Tag Archives: conventional weapons

2012 and Conventional Weapons: Balancing the PoA and the ATT

5 Jan

For those that follow processes related to conventional weapons disarmament, 2012 is proving to be a busy and significant year with its own set of opportunities and challenges. This July, diplomats will come together at the UN headquarters in New York and negotiate treaty language for an Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) that seeks to regulate the international trade in conventional weapons. Just four weeks later, many of those same diplomats will gather for a Review Conference to assess implementation of the UN Programme of Action to Prevent, Combat, and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in all Its Aspects (UNPoA).

Each process has its own difficulties– the objective of an ATT is still unclear as to whether it is a treaty with a strong humanitarian perspective aimed at preventing human suffering caused by illicit trade in conventional weapons or, rather, merely a treaty to regulate commerce of arms; the PoA still suffers from weak implementation without benchmarks or enforcement power. Moreover, advocates of a robust ATT fear that small arms and light weapons (SALWs) will not be covered under the scope of the treaty, while many states that have tried to implement the UNPoA framework still lack the coordination and technology necessary to provide the marking, tracing, and record keeping of weapons that is necessary to eliminate illicit trade. As such, the challenges in both processes are vast. However, in a year that provides forums for improvements in both processes, we would be wise to make good use of them by advocating and underscoring linkages and complementary qualities that exist between the two.

The UNPoA is a political (non-legally binding) framework document that covers a wide variety of activities involving SALWs– international transfer, brokering, manufacture, stockpile management, marking, tracing, and record keeping. The UNPoA provides a framework for implementing adequate national laws, regulations, and adminstrative procedures around these activities as they relate to illicit trade. An ATT, as a legally-binding treaty of international law, would cover only internati0nal transfers of conventional weapons such as tanks, military vehicles, naval vessels, missiles, and missile systems and provide for a list of criteria to which signatories would be bound when determining if an arms transfer will be permitted.

Although the two instruments seem disparate, there are clear areas where an ATT could and should support the UNPoA framework. One element severely lacking in the UNPoA is benchmarks. The ATT could help with this lack of accountability by dictating, in a legally-binding manner, how states signatories must comply with international transfer standards. Additionally, an ATT has the ability to clarify some UNPoA ambiguities with regards to transfers (although it is still unclear as to whether this will include SALWs, which may or may not be in the scope of the treaty).  Most importantly, the ATT has the opportunity to build on national commitments to arms control and conventional disarmament measures by providing (hopefully) a clear reporting process on transfers (including denials), a formal monitoring system, and some form of a secretariat to provide administrative support to signatories in their national implementation of the treaty’s provisions.

While the ATT will neither dry up any existing stockpiles nor cover weapons already in circulation, it will address (how strongly and explicitly is still uncertain) diversion of weapons into the hands of terrorists, criminals, and corrupt officials by providing common international trade standards. In concert with the UNPoA that does provide a framework for drying up stockpiles and eliminating weapons in circulation, the ATT has the opportunity to curb human suffering and armed violence caused by new instances of illicit trade in conventional weapons. It seems the two have more in common than has been generally thought by addressing illicit trade through different lenses.

The argument that an ATT will be a drain on resources and cause reporting fatigue for signatories is a weak one at best. It is a generally accepted notion that the lack of common standards for international trade in conventional weapons must be addressed in a more robust and consistent manner than currently exists in the UNPoA that addresses only small arms in a non-binding framework. Therefore, it is clear that both instruments are relevant and it is important to ensure the effectiveness of both in the upcoming year.

–Katherine Prizeman

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Looking Towards the ATT in 2012

17 Nov

As the First Committee of the General Assembly has come to a close, delegations appear ready, some enthusiastically and others more hesitatingly, to move towards the final negotiations. Whether this negotiating will be based on the most recent Chair’s Paper from Ambassador Moritan or not, it seems that member states are anticipating transition from the preparatory process to concrete Treaty text.  It is to be assumed that the very ambitious Chair’s Paper from July 14, 2011 will not be entirely replicated in the text, but it surely lays forth the existing proposals that will require honest and practical vetting over the three-week period of the Conference. Ambassdor Moritan’s presence at the First Committee enabled member states to hear, once more, the various proposals and divisions that still exist around the ATT underscoring the vast challenges that lie ahead. Ambassador Moritan is under no illusions regarding the complexity of the process as he noted the levels of ambition regarding the ATT are vastly different. The final PrepCom in February will be focused on the parameters and so-called rules of engagement for negotiations rather than a broad thematic discussion of scope and content specifics.

