UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY DISARMAMENT AND INTERNATIONAL SECURITY Disarmament and International Security First Committee The First Committee deals with disarmament, global challenges and threats to peace that affect the international community and seeks out solutions to the challenges in the international security regime. It considers all disarmament and international security matters within the scope of the Charter or relating to the powers and functions of any other organ of the United Nations; the general principles of cooperation in the maintenance of international peace and security, as well as principles governing disarmament and the regulation of armaments; promotion of cooperative arrangements and measures aimed at strengthening stability through lower levels of armaments. The Committee works in close cooperation with the United Nations Disarmament Commission and the Genevabased Conference on Disarmament. It is the only Main Committee of the General Assembly entitled to verbatim records coverage. The First Committee sessions are structured into three distinctive stages: 1. General debate 2. Thematic discussions 3. Action on drafts It is the only Main Committee of the General Assembly entitled to verbatim records coverage pursuant to Rule 58 (a) of the rules of procedure of the General Assembly. 1 1 http://www.un.org/en/ga/first/
MUN. This document is about MUn. Specifically about disarmament treaties.
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UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY
DISARMAMENT AND INTERNATIONAL SECURITY
Disarmament and International Security
First Committee
The First Committee deals with disarmament, global challenges and threats to peace that affect the international
community and seeks out solutions to the challenges in the international security regime.
It considers all disarmament and international security matters within the scope of the Charter or relating to the
powers and functions of any other organ of the United Nations; the general principles of cooperation in the
maintenance of international peace and security, as well as principles governing disarmament and the regulation of
armaments; promotion of cooperative arrangements and measures aimed at strengthening stability through lower
levels of armaments.
The Committee works in close cooperation with the United Nations Disarmament Commission and the
Genevabased Conference on Disarmament. It is the only Main Committee of the General Assembly entitled to
verbatim records coverage.
The First Committee sessions are structured into three distinctive stages:
1. General debate
2. Thematic discussions
3. Action on drafts
It is the only Main Committee of the General Assembly entitled to verbatim records coverage pursuant to Rule 58
(a) of the rules of procedure of the General Assembly.1
with 22 abstentions. The treaty opened for signature on June 3, 2013. The ATT requires 50 ratifications before it can
enter into force.
What the Arms Trade Treaty Does
• The Arms Trade Treaty requires all states-parties to adopt basic regulations and approval processes for the flow of weapons across international borders, establishes common international standards that must be met before arms exports are authorized, and requires annual reporting of imports and exports to a treaty secretariat. In particular, the treaty requires that states “establish and maintain a national control system, including a national control list” and “designate competent national authorities in order to have an effective and transparent national control system regulating the transfer of conventional arms”; • prohibits arms transfer authorizations to states if the transfer would violate “obligations under measures adopted by the United Nations Security Council acting under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations, in particular arms embargoes” or under other “relevant international obligations” or if the state “has knowledge at the time of authorization that the arms or items would be used in the commission of genocide, crimes against humanity, grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 1949, attacks directed against civilian objects or civilians protected as such, or other war crimes”; • requires states to assess the potential that the arms exported would “contribute to or undermine peace and security” or could be used to commit or facilitate serious violations of international humanitarian or human rights law, acts of terrorism, or transnational organized crime; to consider measures to mitigate the risk of these violations; and, if there still remains an “overriding risk” of “negative consequences,” to “not authorize the export”; • applies under Article 2(1) to all conventional arms within the seven categories of the UN Register of Conventional Arms (battle tanks, armored combat vehicles, large-caliber artillery systems, combat aircraft, attack helicopters, warships, and missiles and missile launchers) and small arms and light weapons; • requires that states “establish and maintain a national control system to regulate the export of ammunition/munitions fired, launched or delivered by” the conventional arms listed in Article 2(1) and “parts and components…that provide the capability to assemble” the conventional arms listed in that article • requires each state to “take the appropriate measures, pursuant to its national laws, to regulate brokering taking place under its jurisdiction” of conventional arms covered under Article 2(1); • requires each state to “take measures to prevent…diversion” of conventional arms covered under Article 2(1);
requires each state to submit annually to the treaty secretariat a report of the preceding year’s “authorized or actual export and imports of conventional arms covered under Article 2(1)” and allows states to exclude “commercially sensitive or national security information”
Loopholes in Arms Trade Treaty:
1. THE TREATY’S THRESHOLD FOR REFUSING ARMS EXPORTS IS FAR TOO HIGH
The treaty states that arms should not be exported if there is an “overriding risk” of serious violations of international
humanitarian or human rights law. This word “overriding” is open to interpretation. It could be taken to mean that
arms exports should only be stopped in extreme or exceptional circumstances, or that a state could decide that the risk of abuse was not enough to “override” the perceived benefits of the arms export.
For example, a supplier could decide that while a client country was likely to commit human rights abuses, that was
not strong enough to override the client’s “right to self-defence” or “regional stability” or even the need to protect
an important “strategic partnership”. This is particularly apposite for the UK, where the government’s drive to promote arms sales always overrides human rights concerns.
The original Control Arms draft said that arms transfers should be refused if they were “likely” to be used to commit
serious violations. Later drafts raised the threshold to “substantial risk,” and in 2012 it was further raised to
“overriding risk”. The NGOs tried hard to get that changed back to “substantial,” with support from many countries,
but the US insisted that “overriding” must remain.
2. THE TREATY HAS NO EFFECTIVE REQUIREMENTS FOR RECORD-KEEPING AND REPORTING
One of the selling points of an ATT was that it would “help introduce new levels of transparency and accountability”
to an otherwise murky trade by requiring comprehensive record-keeping and public reporting of all arms transfers.
