed five in the Santa Monica area using an AR-15-style rifle, which he built from a partially manufactured lower receiver
that did not have a serial number and therefore did not have to be registered. Police said the parts needed to assemble a working rifle,
including magazines of ammunition, were shipped in from out of state.
Federal gun regulation has long targeted the lower receiver because it is the heart of the firearm that holds together the weapon.
Ghost guns are legal for those allowed to own firearms, but investigators say they are now involved
increasingly in crime. “They are ending up in the hands of some of the most violent gang members,”
said LAPD Cmdr. Blake Chow.
Chow said many of the weapons recovered were made in the heart of Hollywood, not a random warehouse. “They manufactured all
over Hollywood in the hotels in the community,” he said.
“It was like driving up to fast food restaurant, ordering whatever you wanted, somebody manufacturing it, that person comes to Hollywood,
pays the money and they were on their way,” he said.
Investigators seized assault rifle manufacturing equipment and parts along with 3 pounds of methamphetamine, vehicles and a silencer, as well
as a stack of bulletproof vests.
At the center of the criminal enterprise was Enrique Saucedo Jr., who detectives say is the primary suspect in the transportation, distribution
and sale of illegal firearms in Hollywood and the San Fernando Valley.
Detectives say Saucedo was a pipeline for weapons for street criminals across L.A.
Homemade ghost guns and domestic resales aren’t regulated properly

Christina Caron 17, 11-27-2017, "‘Ghost Guns,’ Homemade and Untraceable, Face Growing Scrutiny,"
No Publication, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/27/us/ghost-guns-gabby-giffords.html
Buying a fully assembled gun is a process subject to a host of regulations and restrictions, especially in
states like California that tend to be more stringent.
But anyone can make a gun at home.
The do-it-yourself route is often favored by gun enthusiasts, including hobbyists and competitive
shooters. It can also be a path to gun ownership for felons and people with mental illnesses or those
who have been convicted of domestic violence.
The Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, part of the gun safety group founded by Gabrielle Giffords, the former representative from
Arizona who survived an assassination attempt in 2011, is calling on two internet service providers to disable websites that sell materials and
tools to create homemade weapons. Such
weapons, often referred to as ghost guns, were used in a mass
shooting in Northern California this month.
The websites, ghostgunner.net and ghostguns.com, allow customers to bypass background checks and
build unregistered firearms without serial numbers.
The guns are legal as long as they are intended for personal use, according to the Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Individuals cannot sell or distribute firearms unless they are licensed by the bureau.
Because homemade guns cannot be tracked, it’s hard to know just how prevalent they are.
Even so, in the United States, there

has been “a growing number of cases involving homemade guns, some of
which were high-profile active shootings by precisely the sort of people who are prohibited from
buying the weapons,” Mark A. Tallman, who teaches at Colorado State University-Pueblo’s Center for the Study of Homeland Security,
said in an email.
It’s a concern in other countries, too.
“In foreign jurisdictions with stricter controls, homemade guns are quickly becoming a more pressing problem,” said Dr. Tallman, who has spent
the last several years studying tracing data and D.I.Y. weapons. “In Australia for example, homemade guns are now conservatively estimated at
10-20 percent of illegal weapons seized by police.”
Kyle Martin, the president of Ghost Guns, said in an email on Sunday that his company follows all state and federal laws.
“We deal with a lot of customers that are hobbyists,” Mr. Martin wrote. “The customers we have come into contact with
usually already own firearms, have the mechanical skills to complete the manufacturing process and come from all walks of life, including many
military and law enforcement.”
A spokesman for DreamHost, which hosts ghostguns.com, said in an email on Saturday that the legality of the website’s content was being
reviewed.
Shopify, the web host for ghostgunner.net, would not comment on individual merchants, a spokeswoman said in an email, but will “investigate
material reported to us and take action” if a merchant violated its policies.
Ghost Gunner, which sells various gun components and machines used for gunsmithing, did not immediately respond to a request for
comment. Cody Wilson, who runs the website, told The Associated Press that the company’s products comply with federal regulations.
“This is
an attempt to apply pressure to deplatform a legal, American business selling legal products to
law-abiding customers,” he said.
Ghost Gunner and Ghost Guns said they take precautions to make sure their products do not end up in the wrong hands.
“We only ship to shipping addresses that match billing addresses along with a signed receipt of delivery so the packages are not just sitting on
doorsteps,” Mr. Martin said.
But withoutany traceable information on the various gun parts — in particular, a part called the
receiver — it’s difficult to know where they will end up. Although completed lower receivers are
regulated by the A.T.F. just like a fully assembled gun, the blank metal castings that can eventually be
converted into a lower receiver are not.
Ghost Guns is one of several websites that sell the unmarked receivers, often referred to as 80
percent lower receivers, as well as related parts that allow customers to build an “unregistered
weapon system that’s ready for almost any combat scenario,” according to the company’s website.
In 2015, eight men in California were indicted on a charge of manufacturing and selling firearms without a license. Many of the guns did not
have any identification markings and were made from blank lower receivers. A total of 238 firearms and silencers were recovered by A.T.F.
agents.
In 2013, Michael Yarbrough of Corpus Christi, Tex., was sentenced to 10 years in prison for buying more than 900 parts kits and firearm
receivers and selling AK-47 type firearms for transport to Mexico.
In the United States, Dr. Tallman said, “conservatively speaking, based on the stated sales numbers that some suppliers have released, there
are hundreds of thousands of unmarked receivers that have been sold.”
Criminals aren’t necessarily ordering their receivers online, however.
“The next phase is to ask the question, ‘What can we do about more sophisticated crime groups building everything from scratch without
relying on legal suppliers of components?’” Dr. Tallman added.
Neither Ghost Gunner nor Ghost Guns has been linked with criminal activity, but the Giffords Law
Center argued that they were engaging in dangerous conduct and facilitating unlawful activity.
The two companies warrant attention because their marketing focuses “on the anonymous, untraceable nature of the guns they allow to be
made — and the many examples of ghost guns used in crimes,” Adam Skaggs, chief counsel at the center, said in an email.
Kevin J. Neal, the gunman in Northern California who killed five people and wounded 12 this month before he was killed by the police, was
prohibited from having firearms because of a restraining order. He made his own semiautomatic weapons at home.
“I think this is going to be a growing problem, especially with the advent of 3-D printed guns,” Adam Winkler, a gun policy expert and law
professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, said in a phone interview.
An expanded assault weapons ban in California prohibits residents from owning or selling AR-15s equipped with bullet buttons, devices used to
quickly remove the ammunition magazine, which means that making this type of gun at home is illegal, too.
California residents who lawfully possessed such an assault weapon before 2017 can keep it as long as the weapon is registered. That prompted
a surge in gun sales in 2016.
“When you have prohibition or quasi-prohibition, that’s the lever that pushes up homemade production,”
said David Kopel, the research director of the Independence Institute, a libertarian think tank, who is also an adjunct professor of law at the
University of Denver.
No Solvency---Non-State Actors
International treaties like the ATT don’t address non-state actors

Divya Srikanth 14, Rajaratnam School of International Studies, a leading research-intensive and
teaching institution in strategic and international affairs and policy-oriented think tank in the Asia-Pacific
region, April 2014, “NON-TRADITIONAL SECURITY THREATS IN THE 21ST CENTURY: A REVIEW”,
www.ijdc.org.in/uploads/1/7/5/7/17570463/2014junearticle4.pdf
rise of non-state actors , intra-state wars, environmental degradation and climate change, demographical changes and
This paper thus argues that
cyber-conflict pose a greater security threat to the nation-states in the 21st century than armies of other
states. According to Nye and Welch (2013), two of the important means of preventing and managing conflict and
increasing cooperation are international laws and organizations, such as the UN. However, these laws and
institutions are tailored to dealing only with states; they do not have provisions for organized crime
networks or terrorist organizations. The “tragedy of the commons” has resulted in the overexploitation of natural resources without any
heed for allowing for their replenishment, for “temperance is much harder to achieve than deterrence”. Developed states are highly reluctant to voluntarily stunt
their economic growth by adhering to the Kyoto Protocol, and developing states are unwilling to compromise on their new-found economic successes. This has led
to a stalemate in terms of tackling the impact of climate change. Demographical changes are an important flashpoint that might make or break the power politics of
a state in the future. Cyber-warfare may be in its nascent stage, but when used, its potency has been validated (e.g. the Stuxnet attacks reportedly carried out by US
and Israel against Iranian nuclear infrastructure). It is also highly attractive to state and non-state actors as an effective supplement to traditional conflict methods
because of their cost-effectiveness and absence of direct loss of human life during the course of operations. All these new threats to a state’s national security fall
outside the perimeter of traditional conflicts. As Nye and Welch put it, the global stage is becoming crowded, and states are not the only actors anymore in a
dynamic international 68 D. Srikanth political stage. As a result, states find it increasingly difficult and complicated in tackling
these new-age conflicts, not because the rules of the game have changed, but because there are no rules to begin with, in the first place.
Non-state actors are not incentivized to join

Caroline Cliff 16, Chair, Council Working Group on Conventional Arms Exports (COARM), EEAS,
November 3rd, 2016, “Combating the trafficking of small arms and light weapons”,
https://www.iiss.org/-/media/images/dialogues/eunp/eunp-2016/documents/combating-the-
trafficking-of-small-arms-and-light-weapons-_-iiss.ashx
Mexico is of the view that the ATT is much more than just a set of guidelines to establish national
export control mechanisms and a closed network of national experts who exchange information
about arms trade. The ATT can only be effective by preventing illicit international trade, exposing
inconstancies that may trigger investigations and, if appropriate, punishment by the relevant national
authorities. If the ATT does not do that, it will not be doing its job. The only way to do it is by publically disclosing and
openly discussing information about the transfer of arms around the globe. And to get there we
believe that a mechanism to review implementation of the treaty would be essential. The problem is
that as some argue – and not without reason – a broad interpretation of the obligations of the treaty
may create disincentives for non-state parties to join the regime
Armed Terrorism turn
Ratifying the ATT increases armed terrorism

Theodore R. Bromund 12, PhD, former Associate Director of International Security Studies at Yale
University, 6-5-2012, "Arms Trade Treaty Risks Increasing the Threat of Armed Terrorism," Heritage
Foundation, https://www.heritage.org/terrorism/report/arms-trade-treaty-risks-increasing-the-threat-
armed-terrorism
Terrorism Frequently Cited as a Reason to Negotiate an ATT
The ATT has never focused exclusively on terrorism, but the U.N. General Assembly and influential U.N.
member states have frequently asserted that one reason to negotiate an ATT is to reduce terrorists’
ability to acquire conventional weapons. For example, the most recent substantive resolution in the U.N.
General Assembly on the ATT, Resolution 64/48, adopted on January 12, 2010, states that “problems
relating to the unregulated trade in conventional weapons...can fuel instability, transnational organized
crime and terrorism.” In his April 16, 2012, statement of “Positions for the United States in the
Upcoming Arms Trade Treaty Conference,” Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Countryman said that an
ATT would “help prevent the acquisition of arms by terrorists and criminals.”
The U.N. Has Never Defined Terrorism
It would, therefore, be logical to assume that the U.N. has a definition of terrorism that will apply in the
context of the ATT. But the U.N. has never adopted a definition of terrorism.
In the run-up to the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon “called
again for the creation of an international antiterror accord,” which “has been stymied by disagreements
over what acts and which groups should be labeled as terroristic.” The Chairman of the U.N.
Counterterrorism Implementation Task Force, Robert Orr, noted, “Legally, international law covers
almost everything that you would want it to cover.... [but] if someone is accusing someone else of
engaging in terrorist activities, there’s no clinical definition of whether they are or not.”[1] The ATT
cannot prevent nations from arming terrorists if nations do not agree on who the terrorists are, or on
what constitutes terrorism.
U.N. Security Council Has Already Addressed This Question
The U.N.’s inability to define terrorism has not prevented it from taking action in the past. U.N. Security
Council Resolution 1373, passed unanimously on September 28, 2001, in the wake of 9/11, already
requires all U.N. members to take wide-ranging actions against terrorism, including “eliminating the
supply of weapons to terrorists.” The council is supposedly responsible for maintaining international
peace and security, and, under Chapter 5 of the U.N. Charter, has the power to back up its resolutions
with armed force. The ATT, by contrast, will be based on national implementation and will not fall under
Chapter 5. It will have less authority than Resolution 1373, and yet it is supposed to succeed where that
resolution has palpably failed.
Relevant U.N. Declarations Regularly Legitimate Terrorism

At best, then, the ATT would have no effect on terrorism. But it could easily increase the risk of
armed terrorism. U.N. declarations regularly contain a clause to the effect that the U.N. recognizes:
the right of self-determination of all peoples, taking into account the particular situation of peoples
under colonial or other forms of alien domination or foreign occupation, and...the rights of peoples to
take legitimate action in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations to realize their inalienable
right of self-determination.
This quotation comes from the Chairman’s Draft Paper, the closest equivalent to a draft ATT currently
available.[2] But it is also part of many other U.N. declarations. For example, the Vienna Declaration and
Programme of Action, produced by the U.N. World Conference on Human Rights in 1993, contains a
nearly identical statement.[3] As it is also included in the ATT’s precursor, the 2001 U.N. “Programme of
Action to Prevent, Combat, and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its
Aspects,” the precedent for its incorporation into the ATT has been clearly established.[4]
Those new to the U.N. system may not realize the meaning of this clause. It was originally intended by
African nationalists to refer to the European colonial empires, and by Islamic nations to refer to the
Palestinians (“peoples under...foreign occupation”). The African context has faded, but the coded
reference to Israel—and to India, because of its dispute with Pakistan over Kashmir—has endured. In
recent years, the clause has also come to be understood as a reference to the U.S. and allied presence
in Iraq and Afghanistan. The entire clause, therefore, recognizes the supposed right of Hamas,
Hezbollah, the Taliban, and other terrorist organizations—in the name of pursuing the “inalienable
right of self-determination”—to attack Israel, India, the U.S., and its allies.
ATT Risks Becoming a “Get Out of Jail Free” Card for Terrorism’s Backers
An ATT that contains this clause would give any nation that wishes to assist a terrorist organization a
“get out of jail free” card. If confronted by the U.S. with the claim that their supply of weapons to
terrorists constituted a violation of the ATT, they could simply reply that the ATT had recognized the
right of all peoples to realize their self-determination, and that the terrorists in question represented
peoples who were engaged in an armed struggle with a nation that did not respect this right. This is why
the U.N. has never been able to define terrorism: Too many U.N. member states argue that what the
U.S. describes as terrorism is a legitimate struggle for self-determination.
Efforts to define terrorism have been blocked by the members of the Organization of Islamic
Cooperation, which contains 56 U.N. member states and has successfully prevented the development
of any definition that would apply, for example, to the terrorist organizations that attack Israel. The
OIC Charter, adopted in 2008, notes that it is dedicated to supporting “the struggle of the Palestinian
people, who are presently under foreign occupation.”[5] This is the same phrase that appears regularly
in U.N. declarations. Since the ATT is centrally concerned with the transfer of conventional arms, it is
particularly important that it does not legitimate the supply of weapons to terrorists. This will be difficult
to achieve: The ATT’s supporters want it to be a universal treaty, i.e., one signed and ratified by all U.N.
member states, but is unlikely that the OIC members will agree to any ATT that does not include this
clause.
What the U.S. Should Do

The U.S. should never sign, and the Senate should never ratify, a treaty containing a clause that
legitimates terrorism. In the July negotiations, this should be a red line, and the U.S. should publicly
state that it will break consensus on the adoption of the treaty text if any such clause—including one
similar to the standard U.N. declaration—appears in it.
No ! --- CBRNs
Terrorists don’t have CBRNs---no resources

Seitz 16 Sam Seitz, Analyst in International Relations and American Politics, 8-26-2016, "Why WMD
Terrorism Isn’t as Scary as it Seems," Politics in Theory and
Practice, https://politicstheorypractice.wordpress.com/2016/08/26/why-wmd-terrorism-isnt-as-scary-
as-it-seems/
Of course, nuclear weapons are not the only WMD system. Chemical and biological weapons also
seemingly pose serious threats to public safety, especially when they fall into the hands of terrorists.
However, when one begins to examine the risks of chemical or biological weapons, one finds that
chemical and biological weapons are far less concerning than they originally appear. Chemical weapons
are unlikely to pose a serious threat for two reasons. First, they are banned under international
law, thus making acquisition of potent compounds challenging. Second, there are no empirical
examples of successful chemical attacks. Indeed, when the Aum Shinrikyo cult did initiate a large-scale
chemical attack in Tokyo in 1995, it produced only minimal casualties (5). The problem with chemical
attacks is that it is incredibly challenging to effectively engineer compounds in a way that maximizes
lethality while also ensuring that the agent does not dissipate before affecting large numbers of
victims (6). Therefore, it is unlikely that terrorist organizations would dedicate time and resources to
the development of chemical weapons. They are simply too fickle. Biological attacks are equally
unlikely to occur for many of the same reasons. There simply aren’t many biological weapons programs
because the use of these kinds of systems is prohibited by international law. Thus, few individuals have
the requisite knowledge to engineer and produce effective bio-agents. Without proper expertise and
infrastructure, it is unlikely that terrorist networks will ever possess the knowledge or means to produce
weapons grade biological agents (7). Like chemical weapons, biological weapons also have a poor track
record when it comes to inflicting serious damage. As Alan Dove explains, “Terrorist groups have…
deployed biological weapons twice… The first was [in] 1984… [when] a cult in Oregon inoculated
restaurant salad bars with Salmonella… 751 people got sick, but nobody died.” The second biological
terrorist attack was conducted by another cult, the same one that launched the chemical attack in
Tokyo; its bio-attack was even less effective than its chemical attack. Despite the cult being “well-
financed, and [having] many highly educated members… Nobody got sick or died” (8). Finally, it’s
important to remember that the United States and other Western countries have impressively modern
and well-funded public health institutions. Thus, even if terrorists are able to execute a potent biological
attack against metropolitan areas in North America or Europe, it is unlikely that casualties would be
high, as well-stocked hospitals and emergency response units would be able to mitigate the impact
and prevent worst case scenarios.
No ! --- Piracy
Maritime Piracy Low

