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NEW DELHI – The United Nations Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) membership is on the up. 111 countries have ratified the agreement since it came into force in 2014, and a further 30 countries have signed it.
The Philippines is the newest member, joining in March 2022. However, the treaty’s efforts to regulate the transfer of conventional weapons continue to be questioned, ignored and breached – by ATT’s signatories and other powerful nations.
August 22 to 26 saw state parties to ATT holding their eighth annual conference in Geneva to discuss its future and its major challenges. All parties to ATT are required to provide annual reports detailing their trade in conventional weapons in the preceding year. But, with its rising numbers of signatory states, the proportion of those who comply has fallen from 84% in 2015 to just 52% in 2021.
This means nearly half the signatories are not submitting these reports or do not trade in conventional weapons – which means their actions have little significance to the treaty’s aims and objectives. This apparently waning commitment makes ATT’s growing number of state parties almost irrelevant.
No doubt most international conventions have similar limitations and, especially when not supported by major powers, they become vulnerable to breaches. But ATT has failed to draw into its fold both world’s major importers and exporters of conventional arms.
The world’s largest producer and exporter of conventional weapons, the United States, signed ATT in 2013 but has never ratified it. In April 2019, former president Donald Trump announced the US would be “revoking the effect of America’s signature” from ATT. (The treaty has no such provisions other than withdrawal with advance notice.) His successor, President Joe Biden has not yet made any statement about President Trump’s “unsigning”.
Russia, another major exporter, has not signed it yet and remains outside its remit. China joined it in July 2020 but the world’s largest importer, India, is also yet to sign it.
Interactive map of arms transfers each year since 1950. James Goldie, 360info. Data: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
Dominant nations control of weapons trade
It is not that powerful nations have had no interest in regulating arms trade. They have been especially effective in responding to the threat of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) that they believe threaten their own security. They have imposed strong regulatory regimes on transfers of WMD including ballistic missiles and even on the proliferation of their technologies, materials and know-how.
Likewise, thanks to major powers’ expensive WMD modernisation programmes, their related arms control seems to focus only on those weapons they were already planning to discard. This has allowed them to ban those WMDs that less powerful nations were still struggling to invent or acquire – thereby ensuring their security by widening the gap between less powerful nations’ inventories from these dominant nations’ own arsenals.
Amongst major WMD-possessing nations, their mutual arms control aims to ensure robust deterrence by garnering mutually assured destruction strategies to disincentivise initiating an unwinnable nuclear conflict. But driven by major powers’ interests, regulations on conventional weapons cannot compare to similar multilateral export-control mechanisms for WMDs and ballistic missiles.
This is because the same dominant nations are also the main exporters of conventional weapons. Indeed, reluctance to regulate conventional weapons trade can be seen amongst both major exporters (US, Russia, China) and major importers (India, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, China) of conventional weapons.
The lure of financial and political windfalls from the conventional weapons trade has made ATT’s task a difficult one. Therefore, states and non-state actors continue to fight each other with weapons on both sides – supplied by the same manufacturers.
ATT indeed gets further circumscribed by the fact that it seeks to control weapons transfers, especially to state and non-state violators of humanitarian laws, while its remit remains limited only to its state parties’ voluntary actions.
Even there, the treaty does not interfere with signatory states’ domestic production and distribution, nor does it discourage their exports or use of weapons for self-defence. ATT depends on signatory states to voluntarily enact national laws in preventing exports of lethal weapons as defined by ATT to what it deems to be violators of international norms and conventions; organised-crime cartels and terrorists being easy examples.
Subjectivity in reporting by states
Following the framework of the UN Register of Conventional Arms, established in 1991, ATT expects signatory states to submit annual reports on their imports and exports of conventional weapons. Collectively, this can help ATT showcase data on broader trends and influence global public opinion against illegal and illegitimate weapons transfers. But as decades of debate have shown, these submissions have remained vulnerable to subjective national perceptions and priorities. States have subjectively interpreted definitions of illegitimate and illegal weapons transfers, which has limited their adherence to ATT’s objectives.
It has been nearly impossible to build consensus on preferred guidelines for what constitutes illegal arms transfers and how these should be regulated. One country’s terrorists are another country’s freedom fighters.
Countries are often seen supporting groups and nations that others might see as going against agreed norms and laws, especially when dealing with transnational crime, cross-border terrorism, and insurgencies. New weapons technologies – even within the domain of conventional weapons – present another complex and constantly unfolding set of challenges for the interpretation of ATT provisions.
While expanding the number of signatories to ATT may have merit, it is perhaps time to focus on strengthening its efficacy amongst its signatory parties. The eighth ATT conference must revisit its strategies and basic assumptions to explore why powerful states continue to defy its logic. That would be an important step towards ensuring greater control over the world’s increasing inter and intra-state violence. – The Vibes, August 28, 2022
Swaran Singh is Professor of Diplomacy and Disarmament at Jawaharlal Nehru University (New Delhi) and currently Visiting Professor at the University of British Columbia (Vancouver, Canada).
Published under Creative Commons and in partnership with 360info.org
