Rights groups slam new U.N. arms trade treaty draft

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Source: Reuters

Rights groups slam new U.N. arms trade treaty draft

By Louis Charbonneau
UNITED NATIONS | Mon Mar 25, 2013 5:43pm EDT

(Reuters) - Human rights groups on Monday sharply criticized the latest draft of what could become the first international treaty to regulate the $70 billion global conventional arms trade, accusing the United States and others of pushing to dilute it.

Several Western delegations, however, played down the complaints of groups like Oxfam, Amnesty International, the World Council of Churches and Control Arms, saying the latest draft showed progress, though improvements were clearly needed.

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The previous draft treaty said that the following weapon types would be covered by the pact "at a minimum" - tanks, armored combat vehicles, large-caliber artillery systems, combat aircraft, attack helicopters, warships, missiles and missile launchers and small arms and light arms.

But in the new draft, the words "at a minimum" have been removed, which rights groups said has dramatically narrowed the scope of the weapons to be covered by the treaty.

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Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/25/us-arms-treaty-un-idUSBRE92O0ZW20130325

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1. UN majority demands stronger treaty to stop unregulated arms sales

Source: The Guardian

UN majority demands stronger treaty to stop unregulated arms sales

Statement signed by 103 member states calls on president of
arms conference to strengthen draft and resolve loopholes

Karen McVeigh in New York
guardian.co.uk, Monday 25 March 2013 21.48 GMT

A majority of UN member states have issued a statement saying that the latest draft of an international treaty to end unregulated arms sales is a "step backwards" from earlier language.

The statement, which is currently circulating at the negotiations in New York and has been signed by 103 countries, calls for the text to be strengthened to "produce a strong and effective treaty, which lives up to the expectations expressed by the overwhelming majority of states".

They have called for ammunition to be brought more fully into the treaty and for it to include gifts, loans and leases, as well as monetary transfers, of weapons between countries. States have also called for the treaty to prevent weapon transfers where there is a "substantial risk" – rather than an "overriding risk", as the draft currently states – of violations of human rights law.

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Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/25/united-nations-unregulated-arms-treaty