UN approves arms trade treaty

File photo: The General Assembly building at the United Nations headquarters in New York. The Dockrat cousins, now alleged to be running military training bases in South Africa, remain on the US sanctions list.

File photo: The General Assembly building at the United Nations headquarters in New York. The Dockrat cousins, now alleged to be running military training bases in South Africa, remain on the US sanctions list.

Published Apr 3, 2013

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New York - The 193-nation United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved the first treaty on the global arms trade, which seeks to regulate the $70-billion business in conventional arms and keep weapons out of the hands of human rights abusers.

There were 155 votes in favour, 3 against and 22 abstentions. Venezuela - which had said it planned to abstain - Zimbabwe, Dominican Republic, Sierra Leone and Vanuatu were not allowed to vote because they were in arrears on their UN dues.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon welcomed the vote, saying the treaty “will make it more difficult for deadly weapons to be diverted into the illicit market and... will help to keep warlords, pirates, terrorists, criminals and their like from acquiring deadly arms”.

Iran, Syria and North Korea last week prevented a treaty-drafting conference at UN headquarters from reaching the required consensus to adopt the treaty. That left delegations that support it no choice but to turn to a General Assembly vote to adopt it.

The Iranian, Syrian and North Korean delegations cast the sole votes against the treaty on Tuesday.

Iran, which is under a UN arms embargo over its nuclear programme, is eager to ensure its arms imports and exports are not curtailed, while Syria's government is embroiled in a two-year civil war and relies on arms from Russia and Iran, envoys said.

North Korea is also under a UN arms embargo due to its nuclear weapons and missile programmes.

The treaty will be open for signature on June 3 and will enter into force 90 days after the 50th signatory ratifies it. Mexican UN Ambassador Luis Alfonso de Alba told reporters it normally takes two to three years for a treaty to come into force, but said he hoped it would happen sooner in this case.

Major arms producers China and Russia joined Cuba, Bolivia, Nicaragua and other countries in abstaining.

A number of countries, led by India, which also abstained, complained the treaty favoured exporting over importing states. Russia said Moscow would take a hard look at the treaty before deciding whether to sign it.

Several delegates told Reuters the treaty's effectiveness would be limited if major arms exporters refuse to sign it.

The United States, the world's top arms exporter, voted in favour of the treaty despite fierce opposition from the National Rifle Association (NRA), a powerful US pro-gun lobbying group.

US Secretary of State John Kerry said in a statement the UN adopted “a strong, effective and implementable Arms Trade Treaty that can strengthen global security while protecting the sovereign right of states to conduct legitimate arms trade”.

“Nothing in this treaty could ever infringe on the rights of American citizens under our domestic law or the Constitution, including the Second Amendment,” he added, referring to the US constitutional amendment that guarantees the right to bear arms.

The NRA opposes the treaty and has vowed to fight to prevent its ratification by the US Senate when it reaches Washington. The NRA says the treaty will undermine domestic gun rights, a view the US government has strongly rejected.

Syrian UN Ambassador Bashar Ja'afari repeated that his government opposes the arms trade treaty because it does not ban the sale of weapons to non-state actors and “terrorists” like those it says are active in Syria. The civil war there has claimed at least 70 000 lives, according to UN estimates.

Syria routinely refers to rebels trying to oust President Bashar al-Assad as “terrorists” backed by foreign governments.

The treaty does not ban transfers to armed groups, but says all arms transfers should be subjected to rigorous risk and human rights assessments first.

British Prime Minister David Cameron hailed the vote as a “landmark agreement that will save lives and ease the immense human suffering caused by armed conflict around the world”. - Reuters

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