“By vetoing this historic document, Iran, North Korea and Syria demonstrate the challenges civil society and supportive governments faced during the negotiations. In campaigning for this treaty, we called upon states to save lives and reduce human suffering and, fortunately, most governments heeded the call,” said Widney Brown, Senior Director of International Law and Policy at Amnesty International.

All three countries are under some form of sanctions, including arms embargoes, and have abysmal human rights records – having even used arms against their own citizens. The atrocities they have committed are precisely the type that the draft treaty aims to prevent, Amnesty said.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon also expressed his disappointment with the failure of the Final United Nations Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) to reach an agreement among all 193 Member States on a treaty text during the last day of the conference.

Some 2,000 representatives of Governments, international and regional organizations and civil society had gathered in New York since 18 March to hammer out the details of what was seen as the most important initiative ever regarding conventional arms regulation within the UN.

If passed, the treaty would have applied to all conventional arms within the following categories: battle tanks, armoured combat vehicles, large-calibre artillery systems, combat aircraft, attack helicopters, warships, missiles and missile launchers, and small arms and light weapons, according to the draft text.

Armed violence kills more than half a million people each year, including 66,000 women and girls. In addition, between 2000 and 2010, almost 800 humanitarian workers were killed in armed attacks and another 689 injured, according to the UN Office for Disarmament Affairs.

The previous attempts to reach a consensus on the treaty ended without success in July 2012. In December, the UN General Assembly agreed to a final conference and set today as the deadline for the two-week negotiations.

“You are not here to initiate new negotiations. You are here to strengthen and conclude the work that has been done in earnest since the beginning of the ATT process in 2006,” Mr. Ban told representatives from 193 Member States in his opening remarks to the conference in New York.

He added that now is the time for the focus and political will to negotiate the final details and arrive at a consensus outcome during the nine-day conference. “That is the clear message of the General Assembly when it decided that this is the Final United Nations Conference on the ATT.”

The last negotiations on the ATT ended in July of last year without agreement. Disappointed, Mr. Ban described it as a “setback” but also noted that States had reached considerable common ground that can be built on.

In today’s speech, Mr. Ban noted that international standards regulate everything from t-shirts to toys and tomatoes, and he questioned why “there are common standards for the global trade in armchairs but not the global trade in arms.”

An effective and strong ATT will put on notice warlords, pirates, human rights abusers, organized criminals, terrorists and gun runners, Mr. Ban said, and require exporting countries to assess the risk that weapons will be used to commit grave violations of international humanitarian law or even fuel conflict.

Armed violence, he noted, kills more than half a million people each year, including 66,000 women and girls.

In addition, between 2000 and 2010, almost 800 humanitarian workers were killed in armed attacks and another 689 injured, according to the UN Office for Disarmament Affairs.

“We owe this landmark UN treaty to those who have fallen victim to armed conflict and violence, to all the children deprived of a better future, and to all those risking their lives to build peace and make this a better world,” Mr. Ban said.

Some 2,000 representatives of Governments, international and regional organizations and civil society have gathered at UN Headquarters to take part in the negotiations and related events.

The process is overseen by Ambassador Peter Woolcott of Australia who took over today as president of the conference.

“My door will always be open,” he told participants during his opening statement, adding that by “working together we can make the Arms Trade Treaty a reality.”

Mr. Woolcott urged participants to focus and to reach a consensus, reminding them that “expectations are high and time is limited.”

According to the conference’s website, the proposed treaty will not interfere with the domestic arms trade and the way a country regulates civilian possession; ban, or prohibit the export of, any type of weapons; impair States’ legitimate right to self-defence; or lower arms regulation standards in countries where these are already at a high level.

An arms trade treaty will, it pointed out, “aim to create a level playing field for international arms transfers by requiring all States to abide by a set of standards for transfer controls, which will ultimately benefit the safety and security of people everywhere in the world.”

The negotiations from 18-28 March are an opportunity for states to agree rules to end irresponsible arms transfers across borders that fuel grave abuses of human rights. This is an acid test for states to demonstrate their commitment to human rights and humanitarian law.