On this issue, the treaty has failed. Whereas the original draft required states to submit annual reports on arms
transfers to be published by an international body, the final text only requires states to record a minimal list of arms
exports that need not even include the type, model, quantity or value of the exports.
States are supposed to submit this minimal information to a UN Secretariat, but this information will not be
published, and states are allowed to leave out anything they deem as “commercially sensitive or national security information.”
This represents a considerably lower standard of reporting than is currently carried out by some of the world’s
largest arms exporters, including the UK, US and Germany – an outcome that Oxfam warned “risks undermining current best practice in transparency in the international trade in arms.”
Without proper reporting provisions, there will be no way to tell whether the treaty is effective in stopping any arms exports.
3. THE TREATY EXCLUDES CERTAIN TYPES OF WEAPONS
The treaty only covers specific types of conventional weapons. The list excludes certain types of arms including
surface-to-air missiles, armoured troop-carrying vehicles, light artillery, tear gas and, notably, drones. The
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) warned that this failure to reflect modern military technology made the ATT “likely to be a relic before it ever comes into force”.
While the treaty does mention ammunition and components, these are exempt from some of the treaty’s key
provisions. At the insistence of the US, there is no requirement to keep records or report the export of ammunition
or components. Furthermore, states are not required to regulate the import, transit, trans-shipment, brokering or diversion of ammunition or parts.
Given the key role that ammunition plays in sustaining conflict, this is a huge loophole. It also means that arms
dealers will be able to avoid key regulations by trading in “knock-down kits” – kits of parts for assembly in the
destination country – instead of whole weapons
4. THE TREATY DOESN’T COVER ALL TYPES OF ARMS TRANSFERS
Arms transferred as part of a “defence co-operation agreement” – an arrangement whereby the military forces of
two or more countries work together – are exempt from the treaty. Arguing for this loophole to be closed, Control
Arms pointed out that “There is nothing to prevent States classifying all of their international arms trading operations as ‘defence cooperation agreements’ thereby circumventing the treaty’s provisions.”
Furthermore, whereas the original draft applied to all types of international arms transfers, the final text only covers
arms sales, which means that it doesn’t apply to arms that are loaned, leased, bartered or transferred as gifts or as
part of an “aid” package. (It was China that insisted on this, not wanting to be prevented from giving arms to its allies.)
Finally, the treaty does not cover licensed production agreements, whereby a country that owns the design to a
particular weapons system grants a license to another country to manufacture that weapons system. This type of arrangement has been used by arms companies for decades as a way of avoiding arms embargoes.
5. THERE IS NO INTERNATIONAL ASSESSMENT OR ENFORCEMENT
The responsibility for assessing the risk of an arms export is entirely down to the exporting country. There is a clear conflict of interest here: a country that wants to export arms will tend to decide that there is no “overriding” risk.
Furthermore, an exporter’s decisions are not open to international review and there are no legal sanctions for
violating the treaty. The US made it clear that it would not accept the creation of an international body to enforce
the ATT.
6. THE TREATY GIVES THE ARMS TRADE LEGITIMACY
One of the treaty’s core principles is “the respect for the legitimate interests of States to acquire conventional arms
to exercise their right to self-defence… and to produce, export, import and transfer conventional arms”. It focuses
specifically on stopping “illicit” trade. However, this distinction between the “legitimate” arms trade and the “illicit” arms trade is bogus.
The vast majority of international arms transfers, including those to human rights-abusing governments and conflict
areas, are legal. Countries like the US, UK and Russia supply large quantities of arms to repressive regimes around the world, but the treaty leaves plenty of scope for them to declare these sales as “legitimate”.
Furthermore, by recognising the “legitimate interests” of states to acquire arms, the treaty privileges states at the expense of non-state actors such as stateless peoples and ethnic groups oppressed by their own governments.
For example, the treaty asserts the right of Israel, as a state, to acquire arms for “self-defence” but does not accord
the same right to the Palestinian people who live under Israeli military occupation. In this way the treaty could help to reinforce a status quo in which powerful states militarily dominate marginalised populations.
The treaty also explicitly recognises “the legitimate political, security, economic and commercial interests of States
in the international trade in conventional arms” (emphasis added). In the final vote at the UN, the Bolivian delegate
abstained, deploring that “the ‘weapons and death industries’ would rest easy knowing that the Treaty favoured their economic interests,” adding that “priority had been given to profit over human suffering.”
In a treaty whose intent is to reduce the terrible harm caused by the arms trade, there should be no place for
declaring huge swathes of the arms trade to be “legitimate”. As Campaign Against Arms Trade – a sceptic of the ATT – points out; “there is no such thing as a ‘responsible’ arms trade.”5
Who is impacted the most by small arms and light weapons:
Civilians---
Millions of people are caught in the crossfire of warfare or become victims of armed crime. Many are women and
children.
Children---
The light weight and small size of these weapons has made it possible [easy] for children to be recruited or compelled
to become soldiers. Child soldiers were particularly exploited in recent wars in Liberia and the Sudan.
Political dissidents, union organizers, land rights activists, journalists, etc.---
Small arms are the principal tool of intimidation used by repressive police and military forces. The massacre in
Chiapas last December of 45 unarmed civilians, carried out by government-affiliated paramilitary forces with
highpowered AK-47 assault rifles, is one of countless examples.
Foreign relief and development workers---
Armed conflict often creates the humanitarian emergencies that relief workers are called in to alleviate. In addition,
aid workers are increasingly coming under fire---being killed, kidnapped, or threatened.