Nairobi, Kenya (PANA) – Millions of people around the world will continue to suffer the deadly consequences of the poorly-regulated global trade in weapons until many more governments take rapid steps to bring the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) into force, Amnesty International said.
In sounding the warning, the global watchdog said a year after the UN General Assembly overwhelmingly adopted the treaty, governments have not taken rapid steps to sign and ratify it.
On April 2, 2013, a total of 155 states voted in the UN General Assembly to adopt the ATT and 118 states have since signed the treaty, indicating their willingness to eventually bring it into their national law, the watchdog said in a press statement.
But 43 of the states that supported the adoption of the treaty last year have yet to take any action whatsoever.
“Too many governments have been dragging their heels. The list of 43 absent signatures is mostly made up of countries where armed conflicts, violent repression and gun violence are more frequent, yet those states have the most to gain from the treaty.
”This is a major failure of political leadership,” said Brian Wood, Head of Arms Control and Human Rights at Amnesty International. “Remarkably, Kenya, which was part of a group of states that originally called on the UN to back the ATT, has not even signed the treaty.”
Although 17 of the European Union’s 28 member states will ratify the treaty at the UN on 2 April 2014, the total will still fall far short of the 50 ratification needed for the treaty to enter into force. Up till now, only 13 states worldwide have ratified the ATT.
The ATT has a number of rules intended to enhance human rights protection for hundreds of millions of people whose lives and livelihoods are threatened by the proliferation and abuse of conventional arms.
If implemented effectively and robustly, the ATT will stop the flow of weapons to countries when it is known they would be used to commit or facilitate genocide, crimes against humanity or war crimes.
