Photo: (Reuters)
Negotiators will reconvene this week to try to hammer out a landmark U.N. treaty designed to regulate the multibillion-dollar global arms trade amid objections from a bipartisan group of legislators and the most powerful gun-rights lobbying group in the U.S.
Governmental representatives will meet in New York starting Monday to try to reach consensus on the Arms Trade Treaty, which would require all countries to establish national regulations to control the transfer of conventional arms and to regulate arms brokers.
The draft treaty under consideration does not control the domestic use of weapons in any country, but it would prohibit states that ratify the treaty from transferring conventional weapons if they would violate arms embargoes or if they would promote acts of genocide, crimes against humanity or war crimes.
In considering whether to authorize the export of arms, the draft says a country must evaluate whether the weapon would be used to violate international human rights or humanitarian laws or be used by terrorists, organized crime or for corrupt practices.
Many countries, including the United States, control arms exports, but there has never been an international treaty regulating the estimated $60 billion global arms trade. For more than a decade, activists and some governments have been pushing for international rules to try to keep illicit weapons out of the hands of terrorists, insurgent fighters and organized crime.
Hopes of reaching agreement on what would be a landmark treaty were dashed last July when the United States said it needed more time to consider the proposed accord — then Russia and China also asked for a delay.
The National Rifle Association has portrayed the treaty as a threat to gun ownership rights enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. The politically controversial issue of gun regulations has re-emerged since a gunman opened fire on Dec. 14 at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., killing 20 children and six educators.
Last July, the NRA’s CEO Wayne LaPierre told the U.N. that “the NRA wants no part of any treaty that infringes on the precious right of lawful Americans to keep and bear arms.” He added that “any treaty that includes civilian firearms ownership in its scope will be met with the NRA’s greatest force of opposition.”
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