Mark Fahey, and Nick Wells 16, "Want to talk like a pirate? Learn Indonesian," 9-19-2016,
https://www.cnbc.com/2016/09/19/maritime-piracy-is-on-the-decline-globally.html
Fortunately, the number of piracy incidents has seen a steep decline in recent years and are at their lowest
levels since the late 1990s, according to the United Nations' International Maritime Organization. And if you wanted to really talk like a pirate today, it would sound a
little different from the popular Long John Silver-inspired drawl: most piracy last year took place in Asian waters, especially those around Indonesia.
Talk Like a Pirate Day emphasizes a romanticized version of maritime piracy that might be unrecognizable to the sailors who fall victim to pirates today.
Take, for instance, the 2009 seizure of the Mr. Bean, a yacht that was taken by pirates in Thai territorial waters.
Three pirates with knives and hammers boarded the ship, which was crewed by a British couple. The wife was held hostage for 12 hours and suffered serious injuries, while the husband was
killed and thrown into the sea.
Of the more than 7,100 piracy incidents recorded over the last two decades, about 100 involved at least one death, according to data from the International Maritime Organization.
pirates sneak onto docked ships and make a stealthy getaway with stolen goods before the crew
Often,
notices. At other times, the alarm is raised by lookouts, and the crew can repel the invaders with weapons or by increasing the ship's speed.
Piracy also has a staggering economic toll. Maritime pirate attacks can cost the world as much as $7 billion a year in lost cargoes and pirate avoidance strategies such as increasing cruising
speeds (which burns more fuel), according to the nonprofit group Oceans Beyond Piracy. As countries and companies have fought back, the cost fell to $1.3 billion last year.
Modern piracy reached its peak around 2011, when Somali pirates were attacking hundreds of vessels —
often commercial ships — off the coast of Africa each year. Since then, piracy in the area has been largely suppressed by counterpiracy
operations, including military intervention.
Faster military responses and improved dock security in Indonesia have also cut the number of
incidents in half so far this year.
Scenario 2: ME
No GPW/ME instability
Small conflicts won’t go nuclear---everyone understands the stakes
Abdulrahman Al-Rashed 16, veteran and internationally acclaimed columnist, former general
manager of Al Arabiya news channel and former editor-in-chief of Asharq Al-Awsat, 10/22/16, “The
specter of World War III?,” http://www.arabnews.com/node/1000701/columns#
Deputy Prime Minister of Turkey Numan Kurtulmus recently warned against the risks of disagreements over the battle of Mosul. He said that
this could even mark the beginning of World War III.
Despite the sectarian and ethnic nature of the conflict, the battle of Mosul is not likely to cause a third world
war, not even a broad regional war . Similarly, the war in Aleppo, Syria or Iraq would not turn into a broad war .
All that is being talked about are mere incendiary talks. They have nothing to do with strategists, planners and decision-makers who sit in air-
conditioned rooms thousands of miles away from our region in the United States or Russia.
The world is already grappling with several conflicts and is not likely to witness any of these turning
into as devastating as a world war. World War II took 60 million lives, mostly from the West, and a World War III would
be atrocious because it is estimated to kill a billion people. It will use the only weapon that can ensure “victory”, i.e., nuclear and
chemical weapons.
The United States, Russia, Europe and other countries or regions of vital influence will disappear. There will be no winner and the whole world
will go back to the Stone Age. The earth will no longer remain inhabitable for humans. This is why no direct wars have been
engendered by the escalation of international conflicts.
What was known as the Cold War between the US and the former Soviet Union was nothing but proxy or indirect war. As many as 140,000
American soldiers were killed in the Vietnam War. However, the US did not resort to the use of nuclear weapons and withdrew after the defeat.
There were 4,000 casualties in Iraq before the Americans withdrew.
The Soviet Union crumbled and Russia lost 14 countries that were part of its empire. It even lost three-quarters of its land and half of its
population, and yet, the Soviets did not talk about a World War III. They did not launch a single nuclear missile. Instead, they continue with the
old chess strategy in the struggle with their rivals to gain back influence and regions.
It is not impossible to imagine a lunatic leader using nuclear weapons in the future. This scenario has haunted the
world since the end of World War II. Many regulations and protocols have been put in place to avoid this madness.
Even if it happens, the reason won’t be conflicts such as the one taking place in Mosul, Aleppo or other
parts of our region.
Super powers consider our wars as side conflicts that do not call for a suicidal war that would destroy
their countries. What is being circulated in the Arab and Iranian media about World War III, and being attributed to Russian president or
Henry Kissinger, is all forged.
What are the circumstances in which major countries would wage a crazy global nuclear war? It would
only happen when their security is directly threatened and is on the verge of collapse. This scenario is
extremely unlikely .
We imagine that the world is keen to ensure our security and stability whereas its main concern is
safeguarding against terrorists and refugees. Some are only worried about our oil wells, as they are their sources of energy.
Our governments are solely in charge of the region’s war and peace.
Impossible for great powers to miscalculate
Max Fisher 15, foreign editor for Vox, 11/24/15, “No, Turkey shooting down a Russian warplane will
not spark World War III,” http://www.vox.com/2015/11/24/9791612/russia-turkey-nato-world-war-3
Only three short hours of Turkey announcing it had

shot down a Russian warplane for violating its airspace, an unusual phrase
appeared as a new trending topic on Twitter: " World War 3 ." The conversation is both joking and not joking.
You can see why people might worry. Turkey is a NATO ally, meaning that at least in theory the other members of NATO — the United States
and most of Europe — can be obliged to come to its defense against an external attack. A
theoretical slide into conflict between
Turkey and Russia could thus also become a conflict between Russia and NATO, dragging the world's top four
nuclear powers into war. Tensions between NATO and Russia have been rising for two years, and now both are bombing on opposite
sides in Syria. With fears of some unintended escalation in Ukraine or now Syria sparking a larger conflagration, it sounded scarily possible.
But I am here to reassure you: This is not the start of World War III . And I say that as someone who has voiced real concern
about other ways in which Russia and the US could be dragged into an unintended escalation to war. But those conditions are not present here.
Why neither Russia nor NATO will risk major war over this
The answer is pretty simple: The stakes are just too low . The things at issue here are Russia's bombing of anti-Assad rebels in Syria,
the sanctity of Turkish airspace, and the life of one (or possibly two) Russian pilot.
Those things matter, and Turkey cares an awful lot about its airspace and about what happens in Syria. But Russia
doesn't care
enough about those things to risk a major war. And neither do the leading members of NATO (the US, UK,
France, etc.), which will largely decide how NATO responds.
There is thus every reason to believe that both Russia and NATO will seek to deescalate . Neither cares enough about
enforcing Syria-Turkey border zone air rights to escalate much over this.
Russia expert Mark Galeotti, who teaches at NYU, summed this up well:
I suspect neither Moscow nor, at the very least, the other European NATO powers will want to let this go too far. Russia cannot fight
hot diplomatic wars on too many fronts, and Europe clearly wants Moscow to be part of the solution
in Syria and maybe Ukraine, too. And, frankly, there is in many capitals concern about Turkey, its agenda and its role in the region. Much will
depend on where Washington falls, of course, but if Moscow can get even a crumb of contrition from Ankara or sympathy from Europe, then
we can expect this to be splashed on Russian TV and allow the Kremlin to let this slide a little.
There's another very important factor here. Because the Syria-Turkish border is so far from Russia or from central Europe,
there is just zero risk that either side could misperceive this as the start of something bigger.
The Turkey-Syria border is just not a place where Russia-NATO war could break out
The thing that has made Russia-NATO escalation in Eastern Europe so dangerous is that that is exactly where, were Russia and NATO to fight a
war, it would happen. So any misstep or overreaction risked being misperceived as the start of something larger.
Had today's shoot-down happened in, say, Estonia , then there would be a risk that NATO could misperceive it as Russia attempting to do in
Estonia (a NATO ally) what it had done in Ukraine. Russia might have misperceived the shoot-down as the start of a
NATO war against Russia — something that sounds silly in Washington but is taken seriously in Moscow. (And is a fear you hear
earnestly expressed from some in NATO.) Thus each side might respond to such an incident by escalating a little to defend against the other
side. Then each side could misread the other's escalation as an act of aggression. That's how, in an unlikely but
scarily plausible worst-case scenario, you could get a major war that neither side wanted.
There is no such danger on the Turkish-Syria border. Russia has zero reason to believe that Turkey is
about to invade it (and, if it did, it sure wouldn't do it by marching south into Syria). And NATO has no reason to believe
that Russia is considering an invasion, or a Ukraine-style "hybrid war," in Turkey. So neither side has any real
reason to see this as anything but an isolated incident.
And even if Moscow or Washington did want to escalate here — which they don't — neither has that
capability . The number of Russian forces located in or near Syria is quite small — way too small to provoke,
intentionally or unintentionally, any kind of major conflict. The US forces in the region are also
relatively modest . The point is that neither Russia nor NATO could possibly believe that the other side is about to launch an invasion.
So, to review: Neither Russia nor NATO has enough at stake to escalate to anything near the point of war. Neither
has the physical military capability to do so in this region. And because the Syria-Turkey border is so far removed from
either Russia or Europe, there is very little risk of unintended escalation.
Even a war involving Iran wouldn’t go global

Aisha Ahmad 17, assistant professor of political science at the University of Toronto Scarborough
specializing in international security, and director of the Islam and Global Affairs Initiative at the Munk
School of Global Affairs, interviewed by Scott Anderson, 2/16/17, “Donald Trump’s presidency is raising
the risk of violent conflict among the world’s great powers, says U of T political scientist,”
https://www.utoronto.ca/news/donald-trump%E2%80%99s-presidency-raising-risk-violent-conflict-
among-world%E2%80%99s-great-powers-says-u-t
What about the Middle East, a long-time hotspot?
The Iran nuclear deal negotiated under the Obama administration was a huge success that successfully
contained Iran’s nuclear program and put it on a path to co-operation with the international
community.
All of this is being undone with Trump’s aggressive action towards Iran. I don’t think Iran is going to
be a flashpoint for a world war, but I do think it is a key part of the escalation that is taking place in
the Middle East. Iran is a regional giant, and how the U.S. engages with it will have serious
repercussions for Iraq, Syria and beyond.
Trump’s foreign policy will effectively stabilize the Middle East now
James S. Robbins 16, senior fellow for national security affairs at the American Foreign Policy Council,
11/11/16, “Lead From Behind No Longer,” http://www.usnews.com/opinion/world-
report/articles/2016-11-11/trumps-foreign-policy-will-help-stabilize-the-middle-east
The United States faces critical challenges in the Middle East. Whether instability in Syria fomenting a refugee crisis,
the spread of the Islamic State group and its extremist ideology, or the rising power of Iran , conditions in the region are more
threatening than they were when President Barack Obama took office. The new Trump administration will have its work cut out for it.
The greatest change will be in the focus of America's relationship with the region . The Obama
administration adopted a passive, collaborative, at times apologetic posture that viewed the U.S. as often the cause of
international problems, rather than the solution to them. Obama seemed to view the United States as a neo-colonial power that had to make
amends for its past transgressions. The
new administration will dispense with this contrite approach in favor of
more muscular, interest-based strategy , under the rubrics of "peace through strength" and "America first."
The style of U.S. relations with the region will also change. The cautious, risk-averse "lead from
behind" method the Obama administration pioneered will likely be replaced by a more frank, open and
honest approach to policy in which creating good optics is less important than achieving solid results.
A Trump foreign policy will be less concerned with nation-building abroad than domestically. The president-elect
identified U.S. military intervention as a major cause of destabilization, particularly in the Middle East, spanning the last two administrations. In
a major foreign policy address in August, Trump said that the "current strategy of nation-building and regime change is a proven failure" that
has "created the vacuums that allow terrorists to grow and thrive."
Whether in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Egypt or elsewhere, the

Obama administration has left greater instability than it
found in 2008. The U.S. will be far less likely to turn to the military instrument of national power to
attempt to shape regional outcomes, given the failure of the Obama administration's "smart power" policies.
The war on terrorism, meanwhile, will shift explicitly toward halting the spread of radical Islam. The Obama
administration was unduly cautious in discussing Islamic extremism for fear of offending Middle East and domestic Muslim sentiments. But this
unwillingness to publicly identify the root cause of instability made it difficult to adopt an offensive posture in the war of ideas.
The Trump administration, by contrast, will likely make this ideological struggle central to its counter-terrorism
policies. In August, the president-elect pledged to host an international conference to discuss the issue, and to work with regional
partners such as Israel, Jordan and Egypt "and all others who recognize this ideology of death that must be extinguished." The
comprehensive counter-terrorism strategy will involve "joint and coalition military operations to crush and destroy ISIS, international
cooperation to cutoff their funding, expanded intelligence sharing, and cyberwarfare to disrupt and disable their propaganda and recruiting."
While the Trump administration's foreign policy will be generally more realist than those of his predecessors, it will not ignore the values that
serve as the basis of Western civilization and American culture. An important aspect of going on the offensive against radical Islam will involve
challenging aspects of the ideology that are abhorrent to Western values, whether abuse of women, cruel death-sentences for homosexuals,
religious oppression, or other odious aspects of Islamic extremism. Trump has pledged to "be a friend to all moderate Muslim reformers in the
Middle East" and to "amplify their voices" for reform and change.
The U.S. will also shift focus with respect to Iran . It is all but certain that the Iran nuclear agreement, the most lauded
diplomatic achievement of the Obama administration, will be significantly revised, if not scrapped outright. Under the agreement's framework,
the Islamic Republic received billions of dollars in unfrozen assets and gained access to trade opportunities previously blocked by sanctions, in
exchange for a promise not to develop nuclear weapons in the near future. However, the deal did nothing to limit Iran's ballistic missile
program, and has insufficient verification protocols to allow the international community to know if Tehran has even made good on its promise
to cease all nuclear weapons-related activities.
In essence, this deal puts Iran on an internationally sanctioned path to nuclear capability, rather than preventing it. Since the deal was never
legitimized as a formal treaty (principally because the Obama administration lacked the political muscle to pass such a deal through the U.S.
Senate), U.S. participation can be dispensed with quickly – although the agreement might continue on without American involvement.
Simultaneously, the Trump administration will need to formulate a serious strategy for dealing with other aspects of Iranian rogue behavior
(like its extensive support for international terrorism), which have been empowered by the benefits it has gained under the nuclear deal.
Regional partners will hopefully welcome a more results-based, less aspirational approach to regional
stability. Obama's idealistic view of transforming the Middle East outlined in his 2009 speech in Cairo has led to
increased instability, growing threats from international terrorism, and destabilizing refugee flows into
Europe and the United States. President-elect Trump's peace through strength policy offers a new opportunity for
regional actors to work with the U.S. to recreate stability, end the threat of radicalism and forestall
Iran's nuclear ambitions.
Israel’s regional power is growing, that locks in stability
Walter Russell Mead 17, Distinguished Fellow at the Hoover Institution; and Sean Keeley, Staff Writer,
The American Interest, 1/24/17, “The Eight Great Powers of 2017,” https://hudson.org/research/13270-
the-eight-great-powers-of-2017
This year there’s a new name on our list of the Eight Greats: Israel. A small country in a chaotic part of the world, Israel is a rising
power with a growing impact on world affairs. Although 2016 saw the passage of yet another condemnation of Israel at the
United Nations, this time in the Security Council thanks to an American decision to abstain rather than veto, overall the Jewish state
continues to develop diplomatic, economic and military power and to insert itself into the heart of
regional politics.
Three factors are powering Israel’s rise: economic developments, the regional crisis, and diplomatic ingenuity. Looking closely at these tells us
something about how power works in the contemporary world.
The economic developments behind Israel’s new stature are partly the result of luck and location, and partly the result of smart choices. As to
the luck and location factor, large, off-shore discoveries of natural gas and oil are turning Israel into an energy exporter. Energy self-sufficiency
is a boost to Israel’s economy; energy exports boost Israel’s foreign policy clout. In 2016 Erdogan’s Turkey turned on most of its NATO and
Western allies; ties with Israel strengthened. Turkey’s Islamist ruler wants gas, and he wants to limit Turkey’s dependence on Russia. Israel is
part of the answer.
But beyond luck, Israel’s newfound clout on the world stage comes from the rise of industrial sectors and technologies that good Israeli schools,
smart Israeli policies and talented Israeli thinkers and entrepreneurs have built up over many years. In particular, Israel’s decision to support
the rise of a domestic cybersecurity and infotech economy has put Israel at the center of the ongoing revolution in military power based on the
importance of information control and management to 21st century states. It is not just that private investors all over the world look to invest
in Israel’s tech startups; access to Israeli technology (like the technology behind the Iron Dome missile system) matters to more and more
countries. It’s not just America; India, China and Russia all want a piece of Israeli tech wizardry.
Other, less glamorous Israeli industries, like the irrigation, desalinization and dry land farming tech that water poor Israel has developed over
the decades play their part. Israel’s diplomatic outreach to Africa and its deepening (and increasingly public) relationship with India benefit
from Israel’s ability to deliver what people in other countries and governments want.
The second factor in Israel’s appearing on our list is the

