by Katherine Prizeman, Global Action to Prevent War
During Tuesday’s general debate and open
main committee meeting on final provisions of an arms
trade treaty (ATT), the issue of dispute settlement mechanisms was brought
to the fore. This is an important issue for the treaty negotiations is to
consider in order to ensure the treaty’s ultimate goals can be achieved. Despite the political sensitivity that would
inevitably accompany transfer denials reached under the auspices of an ATT, a
solid dispute settlement process and information exchange mechanism would
provide the opportunity to address the circumstances that led to a denial and
ultimately better achieve the goals of an ATT—to reduce human suffering caused
by the unregulated trade in arms.
As the general debate continued on
Tuesday morning, the delegation
of Colombia noted the importance of including a dispute settlement
mechanism as well as provisions for information exchange in the ATT. Specifically,
Colombia’s delegate called for a procedure through which an exporting country,
before making a final decision regarding a transfer, can inform the importing
country of the decision with reasonable time to provide information “to resolve
the legitimate doubts that the exporter may have.” Furthermore, the Colombian
delegation suggested that the treaty incorporate an information exchange
mechanism through which exporting countries notify all states involved with the
details of the transit and final destination of the weapons on licenses granted
and permissions denied.
There is indeed an incontestable need for
transparency in implementing an ATT on the part of all member states through
their national decision making authorities. However, in light of the Main
Committee II session on final provisions on Tuesday afternoon, it is important
to note that the issue of dispute settlement and information exchange regarding
transfer denials remains a controversial one. During the third
session of the PrepCom in July 2011, member states expressed concerns over
requiring states parties to notify and qualify publicly their decision to deny
a transfer. The positions on such a proposal have ranged from states that are
against notifications in all forms to states that see merit in this practice
but feel greater clarification on those responsibilities is needed.
The Chair’s
paper from July 2011 proposed that each state
party submit annually to the Implementation Support Unit (ISU) a report for the
preceding year concerning, inter alia,
“details of denied transfers and grounds for their denials, particularly highlighting
cases were licensing was granted to previously denied importers.”
Unfortunately, the more
recent Chair’s paper from July 2012 no longer specifies that the ISU will
serve as a repository for transfer denials, but rather focuses only on
facilitating coordination among states parties, conducting outreach activities,
and performing technical and administrative duties. Moreover, the new version
of the Chair’s paper does not specify that records on denials shall be
maintained. This is an unfortunate weakening of the text that, if accepted,
would seriously impede the process of transparent and consistent information
exchange in a clear and codified manner based on concrete treaty text.
