The ATT – Arms Trade Treaty is a reality now from April 2nd, 2013. The vote at the UN General Assembly was actually 155 yes (Angola changed its vote from no to yes) to 3 no (Iran, Syria, North Korea) and 22 abstentions (including Russia, China & India). This is indeed a remarkable decision by the UN General Assembly. After the process was blocked by Syria, Iran, and North Korea on March 28th, the Arms Trade Treaty was moved to the United Nations General Assembly. On April 2nd, an overwhelming majority of States voted in favour of adopting this historic Treaty. This landmark vote sends a clear signal to gunrunners and human rights abusers that their time is up. The creation of the Arms Trade Treaty is historic. How many of the 500,000 deaths worldwide that happen as a result of armed violence will be prevented?
According to Bill Pace, the next role the WFM members could consider is supporting rapid ratification of the new treaty by governments and parliaments. The treaty will need 50 ratifications to enter into force. I believe it will be open for signature and ratification in a couple months.
Let me narrate how this all began. In 1998 a group of Disarmament activists met in Brussels and discussed the need to control the proliferation of small arms which fuel conflicts around the world. Significant members of this group were actually humanitarian workers who have been working in post-conflict scenarios. They were convinced that the uncontrolled small arms proliferation is anti-development. The HAP (Hague Appeal for Peace), organised by the WFM in 2000, gave impetus to this group who met and formed IANSA (International Action Against Small Arms). IANSA developed into a large membership-based organisation throughout the world. Amnesty International, Safer World and International Alert ,who were already involved in post-conflict rights and reconstruction work, joined IANSA. The UN DDA played a crucial role in appointing a group of eminent persons (EPG) to study this problem. Former Japanese Ambassador to the UN, Mitsuro Donowaki, was the head of this EPG and made recommendations for the UN Conference to combat proliferation of Small Arms and Light Weapons, to be held in July 2001. A few months prior to this, representatives of Government and civil society met in Bamako and decided that their focus at the UN conference should be to argue on a ban on export of small arms to non-state actors.
However, at the July 2001 UN conference the final document could not be accepted by consensus. Many states wanted the scope of the UN Programme of Action to focus only on illegal arms, and legitimise their use by Governments, whereas many of the conflicts, especially in Africa, were non-state actors versus the state. How do arms reach non-state actors, who are in remote areas? The US delegation strongly opposed the UN PoA. They argued that Taiwan is a non-state actor and therefore a ban on export to non-state actors is not feasible. However, the clock at the UN HQ was turned back to allow more discussions, and finally the UN PoA was adopted. Many IANSA members (Bradford University, Safer World & International Alert) promoted a parallel Dialogue Group, which met annually to review bits and pieces of the work towards the Arms Trade Treaty. The British, Canadian, Dutch and the Scandinavians lent active support to this group. The US State Department actively participated along with many representatives from Ministries of Foreign Affairs of other Governments. Out of this initiative at the UN, an EPG was set up for arms marking and tracing, brokering and many other areas. Biannual meetings were held at the UN to review the progress of work on the UN PoA. The member states could not move forward, except setting up national commissions on small arms or focal points.
Around this time, 90% of arms trade globally was controlled by the members of the Security Council. Many areas like Nepal, which was used as a transit point for gun running, became end users. The citizens started reflecting on the need to control the arms purchases by Governments after the incidents in Libya and Syria, where the state was suppressing its own population. Again IANSA members met and developed a comprehensive Arms Trade Treaty, which would address export controls on small arms, making marking on the weapons mandatory at the point of manufacture, and preparing regulations on brokering, shipping and aviation, etc. The ATT campaign was launched in 2003 with Oxfam and Amnesty International playing a key role. It started with a million-faces petition, which was submitted to Kofi Annan, who formed the first committee to discuss the ATT. The first UN meeting on ATT was held in July 2012 and ended with a failure. Now it is a reality. The credit for its success should go to many survivors of armed conflicts, and to civil society groups who actively participated in these campaigns between 1998 and 2013, 15 long years.
I’am glad to have been part of this process as representative of WFM, I attended several prep-coms on the UN conference on small arms in New York. I had initiated South Asia small arms Network, launched the first press conference to launch the ATT Campaign in Colombo and edited a book on “small arms – big problem”. On behalf of the civil society and IANSA, I was one of the dozen NGO speakers at the UN conference on small arms and was also part of the parallel process – dialogue group. During 2002/04, served on the management committee of IANSA and brought small arms topic to the agenda of world social forum in 2004. South Asian Federalists in Mumbai made this WSF event happen in Mumbai. They even brought an elephant with a banner – small arms / big problem. Thanks you all for your support. Let us continue and lobby our Governments to ratify ATT.