change in the Middle Eastern balance of power that has
transformed Israel from a pariah state to a kingmaker. On the one hand, Syria, one of Israel’s most vociferous enemies
and biggest security threats in the old days, has now been broken on the wheel. What has happened in Syria is a terrible human
tragedy; but in the cold light of realpolitik the break up of Syria further entrenches Israel’s military supremacy in
its immediate neighborhood. Egypt hates Hamas, ISIS and Islamic Jihad as much as Israel does; never has
Egyptian-Israeli security cooperation been as close as it is today. Even more consequentially, the rise of Iran
and its aspirations to regional hegemony on the one hand and the apparent support for its dreams from the Obama
administration made Israel critical to the survival of the Sunni Arabs, including the Gulf states, who loathe Iran
and fear a Shia victory in the religious conflict now raging across the Middle East. The Arab
Establishment today has two frightening enemies: radical jihadi groups like ISIS on one side, and Iran on the
other. Israel has a mix of intelligence and military capabilities that can help keep the regional balance
stable ; privately and even not so privately many prominent Arab officials today will say that Israeli support is necessary for the survival of
Arab independence.
Scenario 3: Africa
A2: Unstable
All their evidence links back to 2017, we would’ve all been dead now because it had
been two years since terrorist has been “destabilizing” Africa without the US support.
Africa already has China helping to stabilize Africa – US not key
Xinhua 19, China News Agency is the official state-run press agency of the People's Republic of China,
“China-Africa cooperation in peace, security to play vital role for Africa's stability”, 7-18-19,
http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2019-07/18/c_138237777.htm
China-Africa cooperation in peace and security, in line with an initiative announced by China last year, will
play a vital role in
boosting Africa's quest towards stability, an Ethiopian expert said Wednesday. Costantinos Bt. Costantinos, who served as an
economic advisor to the African Union (AU) and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), told Xinhua that the peace and
security initiative, announced during the Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) in September last year,
provides a vital impetus to bilateral cooperation in peace and security. The expert made the remarks as the first
China-Africa Peace and Security Forum, organized by China's Ministry of National Defense, is being held in Beijing this week. The forum has
been one of the outcomes of the initiative. Costantinos said the initiative, or action plan, "aspires to continue to promote high-level exchanges
between Africa and China so as to deepen traditional friendship, enhance political mutual trust, strengthen strategic coordination and cement
the political foundation of China-Africa relations." According to the expert, the action plan has clearly stipulated its intent to support the
operationalization of the African peace and security architecture. "The
Beijing action plan is vital as it reiterates that China
will increase defense and security assistance to Africa and the two sides will enhance cooperation and
experience sharing in social governance, public security, peacekeeping, cyber security, anti-piracy and
counter-terrorism," the expert said. The expert's comment came as representatives of the Chinese military as well as nearly 100 security
officials from 50 African countries and the AU, including 15 defense ministers and chiefs of staff, are attending the forum from July 15 to 20 in
Beijing. The attendees will discuss the initiative of building a China-Africa community with a shared future that was raised at the 2018 FOCAC
Beijing summit, and focus on topics including China-Africa cooperation in peace and security, and regional maritime security. Costantinos, also a
professor of public policy at the Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia, stressed that successful China-Africa peace and security cooperation would
help strengthen the China-Africa community with a shared future. Figures from the African Union (AU) also backed the expert's assertion as
various supports from the Chinese government in recent years helped to consolidate peace and security efforts across the continent. According
to the AU, the
Chinese government has provided continuous support to the AU Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) since 2011,
through the donation of equipment, and funding support of approximately 1.2 million U.S. dollars
annually. China has also provided support to the African Standby Force (AU-ASF) through the provision of equipment that forms part of
strategic stock for the ASF, to the tune of 100 million U.S. dollars, the AU said in a statement on Monday. The AU Commissioner for Peace and
Security, Smail Chergui, also on Monday hailed the ongoing China-Africa Peace and Security Forum as a positive impetus to Africa's stability.
"This meeting is happening at a time when Africa is experiencing growing insecurity and striving to end
all conflicts on the continent to ensure a peaceful and stable Africa," the AU commissioner said. "Premised around the
hallmarks of the great Sino-Africa partnership, this forum provides a platform for us to discuss a comprehensive framework to solidify and
continue to enhance China's support to peace and security on the continent," he said. "This is why we appreciate the strategic and reliable
partnership between the African Union and the People's Republic of China in supporting efforts to enhance AU Peace Support Operations
capabilities," he said. In addition to engaging in discussions that aimed to strengthen China-Africa cooperation in peace and security,
representatives from African countries will visit China's army, navy and air force troops as well as Shanghai during the forum.
AT: Bioterror
No impact---attacks will be small, no dispersion, and countermeasures solve
Filippa Lentzos 14, PhD from London School of Economics and Social Science, Senior Research Fellow
in the Department of Social Science, Health and Medicine at King’s College London, Catherine Jefferson,
researcher in the Department of Social Science, Health, and Medicine at King’s College London, DPhil
from the University of Sussex, former senior policy advisor for international security at the Royal Society,
and Dr. Claire Marris, Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Social Science, Health and Medicine
at King's College London, “The myths (and realities) of synthetic bioweapons,” 9/18/2014,
http://thebulletin.org/myths-and-realities-synthetic-bioweapons7626
The bioterror WMD myth. Those who have overemphasized the bioterrorism threat typically portray it as an imminent
concern, with emphasis placed on high-consequence, mass-casualty attacks , performed with weapons of mass
destruction (WMD). This
is a myth with two dimensions.¶ The first involves the identities of terrorists and what their intentions are. The assumption
is that terrorists would seek to produce mass-casualty weapons and pursue capabilities on the scale of 20th century, state-level
bioweapons programs. Most leading biological disarmament and non-proliferation experts believe that the risk of a small-
scale bioterrorism attack is very real and present. But they consider the risk of sophisticated large-scale bioterrorism attacks to be
quite small. This judgment is backed up by historical evidence . The three confirmed attempts to use biological agents against
humans in terrorist attacks in the past were small-scale , low-casualty events aimed at causing panic and disruption rather than excessive death
tolls. ¶ The second dimension involves capabilities and the level of skills and resources available to terrorists. The implicit assumption is that
producing a pathogenic organism equates to producing a weapon of mass destruction. It does not.
Considerable knowledge and resources are necessary for the processes of scaling up, storage, and
dissemination. These processes present significant technical and logistical barriers .¶ Even if a biological weapon were
disseminated successfully, the outcome of an attack would be affected by factors like the health of the people who are exposed and the speed and
manner with which public health authorities and medical professionals detect and respond to the resulting outbreak. A prompt response with effective
medical countermeasures, such as antibodies and vaccination, can significantly blunt the impact of an
attack.
Gene editing means we’ll just release genetically programmed counters to

bioweapons---public health infrastructure’s completely irrelevant
Hank Campbell 14, founder of Science 2.0 and an award-winning science writer who has appeared in
numerous publications, from Wired to the Wall Street Journal, 10/10/14, “Is 'Frankenbacteria' our best
hope to defeat future bioterrorism?,” https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2014/10/10/is-frankenbacteria-
our-best-hope-to-defeat-future-bioterrorism/
Yet even when biological WMDs are not getting publicity, the United States D epartment o f D efense has a whole
division devoted to that field, called the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), and they spend almost $4
billion each year to protect our public health infrastructure - 'gloves and drugs', as they call it. What are they working
on? The actual list of biological threat agents is classified but when Ebola became a source of public outcry, DTRA disclosed that it had quietly
been funding a drug called ZMapp and it was rushed into use.
Gloves and drugs are certainly needed now but the future of threat protection belongs to programmable agents
that can react to whatever threats happen, as they happen . DTRA recently revealed that scientists working
for them have
created a hybrid bacteria - a cyborg mix of computer chip and genetically modified
organism - that can not only detect infectious diseases but automatically mobilize to defeat them .
To accomplish it, the researchers have created DNA microarrays with a twist. DNA microarrays are a common tool for
biological research - for example, a tiny device gets embedded with a protein to find out what is happening.
The biohybrid device receives both chemical (enzyme reaction precursor) and electronic inputs, and through biochemical
intermediates, translates them to both electrochemical signals and biological cell responses . A representation of
the components of the multi-domain fusion protein (HLPT) is shown . By varying the electronic inputs through the electrodes on which HLPT is
attached, they can vary the attenuation of HLPT activity and thus affect the electrochemical and biological responses in proportion to the input.
Credit: Created for the Department of Defense by Dr. William E. Bentley, University of Maryland
The new research takes that to the next level. Rather than using DNA microarrays
to simply investigate what is happening, they

have actually controlled cell metabolism - all on a chip. That's a real
breakthrough, it could lead to genetically engineering 'smart' bacteria to defeat infectious diseases
that could be utilized by 21st century bioterrorists.
The proof of concept was a reduction-oxidation (redox) molecule called autoinducer-2, which they used to tune what is called a multi-domain
fusion protein - HLPT, which gets its name from the purification domain (His6),the catalytic domain (LuxS and Pfs) and the assembly domain
(Tyr5). Since
they were able to control the output based on the electrical input, it means they can
change its biological behavior.
In the graphic above, you can see that their bio-hybrid device has both enzyme reaction precursor and electronic inputs, which get translated to
both electrochemical and biological responses in the cell.
When the signal was introduced, the researchers got the cells to 'act together' and create a blue fluorescent proteinThe application was touted
as being valuable for drug discovery and it certainly will make drug discovery far less expensive, but population-wide
biological
behavior that can be modulated electrically, allowing researchers to alter the enzymatic generation of
a signal molecule, has a lot of potential for next-generation defense , exactly the reason that the Defense Threat
Reduction Agency supported the project.
Such 'smart' bacteria could be programmed in the field, using a laptop or even a tablet, to automatically guide
their actions based on chemical cues which reveal what bioterrorists might be throwing at soldiers.
No Disease Impact---1NC
Infectious diseases don’t cause extinction
Owen Cotton-Barratt 17, et al, PhD in Pure Mathematics, Oxford, Lecturer in Mathematics at Oxford,
Research Associate at the Future of Humanity Institute, 2/3/2017, Existential Risk: Diplomacy and
Governance, https://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/Existential-Risks-2017-01-23.pdf
For most of human history, natural pandemics have posed the greatest risk of mass global fatalities.37 However, there are some reasons to
natural pandemics are very unlikely to cause human extinction. Analysis of the International Union for
believe that
of the 833 recorded plant and animal species extinctions
Conservation of Nature (IUCN) red list database has shown that
known to have occurred since 1500, less than 4% (31 species) were ascribed to infectious disease.38
None of the mammals and amphibians on this list were globally dispersed, and other factors aside
from infectious disease also contributed to their extinction. It therefore seems that our own species,
which is very numerous, globally dispersed, and capable of a rational response to problems, is very
unlikely to be killed off by a natural pandemic.
One underlying explanation for this is that

highly lethal pathogens can kill their hosts before they have a chance
to spread, so there is a selective pressure for pathogens not to be highly lethal . Therefore, pathogens are likely to
co-evolve with their hosts rather than kill all possible hosts.39
No Disease Impact---2NC
Their evidence assumes a level of virulence that has literally never occurred
Wendy Orent 15, anthropologist and freelance science writer whose work has appeared in The
Washington Post, The LA Times, The New Republic, Discover, and The American Prospect, instructor in
science journalism @ Emory, Ignore predictions of lethal pandemics and pay attention to what really
matters, LA Times, 1/3/15, http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-orent-pandemic-hysteria-
20150104-story.html
Prophets of doom have been telling us for decades that a deadly new pandemic — of bird flu, of SARS or MERS coronavirus, and
now of Ebola —is on its way. Why are we still listening? If you look back at the furor raised at many distinguished publications — Nature, Science, Scientific American, National
Geographic — back in, say, 2005, about a potential bird flu (H5N1) pandemic, you wonder what planet they were on. Nature ran a special section titled — “Avian flu:
Are we ready?” — that began, ominously, with the words “Trouble is brewing in the East” and went on to present a mock aftermath report detailing catastrophic
civil breakdown. Robert Webster, a famous influenza virologist, told ABC News in 2006 that “society just can't accept the idea that 50% of the population could die. And I think we have to face that possibility.”
Public health expert Michael T. Osterholm of the University of Minnesota, at a meeting in Washington of scientists brought together by the Institute of Medicine, warned in 2005 that a post-pandemic commission, like the post-
9/11 commission, could hold “many scientists … accountable to that commission for what we did or didn't do to prevent a pandemic.” He also predicted that we could be facing “three years of a given hell” as the world struggled to
right itself after the deadly pandemic. And Laurie Garrett, author of what must be the urtext for pandemic predictions, her 1994 book “The Coming Plague,” intoned in Foreign Affairs that “in short, doom may loom.” Although she
hysteria still goes on: Whether it's over the

followed that with “But note the may,” the article went on to paint a terrifying picture of the avian flu threat nonetheless. And such
MERS coronavirus, a whole alphabet of chicken flu viruses, a real but not very deadly influenza pandemic in 2009, or a
kerfuffle like the one in 2012 over a scientist-crafted ferret flu that also was supposed to be a pandemic threat. Along
the way, virologist Nathan Wolfe published “The Viral Storm: the Dawn of a New Pandemic Age,” and David Quammen warned in his gripping “Spillover” that
some new animal plague could arise from the jungle and sweep across the world. And now there's Ebola. Osterholm, in a widely read op-ed in the
New York Times in September, wrote about the possibility that scientists were afraid to mention publicly the danger they discuss privately: that Ebola “could mutate to become transmissible through the air.” “The Ebola epidemic in
West Africa has the potential to alter history as much as any plague has ever done,” he wrote. And Garrett wrote in Foreign Policy, “Attention, World: You just don't get it.” She went on to say, “Wake up, fools,” because we should
be more frightened of a potential scenario like the one in the movie “Contagion,” in which a lethal, fictitious pandemic scours the world, nearly destroying civilization. But there were fewer takers this time. Osterholm's claims
The scientific
about Ebola going airborne were discounted by serious scientists, and Garrett seemingly retracted her earlier hysteria about Ebola by claiming that, after all, evolution made such spread unlikely.
world has changed since 2005. Now, most scientists understand that there are significant physical
and evolutionary barriers to a blood- and fluid-borne virus developing airborne transmission , as Garrett has
acknowledged. Though Ebola virus has been detected in human alveolar cells, as Vincent Racaniello, virologist at Columbia University, explained to me, that doesn't mean it can replicate in the airways enough to allow transmission.
“Maybe … the virus can get in, but can't get out. Like a roach motel,” wrote Racaniello in an email. H5N1, we understand now, never went airborne because it attached only to cell receptors located deep in human lungs, and could
not, therefore, be coughed or sneezed out. SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, caused local outbreaks after multiple introductions via air travel but spread only sluggishly and mostly in hospitals. Breaking its chains of
transmission ended the outbreak globally. There probably will always be significant barriers preventing the easy adaptation
of an animal disease to the human species. Furthermore, Racaniello insists that there are no recorded instances of viruses
that have adapted to humans, changing the way they are spread. So we need to stop listening to the
doomsayers, and we need to do it now. Predictions of lethal pandemics have — since the swine flu
fiasco of 1976, when President Ford vowed to vaccinate “every man, woman and child in the United States” — always been wrong. Fear-mongering wastes
our time and our emotions and diverts resources from where they should be directed — in the case of Ebola, to the
ongoing tragedy in West Africa. Americans have all but forgotten about Ebola now, because most people realize it isn't coming to a school or a shopping mall near you. But Sierra Leoneans and Liberians go on dying.
Burnout and genetic variation check

Ian York 14, head of the Influenza Molecular Virology and Vaccines team in the Immunology and
Pathogenesis Branch of the Influenza Division at the CDC, PhD in Molecular Virology and Immunology
from McMaster University, M.Sc. in Veterinary Microbiology and Immunology from the University of
Guelph, former Assistant Prof of Microbiology & Molecular Genetics at Michigan State, “Why Don't
Diseases Completely Wipe Out Species?” 6/4/2014, http://www.quora.com/Why-dont-diseases-
completely-wipe-out-species
But mostly diseases don't drive species extinct. There are several reasons for that. For one, the most dangerous
diseases are those that spread from one individual to another. If the disease is highly lethal , then the
population drops, and it becomes less likely that individuals will contact each other during the infectious phase.
Highly contagious diseases tend to burn themselves out that way.¶ Probably the main reason is variation. Within the host and
the pathogen population there will be a wide range of variants. Some hosts may be naturally resistant. Some pathogens will be less
virulent . And either alone or in combination , you end up with infected individuals who survive .¶ We see this in HIV, for example. There is a small
fraction of humans who are naturally resistant or altogether immune to HIV, either because of their CCR5 allele or their MHC Class I type. And there are a handful of people who were infected
with defective versions of HIV that didn't progress to disease. ¶ We can see indications of this sort of thing happening in the past, because our genomes contain many instances of
pathogen resistance genes that have spread through the whole population. Those all started off as rare mutations that
conferred a strong selection advantage to the carriers, meaning that the specific infectious diseases were serious threats to the species.
No Impact
No great power war over Africa---deterrence solves, and resource interests don’t
cause escalation
Lloyd Thrall 15, Associate at the RAND corporation, M.A. in international studies and diplomacy, SOAS, University
of London, PhD student in War Studies at King’s College London, "China’s Expanding African Relations Implications
for U.S. National Security,"
2015, http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR900/RR905/RAND_RR905.pdf
Future Developments and Sino-American Interest Correlation
China’s engagement with Africa has changed dramatically over the past ten years and will likely continue to do so. Most
importantly, China’s growing African interests will probably complicate Beijing’s ability to remain agnostic
about the internal affairs of African states. China’s strict nonintervention approach reflects political realities now more than five
decades old. Growing and diversifying interests, as well as the proliferation of Chinese actors in Africa and Beijing’s
imperfect control of them, will probably precipitate a modest growth in Chinese involvement in African
states’ regional relationships and domestic affairs. Specifically, Beijing is likely to face sensitive state failures, overtly anti-
Chinese popular movements, terrorism, and kidnappings with increased frequency. Regarding economic relations, the explosive growth of the
previous decade should slow as Chinese growth slows and the surge of capital released by the “Go Global” policy subsides. Beijing may have to
navigate issues of debt sustainability with African states if economic ties do not balance. Regarding security, significant mismanagement of
security crises in Africa could put Beijing’s domestic legitimacy and its principles of foreign noninterference in tension. While not likely in the
next decade, Beijing could create a minimally invasive capability for reacting to crises, evacuating citizens, and securing assets in Africa.
However , concerns over China developing a network of forward naval bases seem misplaced. Unlike the zero-sum geopolitical
competition that defined the Cold War in Africa, contemporary Sino-American interests in Africa are far
less divergent and less dangerous. The United States and China share a fundamental interest in the
stability of African states and functioning markets as a prerequisite for the economic benefits,
deepening relationships, and global leadership image that each hopes to portray. Neither state is
promoting political ideologies or mercantilist economic aims that would naturally lead toward conflict in
the region. Washington and Beijing disagree about the most effective way of achieving stability and growth, reflecting their domestic
political structures and development histories. Neither state, however, is inflexible in the application of its
development philosophy. U.S. and Chinese interests diverge most seriously over the role of foreign
powers in supporting good governance and human rights norms in Africa, particularly regarding pariah
states. While Beijing has blunted international pressure on such states as Sudan and Zimbabwe, it has also used its closer relationship with
such states to curb their behavior when it too seriously threatened stability or Beijing’s international reputation. Most importantly, African
states will continue to balance their relations and remain selective consumers of foreign states’ overtures. Neither state will play the lead in any
transformation of African economies or political order; that role will continue to be filled by African leaders.
Scenario 4: Latin America
1nc – other actors
Great Powers influence in South America collapse it and is external to the plan solving
Lopez 19- C. Todd Lopez is a writer for U.S Southern Command. 7-9-2019, "Southcom
Chief Stresses Need for Partnerships, Security Cooperation”,
https://www.southcom.mil/MEDIA/NEWS-ARTICLES/Article/1901790/southcom-chief-stresses-need-
for-partnerships-security-cooperation/
External states are working hard to get a foothold in South America, and they want to
exert even greater influence there than they already do. Strong partnerships are the way to counter that effort,
the commander of U.S. Southern Command said in a Senate hearing.
Competition is happening globally, and right here in our neighborhood: the Western
"
Hemisphere," Navy Adm. Craig S. Faller told the Senate Armed Services Committee.
In Venezuela, he said, Russia is propping up the illegitimate regime of Nicolas Maduro with
loans, technical and military support. China, he said, is the country's largest creditor.
"[China has] saddled the Venezuelan people with more than $60 billion in debt and is exporting surveillance technology used to monitor and
oppress the Venezuelan people," he said. Iran, he told the senators, has recently restarted direct flights from Tehran to the Venezuelan capital
of Caracas.
China does have legitimate financial interests around the globe, including in South
Faller said
America. "We're working hard as a nation to figure out how those legitimate international interests can actually be played using the rule of
law," he added.
China's investments in 56 port facilities in South America as well as investment

