{"id":1272,"date":"2013-03-29T10:42:47","date_gmt":"2013-03-29T16:42:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/?p=1272"},"modified":"2013-03-29T10:42:47","modified_gmt":"2013-03-29T16:42:47","slug":"u-n-treaty-to-control-arms-sales-hits-snag","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/u-n-treaty-to-control-arms-sales-hits-snag\/","title":{"rendered":"U.N. Treaty to Control Arms Sales Hits Snag"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Neil MacFarquhar, New York Times
\nclick here for original article<\/a><\/p>\n

UNITED NATIONS \u2014 The global effort to regulate the sale of conventional weapons suffered a significant but not fatal setback on Thursday after\u00a0Iran<\/a>,\u00a0Syria<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0North Korea<\/a>\u00a0opposed the draft\u00a0Arms Trade Treaty<\/a>, blocking the consensus needed for passage after years of arduous negotiations.<\/p>\n

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The three countries, often isolated as pariahs for their arms and human rights records, used their rejection of the treaty to lash out at what they see as their unfair treatment.<\/span><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Achieving consensus among all 193 member states of the United Nations is considered a monumental task, but it was hoped that it would be possible in this case because so many countries supported the idea of trying to regulate the $70 billion annual industry at the root of much death and destruction.<\/p>\n

The treaty would require states exporting conventional weapons to develop criteria that would link exports to avoiding human rights abuses, terrorism and organized crime. It would also ban shipments if they were deemed harmful to women and children.<\/p>\n

After Iran and North Korea voted against the draft treaty, Peter Woolcott, the Australian ambassador who was the president of the treaty conference, suspended the meeting. When it resumed, Syria voted against the treaty as well.<\/p>\n

In the absence of consensus, it was expected that the treaty would be sent to the General Assembly as early as next week for approval. That is considered a weaker, but no less binding, manner of getting it passed. After General Assembly passage, the treaty would still require ratification by 50 member states before it could take effect.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are certainly disappointed, because we could not achieve the expected result tonight,\u201d said Juan M. G\u00f3mez-Robledo, vice minister of multilateral affairs and the head of the Mexican delegation, \u201cbut it is only a matter of days, because this conference has shown that the overwhelming majority wish to adopt this text.\u201d<\/p>\n

He rejected the three countries\u2019 objections that not enough time or attention had been given to address their concerns, noting that the talks had been going on for seven years.<\/p>\n

Most countries who spoke after the treaty stalled said they fully supported it, although some major ones, including India and Russia, voiced strong reservations about some provisions. India said the draft treaty favored exporters. Russia said it should be more specific about banning conventional weapons sales to nonstate actors.<\/p>\n

Thomas M. Countryman, the assistant secretary of state who led the American delegation, said that the United States would support the treaty in the General Assembly based on the fact, he said, that the pact would promote global security, advance humanitarian objectives and curb illegal arms sales, all without affecting the constitutional right to bear arms.<\/p>\n

Although opposition from Iran, North Korea and Syria had been expected, diplomats and outside proponents of the treaty had hoped the three countries would not block an accord that so many sought. All three belong to the roughly 120-member Nonaligned Movement \u2014 Iran is its current president \u2014 and the bulk of its members in Africa and Latin American strongly backed the treaty.<\/p>\n

But in the end, the three went with their domestic concerns. They are each subject to arms embargoes already, and were concerned that the treaty would add muscle to such blockades.<\/p>\n

After the consensus failed, one delegate after another, notably from Africa and Latin America, took to the floor to express disappointment that just three countries had stalled a treaty aimed at curbing violence globally.<\/p>\n

Their frustration was echoed by rights groups that have long sought such a treaty. \u201cThe world has been held hostage by three states,\u201d said Anna Macdonald, the head of arms control at Oxfam. \u201cWe have known all along that the consensus process was deeply flawed, and today we see it is actually dysfunctional.\u201d<\/p>\n

In rejecting the treaty, the Iranian ambassador, Mohammad Khazaee, said it left too much in doubt.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile the rights of arms-exporting states is well preserved in this text,\u201d he said, \u201cthe right of importing states to acquire and import arms for their security needs is subject to the discretionary judgment and subjective assessment of the exporting states.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said that the measure would leave the sale of conventional weapons covered by the text \u201chighly susceptible to politicization, manipulation and discrimination.\u201d<\/p>\n

Iran also took a couple of indirect swipes at the United States and Israel.<\/p>\n

First, Mr. Khazaee objected to the fact that the concerns of many states were not met while dedicated language in the treaty\u2019s preamble \u2014 meant to mollify the National Rifle Association and other American gun-rights groups \u2014 stressed that the use of individual weapons for sporting or similar activities was protected.<\/p>\n

Second, Both Iran and Syria suggested that there should have been a specific reference to the rights of states facing occupation to acquire arms, referring to the\u00a0Palestinians<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Given the civil war in Syria, that country\u2019s ambassador, Bashar Jaafari, also said arms shipments to terrorist groups and nonstate actors should have been banned. But the violence being visited on civilians in Syria by government forces means the treaty, if in effect, could well curb weapons supplies to the Damascus government, which Iran supports as its key Arab ally.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Neil MacFarquhar, New York Times click here for original article UNITED NATIONS \u2014 The global effort to regulate the sale of conventional weapons suffered a significant but not fatal setback on Thursday after\u00a0Iran,\u00a0Syria\u00a0and\u00a0North Korea\u00a0opposed the draft\u00a0Arms Trade Treaty, blocking the consensus needed for passage after years of arduous negotiations. The three countries, often isolated […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[173],"class_list":["post-1272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-arms-trade"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1272"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1272\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1273,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1272\/revisions\/1273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}