John Duncan

CLUSTER MUNITIONS: Close But No Cigar

Something of a roller coaster of a week with the discussions in Geneva veering wildly between total collapse in the evening only to bounce back with renewed hope the next morning. In one way this is encouraging as it means that the majority of countries simply refuse to be put off in trying to find a solution, but it is a rather exhausting process and progress is slow. 

The countries who cannot yet join the rest of us in banning cluster munitions usually have large stocks of dumb cluster munitions and believe that it would be too expensive and too risky for their own national defence to give up these weapons. One can understand this. But some of these countries often seem  to fail to understand is that the international community is simply not prepared to accept that people should be allowed to continue to sell dumb cluster munitions, or send them to new areas of conflict. Nor is the international community willing to accept a repeat of what happened in the Lebanon in 2006.

Finding the compromise is still proving elusive.  Despite some very hard work behind the scenes over recent weeks by the US, the French and ourselves, the discussions in the  GGE are essentially stalled. However, we still have until the end of the main CCW meeting next week to find a solution, or agree to continue work next year.  

Posted at 10:37 07 November 2008 by John Duncan  |  Comments[0]

Arms Trade Treaty: The UN Launches Further Urgent Work

A quick note from the Airport lounge as I head back to Geneva. A little over 2 hours ago the UN 1st Committee took a decision to launch further urgent work on the ATT. A good result after 4 weeks intense negotiation by my team.

In  a vote 148 countries voted to support the Resolution, put forward by the UK and the 7 Co-Authors (Argentina, Australia, Costa Rica Finland, Kenya and Japan), an overwhelming majority.

Only the US and Zimbabwe voted against while 18 countries abstained. Of the 18, many said they had difficulties with the procedure rather than the substance. Absolutely right too given the backdrop of the terrible events in the Congo. Any better example of why we need an ATT I can hardly imagine.

Posted at 20:44 31 October 2008 by John Duncan  |  Comments[0]