BREAKING NEWS: UN Arms Trade Treaty – Full Proposed Document

International Association for the Protection of Civilian Arms Rights ^

[Neil E. Wright]

PREAMBLE             

The States Parties to this Treaty.

1. Guided by the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations.
2. Recalling that the charter of the UN promotes the establishment and maintenance of international peace and security with the least diversion for armaments of the world’s human and economic resources;
3. Reaffirming the obligation of all State Parties to settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered, in accordance with the Charter of the UN;
4. Underlining the need to prevent, combat and eradicate the illicit trade of conventional arms and to prevent their diversion to illegal and unauthorized end use, such as terrorism and organized crime;
5. Recognizing the legitimate political, security, economic and commercial rights and interests of States in the international trade of conventional arms;
6. Reaffirming the sovereign right and responsibility of any State to regulate and control transfers of conventional arms that take place exclusively within its territory pursuant to its own legal or constitutional systems;
7. Recognizing that development, human rights and peace and security, which are three pillars of the United Nations, are interlinked and mutually reinforcing.
8. Recalling the United Nations Disarmament Commission guidelines on international arms transfers adopted by the General Assembly;
9. Noting the contribution made by the 2001 UN Programme of Action to preventing combating and eradicating the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons in all its aspects, as well as the 2001 Protocol against the illicit manufacturing of and trafficking in Firearms, their parts and components and ammunition, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime;
10. Recognizing the security, social, economic and humanitarian consequences of the illicit trade in and unregulated trade of conventional arms;
11. Recognizing the challenges faced by victims of armed conflict and their need for adequate care, rehabilitation and social and economic inclusion;

[ModelBreaker]

Here's what folks are missing: " 2. Each State Party Shall establish and Maintain a national control system to regulate the export of munitions to the extent necessary to ensure that national controls on the export of the conventional arms covered by Paragraph a1 (a)-(h) are not circumvented by the export of munitions for those conventional arms. "- 3. Each State Party shall establish and maintain a national control system to regulate the export of parts and components to the extent necessary to ensure that national controls on the export of the conventional arms covered by Paragraph A1 are not circumvented by the export of parts and components of those items." Note that the state parties are required to have a national control system that regulate the export of guns and that assures that the EXPORT CONTROLS ARE NOT CIRCUMVENTED. It's a pretty small step from there for a federal judge to rule or for the ATF to pass administrative regulations that require registration of all firearm and ammo purchases in the US. Registration would be necessarily required by this restriction. Otherwise, the unregistered stuff could be exported and that would circumvent the export controls. How can a state know whether guns are being exported unless they know who has all the guns. This treaty is a very sticky wicket and will eventually lead to very bad things.

[ModelBreaker]

“You asked a poster where the gun registry was in the doc, I asked you where #1 was.”

The registry is required in the language I quote in post 181. It requires a national control system that prevents people from “circumventing” the controls on export of firearms. There is no way governments can prevent circumvention unless they know where every gun in the country is and who owns it.

This treaty is bad juju.

[ModelBreaker]

And here’s another one:

“State Parties shall put in place adequate measures that will allow them, where necessary, to monitor and control imports of items covered by the scope of the Treaty. State Parties shall also adopt appropriate measures to prevent the diversion of imported items to unauthorized end users or to the illicit market.”

Of course, this one only covers arm imported from, say, Europe instead of all arms, like the language I quoted in post 181.