Talks regarding a treaty to better regulate the global sale of arms, hosted at United Nations headquarters in New York, kicked off Monday. The treaty is the first of its kind, and the talks will last a month.
Proponents of the treaty have said that ongoing conflicts in Syria, Mali, Sudan, and recently, Libya, are fueled by the unregulated trade of weapons and ammunition, which fall into the wrong hands. The worldwide arms trade is estimated to be worth approximately $60 billion per year.
They say that poorly regulated or illegal arms sales have contributed to the problem in poorer countries and fuel not only conflicts, but poverty, and human rights abuses. According to some estimates, 750,000 people are killed each year by illegal weapons.
Most countries that belong to the U.N. are in favor of a strong treaty, but some governments, such as India, Japan, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia, have expressed concern that it would undermine their ability to defend themselves. European governments, including Germany, France, and the U.K. have strongly pushed for a treaty.
If a treaty is ratified, those who sign it would have to regulate companies that produce arms and crack down on arms dealers who operate illegally inside those countries.
“In Syria, Sudan, and the Great Lakes of Africa, the world is now once again bearing witness to the horrific human cost of the reckless and overly secret arms trade,” said Brian Wood, the arms control director with Amnesty International. “Why should millions more people be killed and lives devastated before leaders wake up and take decisive action to properly control international arms transfers?”
Aid agency Oxfam showed a video of how easy it is to acquire a weapon in the small sub-Saharan African nation of Burundi, which has been rocked by civil wars and regional conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, and Rwanda. The video shows that a grenade costs as much as a pint of beer, showing the availability of small arms around the world.
There is no guarantee that the deal—even a watered-down version—will go through by the end of the month.
The United States, the world’s largest exporter of arms, wants to exclude ammunition from the treaty, while China, another exporting and importing heavyweight, wants small arms and “gifts” to be excluded.
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