Still, he said,
in cyber and information technology infrastructure sets the stage "for future access
and influence that would have clearly military dimension."
Russia, he said, can best be characterized as a "wounded bear" wanting power.
"Their principal objective is to make the U.S. look bad at whatever turn they can do, and do anything that would blunt a U.S. advantage, even if
that advantage is for the international good and the people, as it is in Venezuela," he said.
The activities of China, Russia, Iran and Cuba, he said, are "profoundly unhealthy" for
democracy and regional security in South America, and also are counter to U.S. interests
there.
China, Russia and others want to shape a world consistent with their authoritarian
"
models," he said. "They're blurring the lines of what constitutes a military threat through economic coercion, the systemic stealing of
technology, influence campaigns and malicious cyber activity."
1nc – a/c to instability
Other countries participate in arms exports---Israeli gun companies sell guns in Latin
America
Schivone 19 (Gabriel M. Schivone, a visiting scholar at the University of Arizona, 3-15-2019, “Israeli arms industry's "great leap" in
Central America“, Electronic Intifada, https://electronicintifada.net/content/israeli-arms-industrys-great-leap-central-america/26881, accessed
7-14-2019)
Halfway through Donald Trump’s presidency, Israel’s decades-long role in Central America is scaling new heights of military
and political influence.
Israel has wasted no time securing valuable arms deals in this part of the world, deals that now
account for nearly 20 percent of its arms exports. This scale of activity hasn’t occurred since the Ronald Reagan
administration in the 1980s, when far-right rulers in Central America circled the wagons.
2nc Fill-in
Pulling US arms strengthens Russia and China’s influence in Latin America---turns the
aff impacts
Seligman 18 (Lara Seligman, 11-19-2018, “U.S. Military Targets Growing Russian and Chinese Influence in Latin America“, Foreign Policy,
https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/11/19/us-military-targets-growing-russian-and-chinese-influence-in-latin-america/, accessed 7-13-2019)
U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein, returning from a trip to Colombia, said over the weekend that the Trump administration is
making a push to strengthen alliances across Latin America as part of an effort to counter rising
Chinese and Russian influence in the United States’ backyard.
In an interview with Foreign Policy, Goldfein said Colombia and other Latin American countries risked being locked
out of U.S. and allied operations if they stopped buying military hardware from the U nited S tates and
turned to other markets instead.
“While there may be other cheap hardware out there that might be available on the market, at some point it becomes
really hard to make it connect and share within the system,” Goldfein said by phone Saturday while flying home from
Colombia.
His trip was part of a broader administration effort to reinforce alliances across Latin America as the
region grapples with a range of security threats, from narcotrafficking and terrorism to Venezuela’s economic collapse and ensuing refugee
crisis. During the two-day visit, which followed U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis’s own South America tour in August, Goldfein met with
Colombia’s minister of defense, commander general, and air force chief, and he spoke with students at the Colombian war college.
“When it comes to China and Russia, we are looking at cooperation where we can and pushing back
aggressively where we must,” Goldfein said. “We keep a close eye on their activities globally, but certainly we keep an eye on
their activities [in Latin America].”
China and Russia are quietly exerting economic and

Underlying the outreach effort, experts say, is U.S. recognition that
military influence in Latin America. China is a master at leveraging trade and direct economic investment
for geopolitical gains , they say. Driven by a desire to tap into Latin America’s vast oil reserves, as well as to
bolster anti-American sentiment, China
has invested large sums of money in the region. It has surpassed the U nited S tates
as the main destination for exports in seven countries in the region. In five of those countries—Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Peru, and
Uruguay—China is now the largest export market. It has also been working with Argentina on a space station in Patagonia.
“The Colombians are concerned that the U.S. has been leaving the region behind, and it has created a
void , this vacuum to fill,” said Moises Rendon, an analyst with the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He noted Colombia’s
dilemma: It “can’t say no to China, because they are providing opportunities and investment, [while]
the U.S. is not providing the same types of opportunities.”
Russia, meanwhile, is seen as less of a power player in the region but has sold billions of dollars of weapons
to countries across Latin America. Unlike China, which wants to use Latin America’s natural resources for its own economic
growth, Russia’s interest in the region is primarily strategic , Rendon said.
Both nations are using these commercial ties to support Latin American regimes that violate human
rights and are antagonistic to the U nited S tates, particularly Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Bolivia, with the
end goal of undermining America’s influence in the region, analysts said.
“One very important concern for the U.S. government is that the Chinese are propping up [Venezuelan President Nicolás
Maduro’s] regime and other nondemocratic leaders like Nicaragua [and] Bolivia,” Rendon said.
The escalation of Chinese influence in Latin America is reflected in the number of nations that have
swapped recognition from Taiwan to China, according to Ana Quintana, an analyst with the Heritage Foundation. This group
now includes El Salvador, Costa Rica, Panama, and the Dominican Republic.
U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton in the White House in Washington on Oct. 3.
Bolton Is Building a Confrontational Latin America Strategy
The Trump administration is right to call out the region’s rogues for their destabilizing behavior.
The goal is not just “sticking it to the Americans,” but also “amplifying their power,” Quintana said, noting the region’s wealth of oil reserves.
Both China and Russia “want to be in a position to be a power broker in Latin America.”
The U.S. administration’s approach to countering Chinese and Russian influence in Latin America is
rooted in building new alliances and strengthening the ones that already exist. Maintaining strong military-to-
military ties is key , Goldfein said.
“There are times when our diplomatic relationships may change based on the political environment, but
we are able to maintain a military-to-military relationship and dialogue,” Goldfein said. He stressed his close friendship with Colombia’s Air
Force chief, Gen. Carlos Eduardo Bueno, and lauded the country for leading the region in promoting democracy.
“Colombia is really the gold standard for how you take the resources of the country and, through strong
leadership and perseverance, you turn a country around and get it on a path toward democracy ,” Goldfein said.
Ensuring U.S. and Colombian forces can operate seamlessly together involves not just frequent joint exercises, he said, but also using
interoperable equipment. For example, the Colombian Air Force is a world leader in employing light attack aircraft to fight drug traffickers, a
practice the U.S. Air Force is hoping to emulate against insurgents in the Middle East. The United States has in recent years provided A-29 Super
Tucanos, the same aircraft the Colombian Air Force operates, to the fledgling Afghan Air Force, and it is now looking to buy that platform for its
own pilots.
During the visit, Goldfein said, he and Colombian leaders discussed partnership opportunities “to protect the sovereignty of their airspace,”
including potentially selling Colombia U.S. military aircraft such as F-16 fighter jets.
Reinforcing U.S. alliances in Latin America is also part of a “layered defense approach” to protecting
America’s borders, Goldfein said. One current concern is the crisis of Venezuelan migrants, who are pouring into Colombia at rates of
more than 4,000 a day. At the request of the Colombian government, Mattis this fall sent the U.S. Navy’s hospital ship
USNS Comfort to Colombia to provide medical care for the migrants.
Another challenge the two air chiefs discussed is a recent spike in cocaine production across Colombia. Goldfein said the United States is
exploring how it can help the Colombian government eradicate the coca fields.
“We need to be there for our Latin American counterparts for the good and the bad,” Quintana said. “This is a very
critical time, because there is a lot of positives happening in the region.”
No solvency
The ATT doesn’t cover ammunition---it’s uniquely destabilizing.
Mack 18 (Daniel Mack, independent consultant working on issues of armed violence reduction and international arms control, December
2018, “How to use the Arms Trade Treaty to Address Diversion in Latin America “, UNSCAR, https://controlarms.org/wp-
content/uploads/2019/02/ATTDiversion-Paper-FINAL.pdf, accessed 7-11-2019)
*LAC = Latin America and Carribean *ICRC = International Committee of the Red Cross *PSSM
= Physical Security and Stockpile Management
diversion of their ammunition is also prevalent and impactful in the region.46

In addition to small arms, the
Though ammunition may not be explicitly covered by the ATT s’ diversion mandate, as Article 11 only lists the
conventional weapons covered under Article 2.1 (Scope), it is nonetheless a serious, real-world concern for many
stakeholders. Indeed, during ATT Working Group discussions held in May-June 2018, the ICRC “recommended that States
Parties apply the same diversion prevention measures to ammunition as they do for the arms themselves”.47 In this sense, an encouraging
development should be noted: in many cases, including some countries in LAC, governments are applying ATT provisions in practice to
ammunition just as with the weapons that propel them.48
Of course, tackling the diversion of ammunition is not simple. The complexity stems from the fact that “bullets
tend to be less well marked, registered, kept, monitored and regulated than firearms, making
diversion and misuse easier to conduct and more difficult to trace”. 49 Moreover, the “diversion of ammunition
resulting from inadequate PSSM is extremely difficult to verify, primarily because states rarely maintain detailed
inventories of ammunition. They tend to record ammunition in bulk, by production lot, rather than by unique
identifying numbers assigned to each round”. 50 Difficulties notwithstanding, the diversion of ammunition is essential
to understand and tackle, given its prevalence and scope. For example, in the 1072 diversion cases documented by CAR, 735 weapons
were diverted. For ammunition, the total was 206,198 units. 51
In addition to stockpile management, marking and tracing were also highlighted

among the solutions identified during
the ATT Academy. The region has already adopted some best practices, guidelines and established normative
standards, including the Organization of American States Model Legislation for Marking and Tracing
which provides detailed instructions on when, where and how ammunition must be marked. UNLIREC
recommends that “Markings must be made both to the cartridge itself, and to all packaging that accompanies ammunition in transport, sale,
and stockpiling. Markings must generally follow two principles: clarity (identifications should be easy to read) and
uniformity (style and position of identifications should follow the same patterns)”.52
LA Instability---1NC
Latin America stability increasing---state reforms, strengthening institutions and open
economy prove
Freedom Lab 18, 11-9-2018, “A brighter future for Latin America?” http://freedomlab.org/wp-
content/uploads/2018/11/Macroscope-NO-171-A-brighter-future-for-Latin-America.pdf
Disappointing economic performance, corruption scandals, rising crime and populism dominate global headlines about Latin America. However,
if we look beyond recent events, longer term trends brewing underneath the radar point to a brighter future for the region.
State reform in Latin America is pushing ahead slowly. While the 1980's and 1990's were characterized by an emphasis
on (failed) economic policies, more recently much-needed institutional reform has appeared on the political
agenda. It is useful to recall that Latin America has been known for widespread corruption for decades. All of this went unnoticed or
untouched. But that is changing. In these young democracies, growing middle classes that are exceptionally
frequent users of digital technology are driving reform. Indeed, the elections of populists reflect disgruntled middle classes.
While AMLO and Bolsonaro may not lead to institutionalized solutions for corruption, they're certainly products of anti¬corruption sentiment.
Furthermore, high
profile cases such as Lava Jato and the ousting of corrupt leaders in Brazil, Peru and
Guatemala indeed reflect strengthening institutions. These developments are hopeful ones. They will strengthen civil
society, representative democracy, and the rule of law, which will create stronger institutions and the foundation for economic progress.
As state reform pushes ahead, the countries of Latin America are also growing closer together. The region
has always been divided in several regions (i.e. Atlantic, Pacific, landlocked) that stand on equal footing (a geographic destiny the Spanish and
Portuguese also ran into). As such, no clear regional power has emerged. Moreover, the colonial legacy of the region fragmented the continent
further (and also created weak political institutions). Contrarily, in pre-colonial times, the political order was more cohesive (e.g. the Inca
Empire in the area of the Pacific Alliance: Peru, Chile). Now,
through modern political institutions, technology and
connectivity, region-wide integration is gaining momentum again (e.g. intracontinental infrastructure, trade
agreements). First, the ‘Asian bloc' of Latin America (the countries facing Asia and the Pacific) is integrating
through the Pacific Alliance and the countries facing the Atlantic are integrating through Mercosur.
Second, Mercosur and the Pacific Alliance are negotiating a Latin American free trade bloc. Besides growing
closer together, Latin American countries are increasingly connecting to the rest of the world . As in colonial
times, the region is emerging at the center of globalization. In the 16th century, Mexicans believed to be at the center of the world, as Latin
America was the place where Asia, Europe and the Americas met. However, the region's colonial legacy fueled isolation, and the Pink Tide, a
continental turn to leftwing governments at the start of this century, strayed away from openness to global markets. But as the Pink Tide has
ended, LatinAmerica is turning to more market-friendly policies. As a result, China, Europe, and the U.S.
have all gained renewed interest in the region, which will only increase in the coming years.
Through state reform, internal integration, and connectivity to the rest of the world, Latin America will
build on its traditions of progressivism, natural resource abundance (in a world of scarcity), and its
future on the western hemisphere as the most stable region of the world, to become a dynamic region
similar to the current rise of South East Asia.
LA GPW---1NC
No challengers to US Primacy in Latin America
Juan Gabriel Tokatlian 18, professor of International Relations at the Di Tella University in Buenos Aires,
Argentina, 9-5-2018, "No One’s Supplanting US Military Influence in Latin America," Defense
One, https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2018/09/no-ones-supplanting-us-military-influence-latin-
america/151029
Concerns about Chinese, Russian, and Iranian forays are overblown.
Many U.S. and Latin American experts who analyze inter-American military relations tend to repeat two
inaccuracies. First, they confuse diplomatic statements and military realities. Second, they reckon that the military policies
of China, Russia, Iran, and India towards Latin America are generating a disturbing imbalance that is
detrimental to Washington.
The former tendency is exemplified by an emphasis on then-Secretary of State John Kerry’s 2013 speech announcing the end of the Monroe
Doctrine. In practice, however, the Defense Department and especially U.S. Southern Command, have reaffirmed their supremacy in Latin
America.
The latter tendency requires a bit more unpacking. There

is no doubt that China’s economic growth is being
accompanied by an incipient military projection beyond its regional area of influence, including attempts
to boost arms exports to Latin America. Yet Bejing’s effective military impact upon Latin America in the
region remains low — with the exception of its arms exports to Venezuela. Russia is the region’s largest foreign arms supplier: since
2013, according to SIPRI, Moscow has supplied 27 percent of the region’s imported weapons, more than the United States (15 percent) and
France (10 percent) combined. Meanwhile, military ties between Iran and Latin America annoy Washington, but Tehran lacks the capability to
ensure its standing or hinder U.S. preeminence in the region. And as for the limited defense ties between India and Latin America, Indian
specialist Sanjay Badri-Maharaj says it is a farce to talk about them.
In short, the U.S. military preponderance in the region persists and it is rock-solid. No extra-regional
country, individually or jointly, can challenge U.S. military clout and control in the region. Among its
instruments are U.S. Southern Command, located in Miami; the U.S. Navy’s Fourth Fleet, disestablished in 1950 and reassembled in 2008;
military bases in Cuba and Honduras; cooperative security locations in El Salvador and Aruba-Curacao; and security assistance organizations in
various Latin American countries. And while Beijing has sought to implement security cooperation programs and
extend more invitations to military courses in China, its efforts are so far dwarfed by Washington’s: according to the
Washington Office on Latin America: 75 out of 107 U.S. global military assistance programs are operating in the
region, while the last year alone saw 5,361 Latin American military and security personnel trained in the
United States.
China and Russia are trying to increase military-to-military contacts, but the United States has the National
Guard’s State Partnership Program by which 17 states, plus Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C., have
agreements on security and defense with 23 Latin American countries. Beijing and Moscow has been
promising material assistance in the area of defense and security, but it is Washington that earlier this year pledged
$436 million in military and police aid, according to data from Security Assistance Monitor (https://securityassistance.org/latin-
america-and-caribbean) (This year, the U.S. sold $1.3 billion in arms to Mexico alone.
It is true that Russia has expanded its relationship with Venezuela, to the point that it now undertakes military exercises that seriously concern
the United States. However, SouthCom conducts regular, collective joint exercises with countries in Latin America through drills such as
Panamax, UNITAS, Tradewinds and New Horizons.
And U.S. special operations there have drifted upward. Since

