John Duncan

RETURN TO THE ARMS TRADE TREATY (ATT)

Tomorrow I will be back in London to join 150 students from schools and universities across Britain for a workshop on the Arms Trade Treaty organised jointly with the NGO alliance Control Arms who have been lobbying for an ATT for more than a decade. Bill Rammell until recently an FCO minister, now at the MOD will join us for part of the day.

The event is part of Control Arms week of action on the ATT (15- 19 June) and promises to be a refreshing change from the diplomatic trench warfare of multilateral arms control and disarmament. Fortunately young people are generally not concerned with rules of procedure, agenda’s and mandates. They want the world to be a better place. Their impatience and clear vision is a healthy reminder to the professionals that it really is high time we moved beyond the decade of deadlock to a decade of decisions.

Most of my blog posts over the past two months have focussed on the nuclear weapons proliferation, in part because the DPRK tests and concerns about Iran have dominated the media headlines, but also because we have at long last begun to make progress in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty and on a new treaty to ban the production of Fissile Material for nuclear weapons.

Kofi Annan once remarked, that in terms of people killed and injured every day, conventional weapons are the worst Weapons of Mass Destruction.  So as someone whose job bridges both nuclear and conventional weapons proliferation, I am acutely aware that one of the key elements of making progress towards a World Free of Nuclear Weapons is to stop the uncontrolled proliferation of conventional weapons.

Next month discussions will reconvene at the United Nations in New York on a future Arms Trade Treaty to establish a legally binding framework for the effective regulation of the international arms trade. Grace Mutandwa has blogged on the impact of the current absence of such regulation in her own country. Other Foreign Office colleagues will provide their own perspectives in the coming days. Readers can also follow the event on Twitter .

Posted at 08:43 14 June 2009 by John Duncan  |  Comments[3]