As Arms Trade Treaty PrepCom Nears, Experts Analyze Arms Trade and Recommend Action in Arms Control Today

For Immediate Release July 7, 2010

Media Contacts:  Jeff Abramson, Deputy Director, Arms Control Association (202-463-8270 ext. 109)

(Washington, D.C.) Next week, representative from more than 100 countries will gather at the United Nations in New York City for preparatory committee meetings on a legally binding international arms trade treaty (ATT). In a special section “Getting a Handle on the Arms Trade” in the July/August edition of Arms Control Today, experts analyze the difficulty of monitoring transfers of conventional weapons and provide recommendations for creating a strong international instrument.

Daniel Mack, policy and advocacy coordinator for arms control at the Brazilian nongovernmental organization Instituto Sou da Paz and a leader within the international community pressing for a robust ATT, analyzes the current international debate in “The Arms Trade Treaty PrepCom: Prepared and Committed?” Detailing the key points of contention in the years that have led up to the July 12-23 PrepCom, Mack calls for states to be ambitious. He says, “The worst case scenario would be to move slowly and ultimately accommodate all views…  into a lowest-common-denominator or toothless instrument that could be ratified by all governments but would make none of their citizens safer.

The full article is available online at http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2010_07-08/mack

In another article, titled “The International Arms Trade: Difficult to Define, Measure, and Control,” Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s arms transfer program director Paul Holtom and researcher Mark Bromley note that the international arms trade continues to thrive despite the recent economic downturn. In explaining the challenges of defining and estimating the arms trade, Holtom and Bromley find that while the list of major arms suppliers  remains consistent since the height of the Cold War, the list of top importers is considerably different. They note, “If an ATT can be concluded, the next challenge will be to ensure that states have the capacity to control arms transfers (exports, imports, transit, transshipment, brokering, and other activities covered by transfer controls).”

The full article is available online at http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2010_07-08/holtom-bromley

Additional ATT resources are available online from the Arms Control Association at http://www.armscontrol.org/subject/116/date