2006, the slice of U.S. special operators deployed to the
region has risen from 3 percent to 4.39 percent, according to researcher Nick Turse. In fiscal 2016, the Special Operations
Command South conducted several anti-terrorist maneuvers with specialized regional units in the context of a change of focus
from Central America to the Caribbean (especially with the Dominican Republic and Trinidad and Tobago) and a growing emphasis on South
America (especially Brazil, Chile and Peru). In
2017, the Army’s Special Forces conducted various exercises with the
armed forces of the region: with naval forces from Central America targeting drug interdiction; with Colombian and Peruvian units on
matters such as drug-trafficking and terrorism, and with special forces from Chile on urban warfare.
In addition, visits to the region by U.S. military officials are very frequent and in some years they have surpassed trips by
diplomats. There are some 1,200 uniformed military and civilians dealing with Latin America in SouthCom, more than the total of officials from
various government agencies in Washington. The political influence of the military in inter-American relations is such that before assuming their
respective presidencies in Colombia and Paraguay, Ivan Duque and Mario Abdo Benitez, visited SouthCom at Doral Florida.
To sum up, the United States remains undoubtedly , and by far, the primus inter pares on military affairs vis-
à-vis Latin America. The acceptance of the idea, both in Latin America and the United States, that military policies by China, Russia, and
Iran towards the area are alarming is questionable. The
available evidence does not support such fear. U.S. military
primacy in the Americas is undeniable.
No LA Wars---2NC
No impact to Latin American instability – no nukes
Cardenas, Brookings Latin America Initiative senior fellow, 2011
(Mauricio, “Think Again Latin America”, 3-
17, http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/03/17/think_again_latin_america?page=full
“Latin America is violent and dangerous.”
Yes, but not unstable. Latin American countries have among the world’s highest rates of crime, murder, and kidnapping. Pockets of
abnormal levels of violence have emerged in countries such as Colombia — and more recently, in Mexico, Central America, and some large
cities such as Caracas. With 140,000 homicides in 2010, it is understandable how Latin America got this reputation. Each of the countries in
Central America’s “Northern Triangle” (Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador) had more murders in 2010 than the entire European Union
combined.
Violence in Latin America is strongly related to poverty and inequality. When combined with the insatiable
international appetite for the illegal drugs produced in the region, it’s a noxious brew. As strongly argued by a number of prominent regional
leaders — including Brazil’s former president, Fernando H. Cardoso, and Colombia’s former president, Cesar Gaviria — a strategy based on
demand reduction, rather than supply, is the only way to reduce crime in Latin America.
Although some fear the Mexican drug violence could spill over into the southern United States, Latin
America poses little to no threat to international peace or stability . The major global security concerns
today are the proliferation of nuclear weapons and terrorism. No country in the region is in possession
of nuclear weapons — nor has expressed an interest in having them. Latin American countries, on the
whole, do not have much history of engaging in cross-border wars. Despite the recent tensions on the
Venezuela-Colombia border, it should be pointed out that Venezuela has never taken part in an international armed conflict.
Ethnic and religious conflicts are very uncommon in Latin America. Although the region has not been immune to radical jihadist attacks — the
1994 attack on a Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires, for instance — they have been rare. Terrorist attacks on the civilian population
have been limited to a large extent to the FARC organization in Colombia, a tactic which contributed in large part to the organization’s loss of
popular support.
Gendered Violence Advantage
War Turns – 1NC
War turns gender violence
GIWPS 17, (Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security, the Institute has hosted
policymakers, subject matter experts, military advisers, diplomats, entrepreneurs and women on the
frontlines of change for discussions on women, peace and security.), October 2017, "Why Security is
Important" as part of the “Women Peace and Security Index 17/18”, GIWPS and The Peace Research
Institute Oslo, https://giwps.georgetown.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Chapter-3-Why-Security-Is-
Important.pdf, TJ-TD
Of course, the
human cost of war extends beyond those killed in violent events, as major losses of life
and harmful health effects may follow for a long time after the conflict.59 The unique impacts of conflict on
women and girls has been recognized in a series of resolutions adopted by the UN Security Council on Women, Peace and Security, beginning
with Resolution 1325 in 2000, which was the first to address the disproportionate and unique impact of armed conflict on women (see box 1.1
in chapter 1). Conflict has different impacts on men and women because men typically account for the vast majority of combatants and are
more likely to die in battle, while women and children may be more affected by the breakdown of health and
other services.60 One global study found that conflict is associated with a modest increase in maternal mortality, although this association
was not significant once national income was controlled for.61 At the same time, among the 25 countries with the highest maternal mortality
ratio, all but one are also affected by organized violence.62 For example, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, despite the end of the second
civil war in 2003, ongoing violence committed by different armed groups, continuing instability, and governance failure have aggravated already
high rates of maternal mortality, which reportedly rose from 549 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2007 to 846 in 2013–14. This reversal stands
in stark contrast to overall improvements in reproductive health in most of Sub-Saharan Africa, where regional rates of maternal mortality
dropped more than 40 percent from 1990 to 2010. Conflict-related sexual
violence is a major cost of conflict that is
disproportionately borne by women and girls. The violence ranges from sexual assault by strangers
when women are collecting firewood in refugee camps63 to rape as a weapon of war64 and sexual
abuse and exploitation by UN peacekeepers.65 Recent literature on sexual violence by peacekeepers finds such abuse to be
correlated with the number of peacekeepers and the occurrence of sexual violence by other perpetrators during the conflict.66 The
international community has made major commitments to end all forms of conflict-related sexual violence (as recounted in box 1.1), and major
legal decisions have established the responsibility of states to prevent such violence.67 Conflict-related sexual violence is
important but not included in the organized violence indicator because of data constraints. The best available
evidence on conflict-related sexual violence is a new dataset covering 129 active armed conflicts over 1989–2009.68 Overall, the dataset
reveals that state militaries are more likely to be reported as perpetrators of sexual violence than are non-state
actors such as rebel groups and militias: 42 percent of state forces were reported as perpetrators, compared with 24 percent of rebel groups
and 17 percent of militias. Likewise in Africa, the majority of rebel groups in active conflict during 2000–2009 were not reported to be the
primary perpetrators of such violence. The data also show that sexual violence varies significantly by perpetrator, over time, and by region.
While underreporting remains a problem in documenting sexual violence, we now know that this type of violence is
not inevitable in war and that some armed groups have effectively prohibited its use—such as the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka and Sendero
Luminoso in Peru.69 Variations in the ideology and institutional nature of armed groups, including the attitude or tolerance of leadership to
civilian rape, emerge as important factors explaining patterns of violence, as in El Salvador.70 There appears to be a correlation between sexual
violence and forcible recruitment since gang rape may be used to build group cohesion. Even in conflict settings, family members tend to be the
main perpetrators of sexual violence. During the conflict in rural Côte d’Ivoire, for example, combatants constituted less than 10 percent of the
perpetrators in reported cases of sexual and gender-based violence.71 As noted previously, conflict settings
appear to be
associated with a higher risk of both individual male perpetration and female experience of intimate partner violence.
Finally, there may be some positive impacts in the aftermath of conflict, as the disruption of economic and political norms during conflict may
upset traditional norms and expand opportunities for women. In countries as diverse as Bosnia and Herzegovina, Colombia, Kosovo, Nepal,
Tajikistan, and Timor-Leste, empirical analysis has found that while women’s responsibilities in the household increase during conflict, financial
pressures and the absence of men can also boost women’s participation in work outside the home, although the jobs are often low skilled or
low paid.72 There are cases where some of women’s gains have been legally secured after the conflict, as in the 1991 Colombian Constitution
and the quotas introduced in the new Rwandan Constitution. But whether gains are sustained depends on whether traditional norms resurface
after the conflict. The reemergence of old patterns has been reported among Guatemalan refugee women, for example, who had taken
collective action to secure land rights in Mexico, but who lost their improved status when they returned to post-conflict Guatemala, where they
faced hostility from men in patriarchal systems.73 In Eritrea, many women who had taken up jobs as doctors, administrators, and teachers
during the conflict with Ethiopia lost these positions after the conflict.74
War Turns – 2NC
War turns gendered violence
Acheson 14 – Ray Acheson is the Director of Reaching Critical Will and leads WILPF’s advocacy on
disarmament-related issues at the international level. She is on the board of the International Campaign
to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. (“Money, Masculinities, and Militarism: Reaching Critical Will’s Work for
Disarmament,” Women Peacemakers Program, 05-24-2014, http://www2.kobe-
u.ac.jp/~alexroni/IPD%202015%20readings/IPD%202015_9/Gender%20and%20Militarism%20May-
Pack-2014-web.pdf#May%20Pack%202014.indd%3A.102953) /ncp-aw
While gender refers to social constructions of masculinity, femininity, etc., the concept of a “gender perspective” also includes looking at
whether and how men and women are affected differently by a particular circumstance or problem. The possession, use, and
trade in weapons affect men and women in different ways. RCW’s recent publication Women and Explosive
Weapons highlights how women can be uniquely affected by the use of explosive weapons in
populated areas . Due to their situation in societies and communities, women often have different access to
information and assistance and end up performing different tasks or facing different types of
exploitation during armed conflict. For example, women have been found to have more limited access to
emergency care and longer-term rehabilitation assistance during conflict situations . The
destruction of healthcare facilities through the use of explosive weapons in popu-lated areas
impacts maternal health and safe childbirth. Women often have to take on more care work in the
midst of the destruction of such facilities. Meanwhile, explosive weapon attacks aimed at
residential areas and mar-kets disproportionately affect women, as they often have primary
responsibility for buying food and household goods at markets. If women become the sole head of a
household, they often face systematic discrimination in the market place due to patriarchal customs in societies. They can also
become more vulnerable to physical attacks and sexual exploitation, including being forced to provide
sexual acts in return for the satisfaction of basic needs. Similarly, displacement due to use of
explosive weapons also increases risk of sexual violence and exploitation in refugee camps or
host communities. The importance of recognizing these differences between men’s and women’s
experiences is not to emphasize the victimization of women. Rather, it is to highlight the dif-ferentiated effects
on women in order to provide them with the same treatment and recognition that men enjoy .
Recognizing the diversity of experiences and interests is necessary to ensure that arms control
and disarmament is effective for ensuring the security and well-being of all. Thus women’s participation in
policymaking and peace-building is crucial. Women have suffered—economically and physically—from militarization for too long. They
must be included in developing relevant solutions. The international society needs to invest adequate resources to achieve this goal.
Disarmament , and a redirection of resources from military spending to socioeconomic development, will be crucial in
securing that adequate resources are directed towards realizing women’s rights to equal
participation.
War causes the re-masculinization of society – turns their alternative.

J Ann Tickner, Professor of International Relations at USC, International Studies Perspectives
November 2002 p.336
So, if the story is not a simple one where gender and other ideological lines are firmly drawn, what can a feminist analysis add to our
understanding of 9/11 and its aftermath? The statements with which I begin this article offer support for the claim that war both reinforces
gender stereotypes and shakes up gender expectations (Goldstein, 2002). The conduct of war is a largely male activity on both sides but
Meena, the founder of RAWA, exhorts women to fight too. Nevertheless, gender is a powerful legitimator of war and national
security; our acceptance of a “remasculinized” society during times of war and uncertainty rises considerably . And
the power of gendered expectations and identifications have real consequences for women and for men,
consequences that are frequently ignored by conventional accounts of war and civilizational clashes .
Consequentialism – 1NC
Claims of “moral obligation” undercut political obligation and allow for violence.
Isaac ‘2 (Jeffrey C., James H. Rudy professor of Political Science and director of the Center for the Study
of Democracy and Public Life at Indiana University, Bloomington, “Ends, Means and politics,” Dissent,
Spring)
As writers such as Niccolo Machiavelli, Max Weber, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Hannah Arendt have taught,
an unyielding concern with moral goodness undercuts political responsibility. The concern may be
morally laudable, reflecting a kind of personal integrity, but it suffers from three fatal flaws: (1) It fails
to see that the purity of one’s intention does not ensure the achievement of what one intends.
Abjuring violence or refusing to make common cause with morally compromised parties may seem like
the right thing; but if such tactics entail impotence, then it is hard to view them as serving any moral
good beyond the clean conscience of their supporters; (2) it fails to see that in a world of real violence
and injustice, moral purity is not simply a form of powerlessness; it is often a form of complicity in
injustice. This is why, from the standpoint of politics— as opposed to religion—pacifism is always a
potentially immoral stand. In categorically repudiating violence, it refuses in principle to oppose certain
violent injustices with any effect; and (3) it fails to see that politics is as much about unintended
consequences as it is about intentions; it is the effects of action, rather than the motives of action,
that is most significant. Just as the alignment with “good” may engender impotence, it is often the
pursuit of “good” that generates evil. This is the lesson of communism in the twentieth century: it is
not enough that one’s goals be sincere or idealistic; it is equally important, always, to ask about the
effects of pursuing these goals and to judge these effects in pragmatic and historically contextualized
ways. Moral absolutism inhibits this judgment. It alienates those who are not true believers. It
promotes arrogance. And it undermines political effectiveness.
Consequentialism – 2NC
Problem-oriented approaches to gender violence are necessary. Rational, cost-benefit
analysis centric politics are necessary and not determined by gender, even if they’re
informed by them
McNay 14 -- Professor of Political Theory at Oxford University and Fellow of Somerville College, (Lois,
The Misguided Search for the Political, 2014, p. 214-215)
What other features might a radical democratic theory possess that takes seriously the critique of social suffering? It may
be more
fruitful to adopt an approach that, at least in the first instance, is problem- rather than model-
oriented. Radical democrats might do better to develop principles from an initial focus on specific
issues of social inequality, rather than embark at the outset on a quest to distil the essence of the
political and from this derive models into which all concrete struggles are subsequently shoehorned .
Of course, any problem-oriented approach will unavoidably be 'influenced' by theoretical
presuppositions, but it won't necessarily be as ‘driven’ by the rigid logic of the model that seems to
flow from a one-sided focus on political ontology (see Shapiro 2007). It is, after all, a problem-oriented
approach that has informed many other types of radical theorizing, such as feminism, and has made
them suspicious of the formal abstractions of theory that disregard the distinctiveness of certain
group experiences (e.g. Martineau and Squires 2012). Partly because of its established links with activism,
feminist theorizing has more often than not been propelled, in the first instance, by particular
problems relating to gender inequality and the marginalized experiences of women. Feminist political
theorizing about justice, for instance, starts with the problem of the gendered division of labour, and the undervaluing of women's care work.
It uses this sociological perspective to expose the conceptual deficiencies of asocial individualism as a
device for deriving principles of justice because of the way it obscures human vulnerability and
dependency and thereby fails to recognize care as a fundamental element of social justice (Bubeck 1995;
Fraser 1997; Kittay 1999). Others feminists think through issues of democratic participation starting from the problem of the
underrepresentation of women in [END PAGE 214] established democratic structures, their effective political invisibility, which is a
consequence of their vulnerable position as workers in transnational production processes (e.g. Fraser 2008; Phillips 1991).
The hope is that a

