John Duncan

ARMS TRADE TREATY: WORK CONTINUES

Guest Blogger - Jesse Clarke, Assistant Legal Adviser, Foreign & Commonwealth Office

This week I gave a presentation on the Arms Trade Treaty to a group of UK academics who specialise in international law.  

The presentation took place as part of the FCO Legal Advisers' Annual Academic Seminar and provided an opportunity to report on recent progress made towards an Arms Trade Treaty.  Of particular interest to the audience was the idea that an Arms Trade Treaty would seek to establish strong and universal standards against which states could assess arms transfers.  

Many of these standards are anchored in international law and reflect states' existing obligations, commitments or responsibilities under international law (e.g. regarding UN sanctions, human rights, humanitarian law and sustainable development).

From the lawyers’ perspective, an ATT is a modest but significant project.  Modest because it does not seek to redefine existing international law, and yet significant because it would require states to consider arms transfers through the prism of international law as it exists today.  The presentation ended with a useful discussion.  It is fair to say that the academics are supportive of an ATT and see it as a very positive development. 

They asked some probing questions about state responsibility for arms transfers, the likely scope of an ATT, and our engagement with the US and the Commonwealth, but  I am confident that the exchange of ideas between government lawyers and academics will assist the effort to negotiate a strong ATT that is fit for purpose.

As John has commented on Twitter, picking up a War Child post On the Congo: “1,400 people died needlessly today. And yesterday. And they will tomorrow”. So the humanitarian case for an ATT is being measured in human lives. The UN Secretary General has said several times that while we must deal with the threat posed by Nuclear Weapons proliferation, Conventional Weapons and their uncontrolled proliferation are currently the most destructive Weapons of Mass Destruction.

Posted at 01:12 12 May 2009 by John Duncan  |  Comments[2]