MISSING PIECES - Inter-Parliamentary Union

THEME 2
At the Annual Meeting of the International Parliamentary Forum on
Small Arms and Light Weapons in Mexico in October 2005, the Control
Arms campaign launched an initiative called: the Global Parliamentary
Action, which called on parliamentarians around the world to give their
personal support for a global ATT, and asked them to carry forward the
initiative within their own parliaments. Many parliamentarians became
actively engaged on the issue and provided support to the Control Arms
campaign. For example, 61 members of the Danish parliament, from all
political parties, showed their support for the Control Arms campaign by
joining the Million Faces petition leading up to the 2006 Review Conference.
Following the disappointment of the 2006 Review Conference (RevCon),
which proved unable to agree on a concrete way forward on transfer controls,
the First Committee of the UN General Assembly agreed in October
2006 to set up a Group of Governmental Experts “commencing no later
than 2008, to examine the feasibility, scope and draft parameters for a
comprehensive, legally binding instrument establishing common international
standards for the import, export and transfer of conventional arms.”
This marks the first step towards the establishment of an ATT, which will
create legally binding arms controls and ensure that all governments
control arms using the same international standards. However sustained
attention to this issue is required to guide and encourage progress, and
several states still need to be brought on board.
“Just as we cannot be vocal on governmental wrongs but silent on
human rights, we cannot be critical of the illegal trade at weapons
but unconcerned with the legal trade that contributes to it. Common
core global principles based on existing legal obligations and transparency
are critical for us to tackle this out of control problem arms
problem [sic] and its impacts.”
—Costa Rica statement at the UN RevCon, 27 June 2006
At the national and regional levels, a number of arms supplying states
have progressively adopted minimum arms transfer criteria. There have
been further strides since 2001 to codify transfer criteria for small arms. In
December 2002, the Wassenaar Arrangement 10 adopted the Best Practice
Guidelines for Exports of Small Arms and Light Weapons. The guidelines
identify the circumstances under which exporters should avoid authorising
arms transfers, including the risk of contributing to terrorism, prolonging
or aggravating armed conflict, or diversion to unauthorised recipients. 11
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