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Ban that brooks no delay

Given the atrocities perpetrated with impunity by state forces, it is a moral imperative that the negotiations — scheduled to resume at the United Nations this month — on a comprehensive treaty to regulate the sale of conventional arms should succeed. However, opposition by the United States, Russia, China and India, besides others, to link the trade in arms to the observance of human rights and humanitarian law by recipient countries threatens to block progress. Every year, over 300,000 people are killed by conventional weapons and millions injured, forcibly displaced, and bereaved because of armed violence, according to Amnesty International. Its recent report calls on countries to codify the so-called “golden rule” — not to allow the transfer of arms to states where there is a threat of grave abuses of human rights and humanitarian law.

The consensus that has emerged, since the 2006 Resolution for a global pact, on underwriting provisions related to protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the proposed treaty is also a tacit recognition of the brutalities committed systematically against innocent civilians in the conflict zones. Against this backdrop, the opposition of major arms-exporting countries to a legal framework reveals how entrenched are the vested interests both in the supplier and the recipient states. The governments that facilitate the largest volumes of arms sale, many of whom are advanced democracies, should recognise that curbing unauthorised access is an important element in fostering the rule of law. Moreover, the legitimacy of arms procurement contracts is influenced in no small measure by the stringency of action against deployment for illegal purposes, or for the brutal suppression of dissent.

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