problem-oriented approach to radical democratic theorizing is less likely to result in the
marginalization of the actual and disregard of distinctive group experiences than are approaches
oriented to the issue of ontology. The difficulty with the latter approaches is that the strategy of
temporarily bracketing off social relations in order to capture the essence of the political turns into a
theoretical inability to reintroduce excluded issues of power without violating the pristine
foundational logic that they claim to have identified. Consxequently, the logic of political ontology is given
an unwarranted primacy that effectively occludes the autonomy and specificity of social relations and
practices. Differently put, in so far as it lacks a sense of mediation, this political anti-essentialism becomes an
essentialism . Thus, Mouffe is unable to address substantive issues about power that have a direct bearing on her model of democratic
agonism because of a misplaced fear of falling into an essentialism that would violate her rigid linguistic constructivism. Arendtian ideas of
political action as creative inauguration are famously empty, proscribing many issues of subordination and oppression by relegating them to the
realm of social necessity and, therefore, privacy. Although his ontology of abundance is more materialist in nature, Connolly
finds it
hard to incorporate types of social experience or practice that do not conform to his notions of
creative becoming and dynamic assemblages. In all these cases, social being is treated in a tokenistic and
cipher-like fashion as simply yet another empirical exemplification of foundational dynamics of
indeterminacy. Although it is not abstraction per se that causes socially weightless thinking, it may be
that radical democratic theory may be better placed to think about oppression by deploying
abstractions that are, at least in the first instance, sociological rather than philosophical in nature. The
aim of grounding political theory in sociological reconstruction rather than ontological construction
would be to, in Charles W. Mills’s words, 'reflect the specificities of group experience, thereby potentially generating
categories and principles that illuminate rather than obfuscate the reality of different kinds of
subordination' (2005: 173; also Honneth 2012: 46-8).
SQ Solves – 1NC
Squo solves – Saudi women are working in the context of their society to empower
themselves
Hoza 18 [Jacquelyn, “Is There Feminism in Saudi Arabia?”
https://ufdcimages.uflib.ufl.edu/AA/00/06/31/67/00001/Hoza_HonorsThesis.pdf, AW]
Progress Towards Equity Contrary to these assumptions, women’s movement in Saudi Arabia takes multiple forms
and has made strides towards equity, especially at the social (as opposed to the legal) level. The phrase
“women’s movement” should be understood in a loose sense, as it does not necessarily refer to coordinated efforts. Indeed, protests and
organized political movements are strictly outlawed in the Kingdom. Women who engage in various modes of empowerment may not11 present
these modes as movements or as conscious effort to change society; nevertheless, regardless of how one thinks of these efforts, they are
leading to concrete results, as recently illustrated in the lifting of the driving ban on women. Online advocacy Digital technology has
provided Saudi women with unprecedented opportunities for the exchange of ideas. Thanks to its non-gendered nature, the internet, say
Hala Gutal and Magdalena Karolak, “creates a space where women have an equal access and they are able to
contribute to the public sphere in ways that are not possible outside of the virtual world.” As a12 result,
the activity of Saudi female bloggers, who according to the same authors contribute 50% of all Saudi blogs, “is innovative in the
sense that it enables full participation of women in this new public sphere and it enhances their ability to
acquire a form of influence in society.”13 Women are thus becoming agents of change in the Kingdom. “Blogs such as Saudi Eve,
Saudiyat, Saudiwoman’s weblog and women2drive campaign are examples of women bloggers trying to bring about a change of their status in
Saudi society.”14 Some have argued that increased globalization is leading Saudi women to “become less likely to accept traditional models of
political and gender regimes”. Although this must be true of15 many women, numerous online discussions reveal also that religion and
traditional culture continue to be a source of empowerment for many others . Annamaria Szilagyi affirms that
Saudi women continue to try to “fulfil the cultural expectations of the conservative Saudi Arabian
society” while also being “eager to take an active role in their education and career choices.”16 Work and
Entrepreneurship Many women find empowerment through conventional channels, such as employment in the public and private sectors. The
number of women in the workforce is on the rise in the Saudi Kingdom, going from 5.4% in 1992 to 14.4% as of 2007, with most being
employed in the field17 of education and in government offices. A smaller percentage of women also work in the private sector, especially in
the areas of finance, business services, construction, manufacturing andretail. Manyfemale entrepreneurs affirm that they
find strong support from their families. This18 shows that Saudi women continue to work within
traditional frames to create new types of empowerment. These women still face many challenges, especially ones
pertaining to government regulations and cultural barriers. For example, some entrepreneurs report that they have difficulty finding local
employees and some cite the necessity to find a male business guardian as a major challenge, but these barriers appear to be
slowly fading away . One study found that, “as age was found to be the most predictor of males’ attitudes
towards working women, the traditional attitudes may gradually become more egalitarian as the new
generations based on liberal gender socialization replace the old one.” This could have great ramifications19 for
Saudi women in the workforce and it appears that Saudi women will continue to increase their presence in the workforce as they find
empowerment and opportunities through it. Group Activism May al-Dabbagh writes that the “general landscape for independent activism is
extremely restricted and regulated” in the Saudi Kingdom, nevertheless, she describes a variety of ways in which Saudi women are seeking to
shape their society. Al-Dabbagh categorizes female20 political involvement into four broad orientations; namely, liberal, rights-based, Islamist
feminist and conservative. Obviously, these groups “have varying perspectives on how they define and pursue social change agendas” but
having “social change agendas” is their common denominator. Liberal groups want “a larger role for women in public life”, al-Dabbagh
writes,21 whereas the rights-based group are working to improve the rights of prisoners. Islamist feminists “offer revisionist
readings of Islamic texts and seek to transform Islamic teachings on women’s issues from within.”
Finally, conservative groups, “can be critical of the United Nations and other bodies of transnational
governance that impinge on state sovereignty.” These women may22 thus have different ideas about the ideal society they
seek to build, but all of them seem to take profound interest in social issues and to work hard to influence them. Another shared
feature between these groups is their avoidance of the “feminist” label . Al-Dabbagh says, “Most groups do not
operate with a feminist or exclusively feminist agenda...The term feminist (nasawiyya) is not widely used, nor is it agreed on by women working
on women’s issues.” Many Saudi women prefer to use the term womanist or female (nisā’iyya),23 which reflects
similar sentiments in the womanism movement in the United States. This avoidance suggests that Saudi women feel little affinity
with Western feminism . Everyday Transgression Many young Saudi women express their agency by breaking dress code rules, while
still observing and respecting religious laws. For example, “Young Saudi women are veiled, but the veil, supposedly serving to hide the body
according to official religious texts, is diverted: the shoulder abaya, fluid, embroidered, sometimes decorated with sequins, becomes a
seductive fashion accessory.” While these transgressions seem simple, they create widespread change24 over time. Young women note at their
universities that, “their repeated occurrence in public, in the faces of the authorities, engenders a disordering of the latter’s rule.” This type of
activism25 is subtle, but nevertheless has allowed Saudi women to exercise their agency by combining modern fashion and traditional religious
standards. They are creating new spaces of action for women through unofficial channels, which further
shows the agency of women acting within Saudi’s societal constraints. Although these may appear as mere
individual approaches, they do have a collective nature to them. As more women take individual approaches towards empowerment, it allows
the transgression efforts to be more successful and common place, so individuals are not harshly punished for committing them. The
Problematic Nature of Describing Saudi Women’s Movement as Feminism Cumulative evidence shows that there are recurrent patterns,
something that can lead to macrolevel conclusions. This approach is heavily influenced by C. Wright Mills’ concept of Sociological Imagination
as “the vivid awareness of the relationship between experience and the wider society.” Since Saudi Arabia bans many movements and protests,
many women’s movements26 are often individual acts of transgression, empowerment or other types of individual agency that becomes
interconnected in society, often unintentionally. While these
movements do not always result in legal changes, they do result in
social changes, therefore gradually transforming the status and roles of women. More importantly, this type of activism
does not reject Saudi society,culture or laws, but rather embraces them in new ways. This can be seen in the
way women conceptualize their own acts of empowerment. Even if they do not articulate their ideas in a language that makes use of Western
concepts or terminology, a careful observer can still see interesting parallels between Western feminism and women’s movements in Saudi
Arabia. Saudi
Women are now undertaking their own reading of religious texts and putting “together
their own classifications of religious precepts, distinguishing between those they esteem necessary
and those they esteem optional”. They do not question Islam nor Saudi culture, but27 they do question readings thereof. There
are many Saudi women who are proud of their Muslim roots, traditional family culture . A Saudi woman
says, we “need to keep our identity... I’m a Muslim woman and a Saudi woman even if I’m wearing jeans.” Many Western feminists
28
may fail to appreciate this position as they tend to link religion and traditional family values to
patriarchy. Many also may consider lack of political activism as problematic, as it would be suspected of
fragmenting women’s movements and leading to little tangible progress. This does not seem to be the case in
Saudi Arabia. Non-political movements often create the most significant change , as seen through acts of
transgression through styles of dress. While striving to gain more rights, Saudi women are typically careful to distance
themselves from Western feminism. This stance has a parallel in the United States among women who prefer to use the word
“womanism.” Saudi women seem to distrust the feminist discourse as they feel that it portrays them as
voiceless and submissive. Moreover, the Western feminist agenda and Saudi women’s goals for
empowerment do not align often . For example, many Western feminists would perceive women-only
spaces as exclusionary. In Saudi Arabia, many women prefer women-only spaces as they empower
them in a culture that values the differences between men and women. The differences in goals between
mainstream Western feminists and Saudi women are due to cultural and societal differences, which mainstream Western feminism has not
taken the time to understand or incorporate into the women’s rights agenda. Conclusion Saudi
women’s methods of improving
their conditions diverges significantly from Western models, but this does not mean it is any less
effective or important. Saudi women’s approach is compatible with their cultural values while still
challenging gender-related and other inequalities. As new interpretations of feminism and more nuanced ways of
understanding the notion of equity evolve, it is important to revisit the roots of feminism to understand why the definition of women’s rights
must be expanded as well. At the core of feminism, women are on a universal search for justice to create equitable outcomes for all. Saudi
women are part of this search but might have different conceptions of what qualifies as equitable.
Saudi women’s efforts are part of a universal struggle to build more just societies. Their “movement” may not be a movement in the strict
sense of the word and their methods may diverge significantly from Western models, but this should not disqualify their efforts as meaningless
or less worthy.
Aff Doesn’t Solve – 1NC
US action is insufficient to stop human rights abuses.
Varsha Koduvayur April 17th, 2019. Varsha Koduvayur is a senior research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD). Follow Varsha on Twitter
@varshakoduvayur. Follow FDD on Twitter @FDD. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy. //CAM
Saudi Arabia arrested two U.S.-Saudi dual nationals and at least 13 other Saudi human rights activists
this month as part of a renewed crackdown on dissidents. This escalation indicates that U.S. pressure
thus far has proven insufficient to persuade Riyadh to cease its domestic repression. The dual nationals, Salah al-
Haider and Bader el-Ibrahim, join another dual citizen and civil rights activist, Walid al-Fitaihi, whom Saudi Arabia has detained without charges since 2017. Al-Haider is the son of women’s
rights activist Aziza al-Yousef, whom the regime arrested in May of last year. This connection suggests that the latest arrests seek to further deter criticism of the regime. Al-Yousef and nine
other women’s rights activists are now on trial, facing charges of making illegal contacts with foreign diplomats and journalists. All 10 rose to prominence for pressuring the kingdom to allow
women to drive and to end its system of male guardianship over females. Three of the 10 women – al-Yousef, Eman al-Nafjan, and Roqaya al-Mohareb – are temporarily free on bail. While the
kingdom’s poor record on human rights – particularly the rights of women and minorities – is longstanding, the style of the crackdown beginning last May is unprecedented: Rather than ask
the defendants to report to authorities, Saudi Arabia snatched them from their homes and publicly branded them as traitors. Moreover, several of the women were allegedly tortured in
prison. The arrests of the activists is the latest in a long line of unforced errors Saudi Arabia has committed under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, including the murder of Saudi writer
The kingdom’s behavior has severely strained the U.S.-Saudi relationship,

Jamal Khashoggi and the needless spat with Canada.
particularly in Congress. Lawmakers from both parties have repeatedly denounced Saudi Arabia’s
malign conduct. In recent weeks, both the House and Senate passed a resolution to end U.S. military
support for the kingdom’s war in Yemen. President Trump vetoed the measure on April 16, and it is
unclear whether Congress has the votes needed to override the veto. To date, the Trump administration
has taken only limited action to address Riyadh’s misconduct. In October, Trump enacted Global Magnitsky sanctions against 17 Saudi
officials involved in Khashoggi’s death. Last week, the administration slapped 16 of those officials with a travel ban preventing them and their immediate family members from entering the
United States. But President Trump himself appears unwilling to confront the crown prince over the kingdom’s
rights abuses, instead preferring to focus on countering Iran and securing Saudi economic investment
in the United States. This rhetoric and passivity have likely weakened the deterrent impact of the
sanctions. Saudi leaders are unlikely to address U.S. criticism in the absence of direct intervention
from Trump. The president should speak directly with the crown prince and his father, King Salman, to call for the release of the 10 activists on trial and the others arrested more
recently – especially those holding U.S. citizenship. At the same time, Trump should at long last publicly express his deep concern
about Saudi Arabia’s misconduct while raising the prospect of sanctioning the officials responsible for
the detention, torture, and sham trial of the activists. It is time for the Trump administration to get
tough on Saudi Arabia’s human rights record. If the Trump administration fails to check Riyadh’s
destabilizing behavior, it risks implicitly encouraging the kingdom to continue its crackdown, thereby
further weakening U.S.-Saudi ties. The long-term viability of the U.S.-Saudi partnership depends on
the kingdom’s readiness to show greater concern for the rights of its own citizens
Util – 1NC
Our impacts outweigh---prefer framing focused on util and consequences.
Seth D. Baum & Anthony M. Barrett 18. Global Catastrophic Risk Institute. 2018. “Global Catastrophes:
The Most Extreme Risks.” Risk in Extreme Environments: Preparing, Avoiding, Mitigating, and Managing,
edited by Vicki Bier, Routledge, pp. 174–184.
2. What Is GCR And Why Is It Important? Taken

