Negotiating an Arms Trade Treaty - State Security Versus Human Security

The United Nations Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) is meeting in New York from 2-27 July 2012 to negotiate what is seen as the most important initiative ever regarding conventional arms regulation. Crucial will be that “state security” is not given preference over “human security” during these negotiations.

Published on 12 July 2012 in ISS Today

Gugu Dube, Researcher, Transnational Threats and International Crimes Division, ISS Pretoria Office

The United Nations Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) is underway at the United Nations Headquarters in New York from 2–27 July 2012 to negotiate what is seen as the most important initiative ever regarding conventional arms regulation within the United Nations (UN).

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon opened the Diplomatic Conference on the ATT on 3 July 2012. In his opening remarks to the conference, the Secretary-General stated that “disarmament and arms control have implications for every other issue that the UN covers. The poorly regulated trade in weaponry, he argued, is a major obstacle to everything we do”.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu sent a message to negotiators, emphasising that the immorality the illicit arms trade feeds cuts wide and deep and has led him to spend more than a decade campaigning for a sensible solution. He strongly argued that a robust treaty would establish global rules for the cross-border trade in weapons and ammunition.

African states are currently pushing for a treaty that should cover a broad range of weapons including small arms, light weapons and ammunition.

The government of South Africa stated that it “supports an ATT that will regulate all arms transfers, both military and commercial. Thus, it should not be limited to the weapons covered by the UN Arms Register, but should include small arms and light weapons, as well as ammunition.  While some states may believe that the administrative burden of regulating ammunition may be too excessive, South Africa believes that the death, injury and suffering caused by ammunitions, particularly to civilians in armed conflict and the use of illicit small arms and light weapons, by far outweigh such administrative concerns”.

Agreeing on a strong treaty will not be an easy task for states. To be effective, governments should be required to regulate the international trade and transfer of weapons, perform risk assessments before authorising a transfer and track the use of the arms. The treaty should bar governments from transferring arms to any states under a UN arms embargo and when there are serious human rights violations in the intended recipient state. In his opening remarks, the Chair of the conference, Ambassador Roberto García Moritán of Argentina, argued that international security is built on a succession of multilateral actions. The historic lack of action on regulating the international trade in conventional arms is, as the UN Secretary-General said, rather unfortunate. Ban Ki-moon noted rising military expenditure, armed conflict, and human rights violations as requiring concerted, collective action on this issue. The Norwegian Minister of International Development Heikki Holmås described the unregulated arms trade as contributing to “conflict, displacement, crime and terrorism, thereby also undermining peace, reconciliation, safety and stability.”

During the upcoming weeks, the main elements that states will be looking at are goals and objectives that refer to what the problems the treaty is meant to solve at the broadest level. They can be as narrow as preventing the illicit transfer of arms to terrorists or as broad as establishing rules and criteria affecting all arms transfers. They could also be anywhere in between, for example, prohibiting transfer of arms to abusers of human rights or international humanitarian law. ‘Scope’ refers to the type of weapons and activities or transactions an ATT would cover. Activities and transactions potentially encompasses the full range of acts related to the transfer of weapons, from licensing and brokering to export, transshipment, and import, etc. ‘Criteria’ refers to the potential range of principles or standards that would give an exporter a presumption to deny an export, such as violation of human rights or the potential for the arms to be used to commit crimes or to violate international humanitarian law. They also cover the operational mechanism by which any such principles will be applied to arms transfer decisions. The negotiations will also have to address elements related to implementation, compliance, transparency and reporting, victim assistance, international association and cooperation, and more.

While the majority of delegations continue to call for a robust treaty that will make a real difference in the lives of people around the world, some delegations expressed other priorities. Some have argued that the sovereignty of states is the most important principle for the treaty to uphold while a few others argued that the treaty should work to increase the legitimacy of the arms trade. These mark two positions that are incompatible with the pursuit of a treaty that seeks to prevent violations of human rights, international humanitarian law, armed conflict, armed violence, gender-based violence, sexual violence, terrorism, organised crime, the use or threat of force, foreign occupation, repression of self-determination, overproduction of arms, and/or diversion to unauthorised end-users or the illicit market; or that seeks to facilitate international and regional peace, security, and stability, peaceful settlement of disputes, and/or socioeconomic development.

All governments participating in this conference hold at least some of the above objectives as vital to their interests in the negotiation of an ATT. Yet by prioritising “state security” over “human security” or the profits of the arms industry over the lives and livelihoods of human beings, these governments in effect undermine all of these objectives. The only way to prevent arms from being employed as instruments of foreign occupation or as illicit goods, for example, is to ensure that humanitarian interests are at the forefront of the treaty’s principles, objectives, and criteria, and to match them with a robust scope and rigorous implementation mechanisms.