“Syria, Mali, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Sri Lanka are just a few recent examples where the world bore witness to the horrific human cost of a reckless global arms trade steeped in secrecy,” said Salil Shetty, Amnesty International’s Secretary General.

“It shouldn’t take millions more dying and lives destroyed before leaders show some backbone and take action to adopt global standards to effectively control international arms transfers. They have this historic opportunity to save lives – they need to seize it and stop arms from fuelling atrocities.”

The nine-day ATT conference at the UN follows on from last July when UN negotiations ended without an agreement due to delaying tactics by a handful of states opposed to its goals. In particular, the USA was reluctant to do a deal before the presidential elections. But last November, 157 states voted in favour of returning to the negotiating table this month to finalize the treaty text.

For almost two decades, Amnesty International has been at the forefront of efforts to win a legally binding treaty grounded in international human rights and humanitarian law. Previous attempts before World War Two to forge an arms trade treaty collapsed in part because of the absence of such standards.

Existing UN arms embargoes are only imposed after atrocities have been documented. Because of the lack of agreed systems of regulating arms transfers, they mostly fail to stop the supply of weapons and munitions that continue to fuel atrocities and serious violations of human rights on a massive scale.

That is why it is so important for states to take responsibility for the arms they supply and include a Golden Rule in the treaty. States should assess any proposed transfer to see if there is a substantial risk the arms will be used to commit or facilitate serious human rights violations. If there is such a risk, the transfer should not take place.

“No government or political leader admits publicly that it is acceptable to aid those who commit crimes and human rights abuses – whether in conflict or peacetime – but since the treaty talks began no rule has appeared in the draft texts to prohibit putting arms into the hands of such perpetrators,” said Brian Wood, Amnesty International’s Head of Arms Control and Human Rights.

“Around the world, people are now watching this process hoping their political leaders will not fail them – survivors of armed violence and their communities are crying out for a strong Arms Trade Treaty with clear, universal rules for human rights protection at its core.”

In a briefing released last week, Amnesty International singled out the five permanent members of the UN Security Council – China, France, Russia, the UK and the USA – as shouldering the greatest burden in making a strong treaty a reality. They are charged with maintaining international peace and security, yet in 2010 they accounted for approximately 60 per cent of the more than US$70 billion annual trade in conventional weapons. Their economic interests are growing as the trade is expected to reach US$100 billion annually in the next few years.

Between them, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council – China, France, Russia, the UK and the USA – are responsible for over half of the almost US$100 billion total annual global trade in conventional weapons.

The same five states will be pivotal to finalizing an effective Arms Trade Treaty with strong human rights protections at the conference taking place at the UN from 18-28 March.

All this week in the run-up to that historic meeting, Amnesty International activists and supporters are holding a “Global Week of Action” to call on world leaders to adopt an effective Arms Trade Treaty with strong human rights protections.

“It’s clear that the five permanent members of the UN Security Council are responsible for the lion’s share of arms deals across borders – and so collectively they must shoulder the greatest burden in bringing the poorly regulated global arms trade in check,” said Helen Hughes, researcher on arms transfers at Amnesty International.

The 12-page briefing, Major powers fuelling atrocities, includes examples of arms transfers from each of the five countries to states around the world, where they are likely to be used to commit or facilitate serious violations of international humanitarian and human rights law.

According to the briefing, the USA – by far the world’s largest arms trader – frequently exports “non-standard ammunition” to its friends and allies. Rather than being US-made, these arms and equipment are sourced from abroad – typically from the former Soviet Union and Eastern European companies.

It adds, that a  September 2012 contract between the US military and Yemen lists 1 million rounds of sniper rifle ammunition as well as thousands of RPG rockets and mortar bombs. The USA has become Yemen’s largest supplier of military equipment, and in 2011 delivered arms worth US$4.8 million.

The USA is among countries that have tried to weaken the draft text of the Arms Trade Treaty by seeking to exclude certain types of weapons and ammunition from its scope, Amnesty says.

