RBP
07-28-2012, 02:28 AM
Negotiators at the United Nations failed to meet a Friday deadline to complete a new treaty aimed at regulating the estimated $60 billion global arms trade business, as major weapons exporting nations, including the United States, said more time was needed to finalize an agreement.
The negotiators adjourned after having met for the past four weeks with the goal of completing an agreement that proponents said would have severely restricted the cross-border flow of weapons and ammunition that has helped to fuel armed conflicts and mass killings around the world. Approval by all 193 members of the United Nations was required.
“There is no consensus and the meeting is over,” said Ewen Buchanan, a spokesman for the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs, which sponsored the negotiation conference on the treaty.
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who had beseeched the members to reach an agreement, said in a statement, “The conference’s inability to conclude its work on this much-awaited A.T.T., despite years of effort of member states and civil society from many countries, is a setback.” He was referring to the official name of the pact, the Arms Trade Treaty. Diplomats said the next step was likely to be further negotiations and a vote at the next session of the United Nations General Assembly in a couple of months.
Treaty supporters, led by activist groups such as Amnesty International and Oxfam America, expressed anger at the failure after early bouts of optimism that a draft of the treaty circulated this week would satisfy American concerns, notably its possible infringement on the Second Amendment right to bear arms — an especially delicate issue during a presidential election year in the United States.
The supporters contended the treaty’s language specified that it would have no impact on such rights. But gun rights groups like the National Rifle Association said the treaty remained “seriously flawed.”
In the final hours of negotiations, the United States, as well as Russia and China, all large weapons exporters, said more time was needed.
“The White House walked away at a critical moment by failing to move this treaty to conclusion,” Oxfam America’s senior policy adviser, Scott Stedjan, said in a statement. “It is a tremendous loss for thousands of innocent civilians around the globe who die each year from armed violence fueled by the unregulated transfer of arms.”
The conference chairman, Ambassador Roberto Garcia Moritán of Argentina, said that he was confident of achieving a treaty later this year.
The Obama administration was under pressure to delay or walk away from an agreement. Fifty-one senators had urged the administration not to sign it in a letter sent Thursday. That letter sent an important signal of defeat because ratification requires 67 Senate votes.
“As defenders of the right of Americans to keep and bear arms, we write to express our grave concern about the dangers posed by the United Nations’ arms trade treaty,” the senators said in the letter to President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. “Our country’s sovereignty and the constitutional protection of these individual freedoms must not be infringed.”
Galen Carey, vice president of government relations at the National Association of Evangelicals, criticized gun lobby members for disparaging the treaty, saying, “Those spreading misinformation about alleged links between this treaty and the Second Amendment should stop doing so.”
Treaty negotiations coincided with a renewed debate in the United States over the ease of possessing weapons and ammunition following the killings of theater patrons in suburban Denver last week by a lone gunman.
The treaty would for the first time establish common international standards for authorizing international arms transfers, including basic regulations and approval protocols that would improve transparency and accountability. A prime purpose, according to the draft, is to “prevent, combat and eradicate the illicit trade in conventional arms and their diversion to illegal and unauthorized end use.” It would also prohibit signatories from transferring conventional weapons that violate arms embargoes or enable those who commit genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
The negotiators adjourned after having met for the past four weeks with the goal of completing an agreement that proponents said would have severely restricted the cross-border flow of weapons and ammunition that has helped to fuel armed conflicts and mass killings around the world. Approval by all 193 members of the United Nations was required.
“There is no consensus and the meeting is over,” said Ewen Buchanan, a spokesman for the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs, which sponsored the negotiation conference on the treaty.
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who had beseeched the members to reach an agreement, said in a statement, “The conference’s inability to conclude its work on this much-awaited A.T.T., despite years of effort of member states and civil society from many countries, is a setback.” He was referring to the official name of the pact, the Arms Trade Treaty. Diplomats said the next step was likely to be further negotiations and a vote at the next session of the United Nations General Assembly in a couple of months.
Treaty supporters, led by activist groups such as Amnesty International and Oxfam America, expressed anger at the failure after early bouts of optimism that a draft of the treaty circulated this week would satisfy American concerns, notably its possible infringement on the Second Amendment right to bear arms — an especially delicate issue during a presidential election year in the United States.
The supporters contended the treaty’s language specified that it would have no impact on such rights. But gun rights groups like the National Rifle Association said the treaty remained “seriously flawed.”
In the final hours of negotiations, the United States, as well as Russia and China, all large weapons exporters, said more time was needed.
“The White House walked away at a critical moment by failing to move this treaty to conclusion,” Oxfam America’s senior policy adviser, Scott Stedjan, said in a statement. “It is a tremendous loss for thousands of innocent civilians around the globe who die each year from armed violence fueled by the unregulated transfer of arms.”
The conference chairman, Ambassador Roberto Garcia Moritán of Argentina, said that he was confident of achieving a treaty later this year.
The Obama administration was under pressure to delay or walk away from an agreement. Fifty-one senators had urged the administration not to sign it in a letter sent Thursday. That letter sent an important signal of defeat because ratification requires 67 Senate votes.
“As defenders of the right of Americans to keep and bear arms, we write to express our grave concern about the dangers posed by the United Nations’ arms trade treaty,” the senators said in the letter to President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. “Our country’s sovereignty and the constitutional protection of these individual freedoms must not be infringed.”
Galen Carey, vice president of government relations at the National Association of Evangelicals, criticized gun lobby members for disparaging the treaty, saying, “Those spreading misinformation about alleged links between this treaty and the Second Amendment should stop doing so.”
Treaty negotiations coincided with a renewed debate in the United States over the ease of possessing weapons and ammunition following the killings of theater patrons in suburban Denver last week by a lone gunman.
The treaty would for the first time establish common international standards for authorizing international arms transfers, including basic regulations and approval protocols that would improve transparency and accountability. A prime purpose, according to the draft, is to “prevent, combat and eradicate the illicit trade in conventional arms and their diversion to illegal and unauthorized end use.” It would also prohibit signatories from transferring conventional weapons that violate arms embargoes or enable those who commit genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.