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Nicholas Gilby assesses the Government’s support for an Arms Trade Treaty
The Control Arms campaign for an Arms Trade Treaty was launched in
October 2003 by Amnesty International, Oxfam and the
International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA), which includes
CAAT. It calls for an international treaty to make states “exercise the
highest degree of responsibility in international arms transfers”.
The campaign uses a set of ‘Global Principles for Arms Transfers’
in its advocacy activities
(www.iansa.org/control_arms/documents/att-bms-en.pdf)
What is an Arms Trade Treaty?
An Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) would be a legally binding treaty that would
prevent transfers which:
- breach international law (e.g. UN embargoes)
- lead to serious violations of human rights, international
humanitarian law and crimes against humanity
- are likely to adversely affect regional stability and sustainable
development
Additionally the treaty would force states to provide annual reports on
their arms exports and submit to common standards of export control.
On the agenda
Control Arms has had much success this year. At the UN Biennial Meeting
of States on Small Arms in July, 13 countries agreed to support the
introduction of an ATT, and in October in Luxembourg the 25 EU
countries did as well. Currently 42 countries are backing an ATT.
The UK backs it too – Jack Straw announced his support at 2004’s
Labour Party Conference, and spoke at greater length at a Saferworld
lecture in March 2005. Labour and the Liberal Democrats both included
support for an ATT in their election manifestoes. The campaign has
pushed arms control up the international agenda for the foreseeable future.
CAAT’s position
CAAT formally supports an ATT. An international instrument that
genuinely stopped arms exports to human rights abusers, regions of
tension and warmongers the world over would be a great step forward.
To be effective, though, such a treaty must not only prevent the circulation
of Kalashnikov rifles amongst African conflict zones by shady arms
brokers. It must also address state involvement in the arms trade: the
fundamental engine of both the ‘legal’ and the ‘illegal’ trade (indeed,
an estimated 90 per cent of ‘illegal’ arms transfers begin in ‘legal’ sales).
The key question for us is ‘how would an ATT change UK arms
exports?’ Jack Straw’s speech in March was hazy on the treaty’s
desired outcome. He did gesture at the central aspects of the arms trade
that underpin CAAT’s advocacy, stating that the “tanks of repressive
regimes account for an enormous amount of avoidable human misery
across the world”; noting that in the Congo “six years of conflict have
caused millions of deaths”; and arguing that “developing countries
who spend already over-stretched budgets on armaments for which
they have no clear need are bound to have too little left for health,
education and vital infrastructure.”
Changes
What kind of changes in the UK arms trade, then, are needed to
satisfy Straw’s criteria?
- To stop the “tanks of repressive regimes” Labour would have
prevented Britain’s export of Scorpion tanks and Saracen
Armoured Personnel Carriers, used in Jakarta in 1998 during
the last days of the Suharto dictatorship, when hundreds were
killed. They were used by the Indonesian Army in Aceh in 2002
and 2003, when they committed massive violations of international
humanitarian law.
- Labour would have stopped the sale of spares for Hawk jets for
Zimbabwe, used in the Congo war which caused “millions of deaths”.
- Labour would stop promoting sales to Pakistan, desperately
impoverished in parts, yet committing a quarter of
government spending to arms.
Government response
Yet the responses of UK Government
departments to the ATT tell a
different story. The Foreign and
Commonwealth Office has made it
clear that,
since the UK's existing regulations
were the standard to which an ATT
would bring other countries, they did
not envisage an ATT altering the
pattern of UK arms exports at all.
Tellingly, when this summer CAAT met with Alan Garwood, the head of
the MOD’s Defence Export Services Organisation (DESO), Garwood
professed not to have even heard of the ATT. And harmonising arms trade
regulations in this way would in any case suit the domestic arms industry,
forever complaining about not competing on a “level playing field”.
This perhaps explains why the Defence Manufacturer’s Association
is amongst the ATT’s official supporters.
For the ATT to have a positive impact on the role of the UK and
other arms trade giants proliferating arms across the globe, the gap
between Straw’s rhetoric and its political reality needs drastic change.
NICHOLAS GILBY IS A MEMBER OF CAAT’S STEERING
COMMITTEE
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