literally, a global catastrophe can be any event that is in some
way catastrophic across the globe. This suggests a rather low threshold for what counts as a global catastrophe. An
event causing just one death on each continent (say, from a jet-setting assassin) could rate as a global catastrophe, because surely these deaths
would be catastrophic for the deceased and their loved ones. However, in common usage, a global catastrophe would
be catastrophic for a significant portion of the globe. Minimum thresholds have variously been set around ten thousand
to ten million deaths or $10 billion to $10 trillion in damages (Bostrom and Ćirković 2008), or death of one quarter of the human population
(Atkinson 1999; Hempsell 2004). Others have emphasized catastrophes that cause long-term declines in the
trajectory of human civilization (Beckstead 2013), that human civilization does not recover from (Maher and
Baum 2013), that drastically reduce humanity’s potential for future achievements (Bostrom 2002, using the
term “existential risk”), or that result in human extinction (Matheny 2007; Posner 2004). A common theme
across all these treatments of GCR is that some catastrophes are vastly more important than others .
Carl Sagan was perhaps the first to recognize this, in his commentary on nuclear winter (Sagan 1983). Without nuclear winter, a
global nuclear war might kill several hundred million people. This is obviously a major catastrophe,
but humanity would presumably carry on. However, with nuclear winter , per Sagan, humanity could go
extinct. The loss would be not just an additional four billion or so deaths, but the loss of all future
generations . To paraphrase Sagan, the loss would be billions and billions of lives, or even more . Sagan
estimated 500 trillion lives, assuming humanity would continue for ten million more years, which he
cited as typical for a successful species. Sagan’s 500 trillion number may even be an underestimate .
The analysis here takes an adventurous turn, hinging on the evolution of the human species and the long-term fate of the universe. On these
long time scales, the descendants of contemporary humans may no longer be recognizably “human”. The issue then is whether the
descendants are still worth caring about, whatever they are. If they are, then it begs the question of how many of them there will be. Barring
major global catastrophe, Earth will remain habitable for about one billion more years 2 until the Sun gets too warm and large. The rest of the
Solar System, Milky Way galaxy, universe, and (if it exists) the multiverse will remain habitable for a lot longer than that (Adams and Laughlin
1997), should our descendants gain the capacity to migrate there. An
open question in astronomy is whether it is
possible for the descendants of humanity to continue living for an infinite length of time or instead
merely an astronomically large but finite length of time (see e.g. Ćirković 2002; Kaku 2005). Either way, the stakes
with global catastrophes could be much larger than the loss of 500 trillion lives. Debates about the
infinite vs. the merely astronomical are of theoretical interest (Ng 1991; Bossert et al. 2007), but they have
limited practical significance. This can be seen when evaluating GCRs from a standard risk-equals-
probability-times-magnitude framework. Using Sagan’s 500 trillion lives estimate, it follows that
reducing the probability of global catastrophe by a mere one-in-500-trillion chance is of the same
significance as saving one human life. Phrased differently, society should try 500 trillion times harder
to prevent a global catastrophe than it should to save a person’s life. Or, preventing one million
deaths is equivalent to a one-in500-million reduction in the probability of global catastrophe. This
suggests society should make extremely large investment in GCR reduction, at the expense of
virtually all other objectives. Judge and legal scholar Richard Posner made a similar point in monetary terms (Posner 2004). Posner
used $50,000 as the value of a statistical human life (VSL) and 12 billion humans as the total loss of life (double the 2004 world population); he
describes both figures as significant underestimates. Multiplying them gives $600 trillion as an underestimate of the value of preventing global
catastrophe. For comparison, the United States government typically uses a VSL of around one to ten million dollars (Robinson 2007).
Multiplying a $10 million VSL with 500 trillion lives gives $5x1021 as the value of preventing global catastrophe. But even using “just" $600
trillion, society should be willing to spend at least that much to prevent a global catastrophe, which converts to being willing to
spend at least $1 million for a one-in-500-million reduction in the probability of global catastrophe. Thus
while reasonable disagreement exists on how large of a VSL to use and how much to count future
generations, even low-end positions suggest vast resource allocations should be redirected to
reducing GCR. This conclusion is only strengthened when considering the astronomical size of the
stakes , but the same point holds either way. The bottom line is that, as long as something along the lines of the
standard riskequals-probability-times-magnitude framework is being used, then even tiny GCR
reductions merit significant effort. This point holds especially strongly for risks of catastrophes that
would cause permanent harm to global human civilization. The discussion thus far has assumed that
all human lives are valued equally. This assumption is not universally held . People often value some
people more than others, favoring themselves, their family and friends, their compatriots, their generation, or others whom they
identify with. Great debates rage on across moral philosophy, economics, and other fields about how
much people should value others who are distant in space, time, or social relation, as well as the unborn members of future
generations. This debate is crucial for all valuations of risk, including GCR. Indeed, if each of us only cares about our immediate selves,
then global catastrophes may not be especially important, and we probably have better things to do with our time than worry about them.
While everyone has the right to their own views and feelings , we find that the strongest arguments are
for the widely held position that all human lives should be valued equally. This position is succinctly stated in the
United States Declaration of Independence, updated in the 1848 Declaration of Sentiments: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all
men and 3 women are created equal”. Philosophers speak of an agent-neutral, objective “view from nowhere”
(Nagel 1986) or a “veil of ignorance” (Rawls 1971) in which each person considers what is best for society
irrespective of which member of society they happen to be . Such a perspective suggests valuing
everyone equally, regardless of who they are or where or when they live. This in turn suggests a very
high value for reducing GCR, or a high degree of priority for GCR reduction efforts. 3. Challenges To Analyzing
GCR Given the goal of reducing GCR, one must know what the risks are and how they can be reduced. This requires diving into the details of the
risks themselves—details that we largely skip in this paper—but it also requires attention to a few analytical challenges. The first challenge is
the largely unprecedented nature of global catastrophes. Simply put, modern human civilization has never before ended. There have been
several recent global catastrophes of some significance, the World Wars and the 1918 flu among them, but these clearly did not knock
civilization out. Earlier catastrophes, including the prehistoric mass extinction events, the Toba volcanic eruption, and even the Black Death
plague, all occurred before modern civilization existed. The GCR analyst is thus left to study risks of events that are in some way untested or
unproven. But the
lack of historical precedent does not necessarily imply a lack of ongoing risk. Indeed, the
biggest mistake of naïve GCR analysis is to posit that, because no global catastrophe has previously
occurred, therefore none will occur. This mistake comes in at least three forms. The first and most obviously
false form is to claim that unprecedented events never occur. In our world of social and technological innovation, it is easy to see that this claim
is false. But accounting for it in risk analysis still requires some care. One approach is to use what is known in probability theory as zero-failure
data (Hanley 1983; Bailey 1997; Quigley and Revie 2011). Suppose that no catastrophe has occurred over n prior time periods—for example,
there has been no nuclear war in the 65 years since two countries have had nuclear weapons. (The second country to build nuclear weapons
was the Soviet Union, in 1949.) It can thus be said that there have been zero failures of nuclear deterrence in 65 cases. An approximate upper
bound can then be estimated for the probability p of nuclear deterrence failure, i.e. the probability of nuclear war, occurring within an
upcoming year. Specifically, p lies within the interval [0, u] with (1 – α) confidence, where u = 1 – α(1/n) gives the upper limit of the confidence
interval. Thus for 95% confidence (α = 0.05), u = 1-0.05(1/65) = 0.05, meaning that there is a 95% chance that the probability of nuclear war
within an upcoming year is somewhere between 0 and 0.05. Note that this calculation assumes (perhaps erroneously) that the 65 non-failures
are independent random trials and that p is approximately constant over time, but it nonetheless provides a starting point for estimating the
probability of unprecedented events. Barrett et al. (2013) uses a similar approach as part of a validation check of a broader risk analysis of U.S.-
Russia nuclear war. The second form of the mistake is to posit that the ongoing existence of human civilization proves that global catastrophes
will not occur. It is true that civilization’s continued existence despite some past threats should provide some comfort, but it should only
provide some comfort. Consider this: if a global catastrophe had previously occurred, nobody would still be around to ponder the matter (at
least for catastrophes causing human extinction). The fact of being able to observe one’s continued survival is contingent upon having survived.
While it is easy to see that this is a mistake, it is harder to correct for it. Again, it requires careful application of probability theory, correcting for
what is known as an observation selection effect (Bostrom 2002b, Ćirković 4 et al. 2010). The basic idea is to build the existence of the observer
into probability estimates for catastrophes that would eliminate future observers. The result is probability estimates unbiased by the observer’s
existence, with global catastrophe probability estimates typically revised upwards. The third form of the mistake is to posit that, because
humanity has survived previous catastrophes, or risks of catastrophes, therefore it will survive future ones. This mistake is especially pervasive
in discussions of nuclear war. People
sometimes observe that no nuclear war has ever occurred and cite this as
evidence to conclude that therefore nuclear deterrence and the fear of mutually assured destruction
will indefinitely continue to keep the world safe (for discussion see Sagan and Waltz 2013). But there have been
several near misses , from the 1962 Cuban missile crisis to the 1995 Norwegian rocket incident, and
there is no guarantee that nuclear war will be avoided into the distant future. Similarly, just because
no pandemic has ever killed the majority of people (Black Death killed about 22%), or just because early
predictions about the rise of artificial intelligence proved false (they expected human-level AI within decades that
have long since come and gone; see Crevier 1993; McCorduck 2004), it does not necessarily follow that no pandemics
would be so lethal, or that AI cannot reach the lofty heights of the early predictions. Careful risk
analysis can correct for the third form by looking at the full sequences of events that would lead to
particular global catastrophes. For example, nuclear weapons in the United States are launched following
a sequence of decisions by increasingly high ranking officials, ultimately including the President. This decision sequence can be
built into a risk model , with model parameters estimated from historical data on how often each
step in the decision sequence has been reached (Barrett et al. 2013). The more often near misses have
occurred, and the nearer the misses were, the higher the probability of an eventual “hit” in the form
of a nuclear war. The same analytic structure can be applied to other GCRs.
Util – 2NC
Reducing existential risk by even a tiny amount outweighs every other impact
Bostrom 11 — Nick Bostrom, Professor in the Faculty of Philosophy & Oxford Martin School, Director
of the Future of Humanity Institute, and Director of the Programme on the Impacts of Future
Technology at the University of Oxford, recipient of the 2009 Eugene R. Gannon Award for the
Continued Pursuit of Human Advancement, holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the London School of
Economics, 2011 (“The Concept of Existential Risk,” Draft of a Paper published on ExistentialRisk.com,
Available Online at http://www.existentialrisk.com/concept.html, Accessed 07-04-2011)
Holding probability constant, risks become more serious as we move toward the upper-right region of figure 2. For
any fixed
probability, existential risks are thus more serious than other risk categories . But just how much more serious
might not be intuitively obvious. One might think we could get a grip on how bad an existential catastrophe
would be by considering some of the worst historical disasters we can think of—such as the two world wars, the
Spanish flu pandemic, or the Holocaust—and then imagining something just a bit worse. Yet if we look at global
population statistics over time, we find that these horrible events of the past century fail to register
(figure 3). [Graphic Omitted] Figure 3: World population over the last century. Calamities such as the Spanish flu pandemic, the two world wars,
and the Holocaust scarcely register. (If one stares hard at the graph, one can perhaps just barely make out a slight temporary reduction in the
rate of growth of the world population during these events.) But even
this reflection fails to bring out the seriousness of
existential risk. What makes existential catastrophes especially bad is not that they would show up robustly on a
plot like the one in figure 3, causing a precipitous drop in world population or average quality of life. Instead, their significance lies primarily in
the fact that they would destroy the future . The philosopher Derek Parfit made a similar point with the following thought
experiment: I believe that if we destroy mankind, as we now can, this outcome will be much worse than most people think. Compare
three outcomes: (1) Peace. (2) A nuclear war that kills 99% of the world’s existing population. (3) A
nuclear war that kills 100%. (2) would be worse than (1), and (3) would be worse than (2). Which is the
greater of these two differences? Most people believe that the greater difference is between (1) and (2). I believe that the difference
between (2) and (3) is very much greater . … The Earth will remain habitable for at least another billion
years. Civilization began only a few thousand years ago. If we do not destroy mankind, these few
thousand years may be only a tiny fraction of the whole of civilized human history. The difference
between (2) and (3) may thus be the difference between this tiny fraction and all of the rest of this
history. If we compare this possible history to a day, what has occurred so far is only a fraction of a
second . (10: 453-454) To calculate the loss associated with an existential catastrophe, we must consider
how much value would come to exist in its absence. It turns out that the ultimate potential for Earth-
originating intelligent life is literally astronomical . One gets a large number even if one confines one’s consideration to the
potential for biological human beings living on Earth. If
we suppose with Parfit that our planet will remain habitable for
at least another billion years, and we assume that at least one billion people could live on it sustainably,
then the potential exist for at least 10^(18) human lives. These lives could also be considerably better
than the average contemporary human life, which is so often marred by disease, poverty, injustice,
and various biological limitations that could be partly overcome through continuing technological and
moral progress. However, the relevant figure is not how many people could live on Earth but how many
descendants we could have in total. One lower bound of the number of biological human life-years in
the future accessible universe (based on current cosmological estimates) is 1034 years .[10] Another estimate, which assumes
that future minds will be mainly implemented in computational hardware instead of biological neuronal wetware, produces a lower bound of
1054 human-brain-emulation subjective life-years (or 1071 basic computational operations).(4)[11] If we make the less conservative
assumption that future civilizations could eventually press close to the absolute bounds of known
physics (using some as yet unimagined technology), we get radically higher estimates of the amount of
computation and memory storage that is achievable and thus of the number of years of subjective
experience that could be realized.[12] Even if we use the most conservative of these estimates, which
entirely ignores the possibility of space colonization and software minds, we find that the expected loss
of an existential catastrophe is greater than the value of 10^(18) human lives. This implies that the
expected value of reducing existential risk by a mere one millionth of one percentage point is at least
ten times the value of a billion human lives. The more technologically comprehensive estimate of
1054 human-brain-emulation subjective life-years (or 1052 lives of ordinary length) makes the same point even
more starkly. Even if we give this allegedly lower bound on the cumulative output potential of a
technologically mature civilization a mere 1% chance of being correct, we find that the expected
value of reducing existential risk by a mere one billionth of one billionth of one percentage point is
worth a hundred billion times as much as a billion human lives . One might consequently argue that even the
tiniest reduction of existential risk has an expected value greater than that of the definite provision of
any “ordinary” good, such as the direct benefit of saving 1 billion lives . And, further, that the absolute
value of the indirect effect of saving 1 billion lives on the total cumulative amount of existential risk—
positive or negative—is almost certainly larger than the positive value of the direct benefit of such an
action.[13]
Their ethics are tautological – competing rights claims collapse – the only option is to
maximize lives saved
Greene 10 (Joshua, Associate Professor of Social science in the Department of Psychology at Harvard
University, “The Secret Joke of Kant’s Soul published in Moral Psychology: Historical and Contemporary
Readings,” Historical and Contemporary Readings,
www.fed.cuhk.edu.hk/~lchang/material/Evolutionary/Developmental/Greene-KantSoul.pdf)
What turn-of-the-millennium science is telling us is that human moral judgment is not a pristine rational
enterprise , that our moral judgments are driven by a hodgepodge of emotional dispositions, which themselves were shaped by a
hodgepodge of evolutionary forces, both biological and cultural. Because of this, it is exceedingly unlikely that there is any rationally coherent
normative moral theory that can accommodate our moral intuitions. Moreover, anyone who claims to have such a theory, or even part of one,
almost certainly doesn't. Instead, what that person probably has is a moral rationalization. It seems then, that we have somehow crossed the
infamous "is"-"ought" divide. How did this happen? Didn't Hume (Hume, 1978) and Moore (Moore, 1966) warn us against trying to derive an
"ought" from and "is?" How did we go from descriptive scientific theories concerning moral psychology to skepticism about a whole class of
normative moral theories? The answer is that we did not, as Hume and Moore anticipated, attempt to derive an "ought" from and "is." That is,
our method has been inductive rather than deductive. We have inferred on the basis of the available evidence that the phenomenon of
rationalist deontological philosophy is best explained as a rationalization of evolved emotional intuition (Harman, 1977). Missing the
Deontological Point I suspect that rationalist deontologists will
remain unmoved by the arguments presented here.
Instead, I suspect, they will insist that I have simply misunderstood what Kant and like-minded deontologists are all about.
Deontology, they will say, isn't about this intuition or that intuition. It's not defined by its normative differences with consequentialism. Rather,
deontology is about taking humanity seriously. Above all else, it's about respect for persons. It's about treating others as fellow rational
creatures rather than as mere objects, about acting for reasons rational beings can share. And so on (Korsgaard, 1996a; Korsgaard, 1996b). This
is, no doubt, how many deontologists see deontology. But this insider's view, as I've suggested, may be misleading. The problem, more
specifically, is that it defines deontology in terms of values that are not distinctively deontological , though they
may appear to be from the inside. Consider the following analogy with religion. When one asks a religious person to explain the essence of his
religion, one often gets an answer like this: "It's about love, really. It's about looking out for other people, looking beyond oneself. It's about
community, being part of something larger than oneself." This sort of answer accurately captures the phenomenology of many people's
religion, but it's nevertheless inadequate for distinguishing religion from other things. This is because many, if not most, non-religious people
aspire to love deeply, look out for other people, avoid self-absorption, have a sense of a community, and be connected to things larger than
themselves. In other words, secular humanists and atheists can assent to most of what many religious people think religion is all about. From a
secular humanist's point of view, in contrast, what's distinctive about religion is its commitment to the existence of supernatural entities as well
as formal religious institutions and doctrines. And they're right. These things really do distinguish religious from non-religious practices, though
they may appear to be secondary to many people operating from within a religious point of view. In the same way, I believe that most of the
standard deontological/Kantian self-characterizatons fail to distinguish deontology from other approaches to ethics. (See also Kagan (Kagan,
1997, pp. 70-78.) on the difficulty of defining deontology.) It seems to me that consequentialists, as much as anyone else, have
respect for persons, are against treating people as mere objects, wish to act for reasons that rational
creatures can share, etc. A consequentialist respects other persons, and refrains from treating them as mere objects, by counting
every person's well-being in the decision-making process. Likewise, a consequentialist attempts to act according to
reasons that rational creatures can share by acting according to principles that give equal weight to everyone's interests, i.e. that are impartial.
This is not to say that consequentialists and deontologists don't differ. They do. It's just that the real differences may not be what deontologists
often take them to be. What, then, distinguishes deontology from other kinds of moral thought? A good strategy for answering this question is
to start with concrete disagreements between deontologists and others (such as consequentialists) and then work backward in search of
deeper principles. This is what I've attempted to do with the trolley and footbridge cases, and other instances in which deontologists and
consequentialists disagree. If you ask a deontologically-minded person why it's wrong to push someone in front of
speeding trolley in order to save five others, you will get characteristically deontological answers. Some will be
tautological: "Because it's murder!" Others will be more sophisticated: "The ends don't justify the means." "You have
to respect people's rights." But, as we know, these answers don't really explain anything , because if you give the same people
(on different occasions) the trolley case or the loop case (See above), they'll make the opposite judgment, even though their initial explanation
concerning the footbridge case applies equally well to one or both of these cases. Talk about rights, respect for persons, and reasons we can
share are natural attempts to explain, in "cognitive" terms, what we feel when we find ourselves having emotionally driven intuitions that are
odds with the cold calculus of consequentialism. Although these explanations are inevitably incomplete, there seems to be
"something deeply right" about them because they give voice to powerful moral emotions . But, as with many
religious people's accounts of what's essential to religion, they don't really explain what's distinctive about the philosophy in
question.
Circumvention – 1NC
Trump circumvents plan
The US may use a loophole to sell billions in weapons to Saudi Arabia and the UAE It would let the Trump administration circumvent Congress’s authority to approve or reject weapons sales.
By Alex Ward@AlexWardVoxalex.ward@vox.com May 24, 2019, 12:20pm EDT SHARE //CAM

A fighter aligned with Yemen’s Saudi-led coalition-backed government shows Houthi rebel land mines the militia had recovered on September 22, 2018, in al-Himah,
Yemen. Andrew Renneisen/Getty Images The
US plans to send billions of dollars in weapons to Middle Eastern allies
— including Saudi Arabia — by declaring an emergency that experts say doesn’t really exist. Multiple
reports detail that Trump officials are considering using a legal loophole within days to export roughly
$7 billion in arms to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, both of which have waged a brutal
war in Yemen against Houthi rebels for more than four years. The idea, pushed by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and other
top officials, would allow the administration to circumvent Congress’s authority to approve or reject weapons
sales. There is a provision in a weapons export law allowing the executive branch to sell arms without
congressional sign-off if “an emergency exists which requires the proposed sale in the national
security interest of the United States.” Administrations rarely invoke it, experts say, mainly because of how controversial it is and the high
bar required to claim a dire situation exists. President George W. Bush used the provision in 2006 to send precision-guided weapons to Israel during the Israel-
Hezbollah July War, but that was last time an administration took advantage of the loophole. President Donald Trump likely will claim that Saudi Arabia and the UAE
need new munitions because they face repeated attacks from Houthi rebels. However, the Yemen war has raged since 2015, with the US supporting the Saudi-led
coalition’s side. It’s
jarring now to say that an emergency exists after all this time, especially when the US
previously sold weapons to the Saudis through the normal process. There’s also the fact that introducing more weapons to
the war will likely worsen a catastrophic situation. The conflict has already claimed tens of thousands of lives; some estimates indicate that at least 60,000 people
have died, though it’s hard to keep an accurate tally because of dangerous conditions in Yemen. Last August, the Saudi-led coalition carried out a horrific attack on a
school bus where dozens of people, including 40 children, died. The US sending more munitions to Saudi Arabia and the UAE likely won’t do much to tip the scales
of the fight — but could imperil the lives of millions of people in Yemen already suffering from wounds, famine, and disease. “The Trump administration is
manufacturing an emergency to push through the sale of deadly weapons to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates,” Scott Paul, a Yemen expert at the
humanitarian group Oxfam America, told me. “Once again, the Trump administration is demonstrating that it values
profit and its Gulf allies over resolving the world’s largest humanitarian crisis.” The Trump
administration knows Congress likely wouldn’t approve the deal News of the loophole plan comes at a
particularly tense moment. The US and Iran, Saudi Arabia’s main regional rival, are locked in a potentially deadly standoff. Earlier this month, the
Trump administration said it had intelligence showing that Iran planned to attack Americans in the Middle East. As a result, the US put an
aircraft carrier, bomber planes, and anti-missile batteries in the region, though it’s not clear exactly
where. The administration is even considering sending thousands of troops to the region, perhaps in
an effort to deter an Iranian assault. Iran, meanwhile, told its proxies in Iraq to prepare for war if the US attacks, and has greatly accelerated
low-enriched uranium production for its nuclear program (though it has not said that it plans to pursue a nuclear weapon). The weeks-long crisis has split Democrats
and Republicans in Congress over just how forcefully the US should engage Iran right now, while Saudi
Arabia has mostly pushed for
America to seriously get involved. Lawmakers from both parties remain enraged with the Trump administration’s handling of the killing of Saudi
journalist, dissident, and US resident Jamal Khashoggi last October. Despite ample evidence showing a planned, coordinated assassination, Trump did little to punish
Riyadh other than impose a few sanctions. That wasn’t enough for many Democrats and Republicans, including reliable Trump allies. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), for
example, told reporters on Thursday that he would “not do business as usual with the Saudis until we have a better reckoning” with Crown Prince Mohammed bin
Salman, the country’s de facto ruler who US spies say ordered the Khashoggi hit. The likely reason the administration wants to invoke the loophole is not that an
emergency exists, then, but that Trump officials fear lawmakers might shoot down the arms sale. “ President
Trump is only using this
loophole because he knows Congress would disapprove of this sale,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), who
first raised awareness of the administration’s plan, told the Wall Street Journal on Thursday. “It sets
an incredibly dangerous precedent that future presidents can use to sell weapons without a check
from Congress.” Trump has long prioritized weapons sales over human rights Asked by reporters last November if he
would stop a massive arms sale to Saudi Arabia over Khashoggi’s killing, Trump emphatically said no. “This took place in Turkey and to the best of our knowledge,
Khashoggi is not a United States citizen,” he said in the Oval Office. “I don’t like stopping massive amounts of money that’s being poured into our country,” referring
to his desire to sell $110 billion worth of weapons to Riyadh, adding that “it would not be acceptable to me.” Trump’s
comments made one
thing extremely clear: He cares much more about getting American companies paid than defending
human rights. It was perhaps one of Trump’s most honest articulations about how he conducts foreign
policy: He won’t call out a country that infringes on human dignity as long as it’s willing to inject cash
into the American economy. Partly for that reason, Trump has continued to strengthen America’s relationship with the Saudi regime despite its
conduct in Yemen, its stoking of tensions with Iran, and the Khashoggi murder. And now, with the impending use of the loophole, it appears Trump has
literally put a price tag on the lives of those already suffering in the Saudi-led war. “Yemenis will continue to pay the price of
the US’s indefinite and unconditional support of one side in their country’s horrific war,” Paul, the Oxfam expert, told me.
Not Root Cause – 1NC
Gender is not the root cause of war – Efforts to end gender injustice must start by
dealing with war – Only the aff can provide the space necessary for change.
Joshua S. Goldstein, Professor of International Relations at American University, War and Gender:
How Gender Shapes the War System and Vice Versa, 2001, pp.411-412
I began this book hoping to contribute in some way to a deeper understanding of war – an understanding that would improve the chances of
someday achieving real peace, by deleting war from our human repertoire. In following the thread of gender running through war, I found the
deeper understanding I had hoped for – a multidisciplinary and multilevel engagement with the subject. Yet I became somewhat more
pessimistic about how quickly or easily war may end. The war system emerges, from the evidence in this book, as relatively ubiquitous and
robust. Efforts to change this system must overcome several dilemmas mentioned in this book. First, peace activists face a dilemma in thinking
about causes of war and working for peace. Many peace scholars and activists support the approach, “if you want peace, work for justice.”
Then, if one believes that sexism contributes to war, one can work for gender justice specifically (perhaps among others)
in order to pursue peace. This approach brings strategic allies to the peace movement (women, labor, minorities), but rests on the
assumption that injustices cause war. The evidence in this book suggests that causality runs at least as strongly the
other way. War is not a product of capitalism, imperialism, gender, innate aggression, or any other single cause, although all of these
influence wars’ outbreaks and outcomes. Rather, war has in part fueled and sustained these and other injustices . So, “if you
want peace, work for peace.” Indeed, if you want justice (gender and others), work for peace. Causality does not run just upward
through the levels of analysis, from types of individuals, societies, and governments up to war. It runs downward
too. Enloe suggests that changes in attitudes towards war and the military may be the most important way to “reverse women’s oppression.”
The dilemma is that peace work focused on justice brings to the peace movement energy, allies, and moral grounding, yet, in light of this book’s
evidence, the emphasis on injustice as the main cause of war seems to be empirically inadequate .
Patriarchy is inevitable—biology proves

