The agreement by the UN General Assembly to the Arms Trade Treaty has been seven bargaining years and two decades of lobbying in the making. The welcome vote represents a landmark arms control moment, the first step in the international regulation of the $70 billion conventional trade to keep weapons out of the hands of human rights abusers, terrorists and criminals. In truth, however, it will remain for some time largely an instrument of moral rather than legal persuasion.
The treaty covers tanks, armoured combat vehicles, large-calibre weapons, combat aircraft, attack helicopters, warships, missiles and launchers, small arms. and ammunition. Imports are not covered. It sets standards for all cross-border transfers of such weapons, requiring states to review all contracts and establishing strong control mechanisms and comes into force 90 days after the 50th state ratifies it. It is binding only on ratifying states –Tanaiste Eamon Gilmore has promised Ireland will do so rapidly.
But with three of the world's five largest exporters either abstaining – Russia and China – or facing domestic ratification difficulties – the US – and with opposition and abstention from some of the worst human rights abusers, the likelihood is that only a minority of the world trade will be covered by its ambit. And the treaty was diluted in the course of negotiations, leaving serious loopholes. It focuses on sales, for example, and not on all the ways in which conventional arms are transferred, including as gifts, loans, leases and aid.
Proponents say that if enough states ratify, it will effectively become the international norm. It establishes an international forum of states that will review published reports of arms sales and publicly name violators. Even if the treaty takes time to become international law, they believe, its standards will be used immediately as political and moral guidelines to curb a trade that fuels war and atrocities. Better one tenatative step, than no step at all.