We continue to advocate for strong emphasis on diversion risks as this issue remains at the heart of curbing the illicit arms trade. Addressing this issue will require special attention to the practice of diverting arms from legitimate end users to non-state and unauthorized parties who may use such weapons for criminal, corrupt, and abusive purposes. It is often in this indirect, and sometimes unintentional on the part of governments, manner that the arms trade becomes a harmful practice. The strength of the language on this issue in the Treaty text is still undecided. As the Chair’s Paper from July 2011 noted, “A State Party shall not authorize a transfer of conventional arms if there is a substantial risk that those conventional arms would…” undermine peace and security in various forms such as to commit violations of international human rights law. One major question for advocates of a strong humanitarian instrument in the ATT is whether the words “shall not” will be changed to “should not,” which inherently alters this responsibility from obligation to suggestion.

This issue of diversion language is but one example of difficult work ahead. We submit that the first iteration of the Treaty may not be ideal for all states parties, but it is the responsibility of all negotiators to take into account that such a Treaty should function as a floor and not a ceiling for improving state arms transfer controls. Implementation of ATT language in national practice will be just as important as the text itself for without implementation the language is empty wording. Therefore, sufficient discussion next year must be focused on implementation support and corresponding structure. We also encourage delegations to put in place a sound review process that will allow for ATT negotiations to continue well passed 2012 such that the ATT can effectively respond to changing international security risks.

The overwhelming trend in conversation in this year’s Committee has been support for both the preparatory process and the leadership of Ambassador Moritan as well as the inarguable need for better regulation of the arms trade. Building on these consensus points, we are hopeful that next year’s conference will, in fact, yield an ATT that will improve the global arms trade process. The question of its robustness and expansiveness, however, remains unanswered.

For more information on the ATT, follow @DisarmDialogues, @controlarms, @TheIANSA, and @VinoThorsen on Twitter and follow the ATT blog featuring various contributors from different organizations working on this issue.

-Katherine Prizeman

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The CCW4 and Cluster Munitions

15 Nov

Currently, in Geneva, diplomats are convening the 4th Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW4) Review Conference. The Convention, negotiated by 51 states in 1980, seeks to outlaw specific types of conventional weapons used in armed conflict to protect military personnel from inhumane injury as well as non-combatants from harm. When the treaty entered into force in 1983, it covered  incendiary weapons, mines and booby traps, and weapons designed to injury through very small fragments. In 2001, the Convention was voted to cover intrastate conflict as well as international ones under all its provisions. There are five protocols in force: (1) Non-detectable fragments, (2) Landmines, booby traps, and other devices, (3) Incendiary weapons, (4) Blinding lasers, and (5) Explosive remnants of war.  A related piece of international law, the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM), comprehensively bans the use of cluster munitions and was signed and ratified by 111 states.

The controversy now rests in the negotiations of a new protocol on cluster munitions for the CCW (Draft available here). Many advocates are concerned that this will severely undermine the ban under the CCM by providing cover for the future use of cluster munitions, which ultimately causes indiscriminate harm as well as the threat of explosion well beyond the end of the conflict in areas inhabited by civilians. Arms control advocates are arguing that this protocol will “provide a specific legal framework for their use.” The US and allies such as Israel, Brazil, India, and China, cite the ‘humanitarian’ provision in the protocol draft that bans the use of cluster munitions produced before 1980, although post-1980 munitions also cause indiscriminate harm to civilians and these older munitions would most likely have to be destroyed regardless of the protocol because of their age. The most recent use of cluster munitions reported in April 2011  used in civilian areas in Misurata by Qadaffi loyalists were contemporary weapons surely produced after 198o. The draft also allows for a deferral period of 12 years, which ultimately allows for use of weapons that will eventually be banned by the protocol.

As a back drop to adoption of a framework that allows for the use of cluster munitions is a larger normative problem: adoption of an instrument of international humanitarian law that is weaker than a previously (and generally accepted) adopted law. This is a dangerous undertaking that we hope the US and others will reconsider.

For up-to-date information on the negotiations, follow @marywareham, @banclusterbombs, and @nashthomas on Twitter.

-Katherine Prizeman

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