Fukuyama 1998 [Francis Fukuyama is a political scientist/economist and author. He’s a senior fellow at
the Center on Democracy, Development, and Rule of Law at Stanford. He has a Ph.D. in political science
from Harvard.] “Women and the Evolution of World Politics.” Foreign Affairs 77.5 (1998). Web.
http://www.evoyage.com/Evolutionary%20Feminism/ForAffairWomen&Evolution.htm)
A number of authors have extended the noble savage idea to argue that violence and patriarchy were late inventions,
rooted in either the Western Judeo-Christian tradition or the capitalism to which the former gave birth. Friedrich Engels anticipated the work of
later feminists by positing the existence of a primordial matriarchy, which was replaced by a violent and repressive patriarchy only with the
transition to agricultural societies. The problem with this theory is, as Lawrence Keeley points out in his book War Before Civilization,
that the most comprehensive recent studies of violence in hunter-gatherer societies suggest that for them was
actually more frequent, and rates of murder higher, than for modern ones. Surveys of ethnographic data show that only 10-13 percent
of primitive societies never or rarely engaged in war or raiding; the others engaged in conflict either continuously or at less than yearly
intervals. Closer examination of the peaceful cases shows that they were frequently refugee populations driven into remote locations by prior
warfare or groups protected by a more advanced society. Of the Yanomamö tribesmen studied by Napoleon Chagnon in Venezuela, some 30
percent of the men died by violence; the !Kung San of the Kalahari desert, once characterized as the "harmless people," have a higher murder
rate than New York or Detroit. The Sad archaeological evidence from sites like Jebel Sahaba in Egypt, Talheim in Germany, or Roaix in France
indicates that systematic mass killings of men, women, and children occurred in Neolithic times. The Holocaust, Cambodia, and
Bosnia have each been described as a unique, and often as a uniquely modern, form of horror. Exceptional and tragic they are indeed, but with
precedents stretching back tens if not hundreds of thousands of years. It is clear that this violence was largely perpetrated by
men. While small minorities of human societies have been matrilineal, evidence of a primordial matriarchy in which women
dominated men, or were even relatively equal to men, has been hard to find. There was no age of innocence . The line from
chimp to modern man is continuous. It would seem, then, that there is something to the contention of many feminists
that phenomena like aggression, violence, war, and intense competition for dominance in a status hierarchy are more closely
associated with men than women. Theories of international relations like realism that see international politics as a remorseless
struggle for power are in fact what feminist call a gendered perspective, describing the behavior of states controlled by men rather than states
per se. A world run by women would follow different rules, it would appear, and it is toward that sort of world that all postindustrial or Western
societies are moving. As women gain power in these countries, the latter should become less aggressive, adventurous, competitive and violent.
The problem with the feminist view is that it sees these attitudes toward violence, power, status as wholly the
products of a patriarchal culture, whereas in fact it appears they are rooted in biology. This makes these
attitudes harder to change in men and consequently in societies. Despite the rise of women, men will continue to
play a major, if not dominant, part in the governance of postindustrial countries, not to mention less-developed ones. The realms
of war and international politics in particular will remain controlled by men for longer than many feminists would like.
Most important, the task of resocializing men to be more like women - that is, less violent - will run into limits. What is
bred in the bone cannot be altered easily by changes in culture and ideology.
Not Root Cause – 2NC
Feminism will never be able to resolve the question of gender identity in militarization
because it cannot resolve the contradiction between sex and gender.
Stern and Zalewski 09 MARIA STERN, lecturer and researcher at the Department of Peace and
Development research at Gotberg university, AND MARYSIA ZALEWSKI, Director of Centre for
Gender Studies at university of Aberdeen. “Feminist fatigue(s): reflections on feminism and familiar
fables of militarization” Review of International Studies (2009), 35, 611–630, Cambridge journals)
DF
In familiar feminist fables of gender and militarization, gender conventionally materializes as if it were real
(in a foundational sense) yet our critical feminist theorizing tells us it is a construction. We ‘know’ that when we
speak woman, we re-constitute her, we construct and delimit her through our stories about her; a paradox indeed. If an apparent
move is made toward gender (usually there is an assumption that this is different from, more advanced than, or more inclusive
than feminist theorizations of woman) then gender metamorphoses into masculinity or femininity, or on the relations
between the two in order to show how they act on, impact, influence or provide roles for the sexed body.
‘Opening’ the feminist agenda to include ‘men’ and ‘masculinity’ does not alter this dynamic. Masculinity tends also to become a (gender)
‘thing’ which we have learned, understood, imported, conveyed, tried to change; more inflections of paradox. ‘Gender’ becomes reduced
to either ‘women’, ‘men’, or ‘femininity’, ‘masculinity’; and crucially we lose sight of the productive power involved – productive of the
paradox mentioned above, as well as other related paradoxes such as perpetrator victim, 54 security-insecurity,55 and even war-
peace.56 We suggest that being attendant to how the ‘move’ from sex to gender and the ‘move’ from a focus on ‘women’ and ‘men’ to
looking at constructions of masculinity and femininity and the hierarchical relations between the two may not be as large a step away
from feminism parsimoniously defined as is usually imagined. Indeed it is perhaps not a step ‘forward’ at all, as we shall illustrate. This
side-step invokes the specter of anxiety as it raises questions about the possibility of responsible feminist
political interventions, given the paradox with which we grapple. Importantly however, we suggest the
sexgender paradox or aporia can never be successfully resolved; ‘an aporia is not a contradiction which can
be brought into the dialectic, smoothed over and resolved into the unity of the concept, but an untotalisable
problem at the heart of the concept, disrupting its trajectory, emptying out its fullness, opening out its
closure.’57 As such we see the production of sexgender as irresolvable – as a perpetual conundrum. We return to
this point in our conclusion. To reiterate: through the following critical reading of a familiar feminist fable of
militarisation58 we illustrate the logic which produces the paradox of feminism that demands (but ultimately
belies) resolution. We explore how feminist narratives are not able to fulfil their supposed transformative
promise since attempts to transgress the discursive frameworks in which they are framed are haunted; thus
ensuring the failure of feminist stories. Failure, in this sense, is judged in feminism’s (in)ability to resolve its
inherent contradiction.
Patriarchy cannot explain all violence

Martin 90 (Martin, professor of science, technology, and society – University of Wollongong, 1990,
Brian, http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/bmartin/pubs/90uw/uw13.html)
In this chapter and in the six preceding chapters I have examined a number of structures and factors which have some connection with the war system. There is
much more that could be said about any one of these structures, and other factors which could be examined. Here I wish to note one important point:
attention should not be focused on one single factor to the exclusion of others. This is often done for example
by some Marxists who look only at capitalism as a root of war and other social problems, and by some feminists who
attribute most problems to patriarchy. The danger of monocausal explanations is that they may lead to an
inadequate political practice . The 'revolution' may be followed by the persistence or even expansion of many
problems which were not addressed by the single-factor perspective. The one connecting feature which I perceive in the
structures underlying war is an unequal distribution of power. This unequal distribution is socially organised in many different ways, such as in the large-scale
structures for state administration, in capitalist ownership, in male domination within families and elsewhere, in control over knowledge by experts, and in the use
of force by the military. Furthermore, these different

systems of power are interconnected. They often support each
other, and sometimes conflict. This means that the struggle against war can and must be undertaken at many
different levels. It ranges from struggles to undermine state power to struggles to undermine racism, sexism and other forms of domination at the level of
the individual and the local community. Furthermore, the different struggles need to be linked together. That is the motivation for
analysing the roots of war and developing strategies for grassroots movements to uproot them.
Gendered critique of IR fails---state engagement key

Caprioli 4 (Mary, Professor of Political Science – University of Tennessee, “Feminist IR Theory and
Quantitative Methodology: A Critical Analysis”, International Studies Review, 42(1), March,
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/links/doi/10.1111/0020-8833.00076)
If researchers cannot add gender to an analysis, then they must necessarily use a purely female-centered analysis, even though the utility
of using a purely female centered analysis seems equally biased . Such research would merely be
gendercentric based on women rather than men, and it would thereby provide an equally biased account
of i nternational r elations as those that are male-centric. Although one might speculate that having research
done from the two opposing worldviews might more fully explain i nternational r elations, surely an integrated
approach would offer a more comprehensive analysis of world affairs. Beyond a female-centric analysis, some scholars (for example, Carver
Gender categories, however, do exist
2002) argue that feminist research must offer a critique of gender as a set of power relations.
and have very real implications for individuals, social relations, and international affairs. Critiquing the social
construction of gender is important, but it fails to provide new theories of i nternational r elations or to
address the implications of gender for what happens in the world.
Feminism is compatible with our epistemology

Lind 5 [Michael Lind, executive editor of The National Interest, “Of Arms and the Woman,”
http://feminism.eserver.org/of-arms-and-the-woman.txt]
Rejecting the feminist approach to international relations does not mean rejecting the subjects or the
political values of feminist scholars. Differing notions of masculinity and femininity in different societies, the
treatment of women and homosexuals of both sexes in the armed forces, the exploitation of prostitutes by American soldiers deployed abroad,
the sexual division of labor both in advanced and developing countries: all of these are important topics that deserve the attention that
Enloe awards them. She shows journalistic flair as well as scholarly insight in detailing what abstractions like the Caribbean Basin Initiative mean
in the lives of women in particular Third World countries. Still, suchcase studies, however interesting, do not support the claim
of feminist international relations theorists that theirs is a new and superior approach. ¶ One thing should be
clear: commitment to a feminist political agenda need not entail commitment to a radical
epistemological agenda. Ideas do not have genders, just as they do not have races or classes. In a century in which
physics has been denounced as "Jewish" and biology denounced as "bourgeois," it should be
embarrassing to denounce the study of international relations as "masculinist." Such a denunciation,
of course, will not have serious consequences in politics, but it does violence to the life of the mind. The feminist enemies of
empiricism would be well-advised to heed their own counsel and study war no more.
Human security is able to challenge the foundational notions of state control—moral

based approaches to international relations reproduce a society with less violence and
suffering
Chandler ’11 David Chandler, Professor of International Relations at the University of
Westminster, United Kingdom. He is author of several books and edits the Journal of
Statebuilding and Intervention, 2011 (“Critical Perspectives on Human Security:
Rethinking Emancipation and Power in International Relations,” PRIO New Security
Studies, pp. 114-128, Sept 13, https://ebookcentral-proquest-
com.proxy.lib.umich.edu/lib/umichigan/detail.action?docID=557253, Accessed on 06/25/19, SK)
Writing in the aftermath of the end of the Cold War, constructivist theorising, which challenged the structural fixity of neoliberal and neo-realist thought, found a
ready audience. It appeared that the study of states and state interests could no longer adequately explain international politics. Instead, the research focus shifted
away from fixed identities and narrow material interests to one which emphasised the power of norms and ideas. Alexander Wendt argued that it was not just the
distribution of power that was important but also the ‘distribution of knowledge’: the intersubjective understandings which constitute the state’s conception of its
self and its interests. As examples, he stated that having a powerful neighbor in the US meant something different to Canada than it did for Cuba and that British
missiles would have seemed more of a threat to the Soviet Union than to the US (1992: 397). It was the interaction between states that
shaped their identities and interests. Rather than power, it was subjective conceptions that were important; therefore: ‘if the United States
and Soviet Union decide that they are no longer enemies, “the cold war is over”’ (1992: 397). The collapse of the Soviet Union, through implosion rather than
military defeat, fundamentally challenged realist perspectives of state interests and the importance of military power, and thereby facilitated the revival of more
idealist perspectives of change – based on social interaction rather than material interests. As Wendt famously stated, inversing the rationalist framework:
‘Identities are the basis of interests’ (1992: 398). The focus on ideas, rather than interests, led to a more expansive understanding of social interaction, giving a
central role to idea-promoting and idea-generating non-state actors, particularly activist NGOs. It is at this point that the concept of transnational or global relations
comes in, in distinction to international relations, i.e. relations between states. The international sphere is no longer seen as one in which
states project their national interests, instead the process is reversed; through participation in international and transnational relations,
the national interests of states are constituted. In this way, the end of the Cold War could be held not just to discredit realist
approaches but also to provide compelling evidence of the role of non-state actors in the development of state ‘identities’ and interests. Over this period, the
growth of international human security approaches and frameworks is one of the leading examples, held to demonstrate the strength of constructivist approaches:
‘because international human-centred norms challenge state rule over society and national sovereignty,
any impact on domestic change would be counter-intuitive’ (Risse and Sikkink 1999: 4). The assumption that human
security norms challenge nationstate interests therefore asserts that norm changes cannot come
solely from state agency but must also stem from the influence of transnational non-state actors.
Even where states may use the normative rhetoric, such as human rights concerns, it is the influence
of non-state actors which serves to prevent these from being used in a purely instrumental way. For
constructivist theorists, the shift in the articulation of foreign-policy goals, from a narrow framing of national
interests to global framings of human security, demonstrated the growing capacity of moral values to
constrain the interests of power. A leading article in Foreign Affairs , for example, argued: ‘Humanitarian intervention . . . is perhaps the most
dramatic example of the new power of morality in international affairs’ (Gelb and Rosenthal 2003: 6). As Mary Kaldor asserts: The changing international norms
concerning humanitarian intervention can be considered an expression of an emerging global civil society. The changing norms do reflect a
growing global consensus about the equality of human beings and the responsibility to prevent
suffering . . . Moreover, this consensus, in turn, is the outcome of a global public debate on these issues. (2001: 110) Crucial for the
constructivist perspective was the belief that this ‘global public debate’ took place not on the terms of
power but those of morality. Sikkink argues that activities of non-state actors have been able to ‘transform’,
‘modify’ and ‘reshape’ the meaning of sovereignty because sovereignty is a product of a set of
‘shared’ or ‘intersubjective understandings about the legitimate scope of state authority’ (Sikkink 1993: 413,
441). The human security orientated debates on international humanitarian intervention and human
rights form the core of the idealist constructivist thesis. Jack Donnelly, for example, views this dialogue as a ‘promising sign for the
future’ because it is a debate which takes ‘place largely within a space delimited by a basic moral commitment’ to the human rights cause (1999: 99– 100). The
constructivist ‘turn’ in international relations fundamentally challenged the previous rationalist

assumptions of the pursuit of pre-formed state interests in the international sphere. It was alleged
that in today’s globalised world, with the emergence of transnational linkages, committed
transnational ethical campaigners were capable of changing the identity, and thereby the interests, of
leading states. What is crucial to this thesis is the socially-constructed identity of the state actor rather than the alleged structural constraints, where ideas
are understood to be merely a reflection of pre-given material interests. The non-instrumentalist assumptions made for discourses of human security rest heavily on
the constructivist framework, which assumes a connection between moral or ethical discourse and a power to shape identities and interests. Very few
commentators have attempted to understand the rise of ‘human security’ frameworks outside the constructivist framework and, as will be drawn out, this
framework forms the basis of the critical shift against human security after the end of the 1990s. The fundamental break involved in the constructivist approach was
that of inversing the relationship between states and the international or global sphere. Where, previously, states were the key objects of study – as the core actors
and instrumentally-orientated rational subjects constituting the international sphere – within the constructivist framework, state policy frameworks were the
products of international or global discourse. The subject of study switched from privileging the formation of state interests at the domestic level to privileging their
communicative interaction, the declarations of norms and values, which were held to shape state identities and policy-making. Taking on board the starting logic of
realism – that states pursue their narrow strategic self-interests – constructivists assumed that it was the external pressures of global interaction and campaigning
NGOs which explained the shifting nature of the discourses of foreign policy. While the constructivist focus on discourse remains very much central to dominant
perceptions of human security, the constructivist framework, outlined earlier, tends to reflect the sensibilities of the 1990s rather than the 2000s.
Elephants
ATT Doesn’t Solve – 1NC
ATT doesn’t solve elephant poaching---bows and arrows and spears, poachers make
weapons, and border securitization leads to them acquiring more sophisticated
weaponry
Matthew Bolton 15, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Pace University New York City, November
25th, 2015, “Using the Arms Trade Treaty to Address Wildlife Poaching in East Africa: A Human Security
Approach”, https://controlarms.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/BoltonPoaching-1.pdf
There are, of course, limitations to the ATT as a tool in addressing wildlife crime . A significant proportion
of the trade in SALW in East Africa operates at a micro-level often undetected by state customs and
import/export control systems . Much of this “ant trade”, as some call it, operates across the largely
unsecured borderlands of many East African “peripheries” such as the arid region spanning
northeastern Uganda, southern South Sudan, northern Kenya and southern Somalia. Weapons flood
into “hot zones” of conflict ; when the conflict dissipates, the weapons diffuse throughout the region,
re-concentrating in newly violent areas. This is a much more complex market to regulate than
traditional state-to-state arms transfers.62 Small Arms Survey also found that poachers used a variety of artisan-
crafted weapons – including firearms, bows and arrows and spears – that are locally-made, necessarily
not covered by the ATT Scope and difficult to detect.63 There is a risk that calls for ATT implementation will
translate into militarizing border security operations that would be ineffective at actually stemming the
micro-level production and movement of arms while introducing new weapons and aggressive tactics
into border regions. This could have the counterintuitive impact of creating incentives for poachers to
adopt more sophisticated weaponry.

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Case Neg – ATT

The term “ratification” describes

Object and Purpose

The object of this Treaty is to:

for the purpose of:

– Contributing to international and regional peace, security and stability;

– Reducing human suffering;

(a) Battle tanks;

(b) Armoured combat vehicles;

(c) Large-calibre artillery systems;

(d) Combat aircraft;

(e) Attack helicopters;

(g) Missiles and missile launchers; and

(h) Small arms and light weapons.

designate one or more national points of contact to exchange information on matters

(a) would contribute to or undermine peace and security;

(b) could be used to:

(i) commit or facilitate a serious violation of international humanitarian law;

(ii) commit or facilitate a serious violation of international human rights law;

(iii) commit or facilitate an act constituting an offence under international

conventions or protocols relating to terrorism to which the exporting State is a Party; or

2. Each importing State Party shall take

Article 12 Record keeping

4. Records shall be kept for a minimum of ten years.

of assistance in investigations, prosecutions and judicial proceedings in relation to violations of

disarmament, demobilization and reintegration programmes, model legislation, and effective

Conference of States Parties

4. The Conference of States Parties shall:

(c) Consider amendments to this Treaty in accordance with Article 20;

(g) Perform any other function consistent with this Treaty.

(e) Perform other duties as decided by the Conferences of States Parties.

Signature, Ratification, Acceptance, Approval or Accession

2. This Treaty is subject to ratification, acceptance or approval by each signatory State.

Solves the case

We developed our recommendations in consideration of American industrial and security interests. In

*CTA = country team assessment

officials described a so-called “wish-list phenomenon,” wherein the US

Lack of regulation allows industry representatives to pressure Congress into a hasty

Congressional Oversight: The

The potential for undesired consequences as a result of arms

Challenges of applying international law86: In

Weak language means international conditions fail due to intentional

significant value can be obtained by using empirical analysis methodologies

there is the added limitation of the unknown nature of the seller or

In the absence of any official public statement by the authorities, a

Vendor details and processes

The Case for a New Approach

So far we have argued that arms

Arms Sales Have Many Potential Negative Consequences

. Any ATT that emerges from the

The treaty is the loophole .

The fundamental problem with the ATT is that it embodies an approach to

That’s why I think it’s actually incredibly

That evasion is telling. The

Like many international schemes, this

as tanks, missiles, artillery, helicopters and warships.

The ATT places constraints Trump’s administration ideologically doesn’t believe in

Trump takes every opportunity

One of the reasons international

Discrimination of the vulnerable

One final point: I was surprised that Bolton

Non-self-executing treaties are open to interpretation