Consensus, compromise, and strength

by Katherine Prizeman, Global Action to Prevent War

The opening of the “Final Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty” and the general exchange of views saw a myriad of statements from Foreign Ministers and other delegates from diverse global regions. There was a general commitment by most delegates that the time for serious discussion on the concrete details of the text has come and that overly general statements or continued reiteration of well-known state positions has passed. Despite this positive sense of commitment and urgency, there remains a yawning gap between the necessity of reaching consensus through unfettered compromise and the commitment to retain a strong treaty and fight for certain indispensable components and provisions without which an ATT would be meaningless in practice.
 

Demanding more from an arms trade treaty

by Ray Acheson, Reaching Critical Will of WILPF

  

On Thursday afternoon, the president of the arms trade treaty (ATT) conference released a new draft text. After two days of nearly round-the-clock negotiations, however, the new text is still full of potential loopholes. Several areas of the text need to be amended before this treaty could be considered as a step toward plugging holes in the poorly regulated arms trade.