Amnesty International is pressing for the final treaty to cover all types of weapons and munitions for use in military and internal security operations, as well as related equipment, parts and technology.

“No opt-outs should be allowed, and to be effective, the treaty must have a ‘Golden Rule’ requiring states to halt arms exports when there is a substantial risk the arms will be used to commit or facilitate serious violations of international humanitarian or human rights law,” said Brian Wood, Amnesty International’s Head of Arms Control and Human Rights.

“Also, the treaty should completely ban the transfer of arms that would aid or assist in crimes under international law, including extra-judicial killings, torture and enforced disappearances.”

State-owned companies in China account for the bulk of the country’s exports of conventional arms. In recent years they have shipped to countries including Zimbabwe, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Sudan, the briefing says.

France has sold vehicles that can be militarized (“véhicules civils militarisables”) to Sudan, where they have been used by government-backed Janjaweed militia who have committed gross human rights violations in the country’s Darfur region, according to the briefing.

Syria historically received the majority of its weapons and munitions from the Soviet Union, and has continued to do so from Russia, the world’s second-largest arms trader by value, according to Amnesty.

Since 2011 when protesters were being killed across the country for calling for freedoms and even after the situation escalated into an internal armed conflict between government and opposition forces in July 2012, Russia and China have blocked efforts at the UN to impose an arms embargo and sanctions on Syria.  Amnesty International has documented a range of Russian and Soviet-era arms and military equipment – ranging from aircraft to cluster bombs – being used in Syria.

“While it won’t be a panacea for all of the world’s misuse of arms, if we get a strong Arms Trade Treaty it will be an important step towards achieving much more security and human rights protection for billions of people who today live in fear,” said Wood.

The International Defence Exhibition and Conference (IDEX), held every two years in the United Arab Emirates capital, bills itself as one of the biggest arms bazaars in the world.

This week’s IDEX concludes on 21 February, less than a month before states convene at the United Nations in New York to finalize a historic Arms Trade Treaty where the USA, China and some other states are hoping to get weaker treaty controls.

Amnesty International has repeatedly flagged how the poorly regulated global arms trade contributes to war crimes and other serious human rights violations around the world and since the 1990s has highlighted the problem of unregulated arms brokering.

“The wide array of conventional weapons being displayed at IDEX this week stands in sharp contrast to the narrow scope of items proposed by the USA, China and other states for the draft Arms Trade Treaty,” said Brian Wood, Amnesty International’s Head of Arms Control and Human Rights.

“And if their proposed human rights rules and brokering controls in the treaty remain weak, companies will continue to garner hundreds of millions of dollars worth of weapons deals for unscrupulous buyers.”

International arms fairs and exhibitions like IDEX are one of the main ways for governments and defence industry associations to promote and broker international sales of weapons, munitions, and other military and security equipment and services.

Among the more than 1,100 companies from almost 60 countries exhibiting this week at IDEX, Amnesty International has identified a number of manufacturers from key arms-exporting countries whose products have previously been used in areas where serious human rights abuses have taken place.

For example, state-owned arms manufacturers from China exhibiting at IDEX this week have heavy weaponry, such as artillery systems, on display. Pakistani companies are advertising a range of munitions including small arms ammunition, mortars, artillery shells, and bombs.

Both countries have supplied a wide range of arms to Sri Lanka, which emerged from a bitter, three-decade armed conflict in 2009. During the final years of the conflict, from 2000 to 2009, Amnesty International identified China as one of the biggest arms suppliers to the Sri Lankan armed forces. Both Sri Lanka’s government and the armed separatist group, Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), committed serious human rights violations and abuses, and tens of thousands of civilians were killed, with many more injured and abused

Also on display at IDEX this week are a wide range of “less lethal” weapons – including chemical irritants like tear gas and crowd-control equipment such as baton rounds and water cannon. 

Police and security forces have deployed such weapons across the Middle East and North Africa to repress the massive popular uprisings that have taken place in the region since early 2011.

Among the manufacturers exhibiting such “less-lethal” weapons are two companies from the USA and France whose tear gas has been used in Bahrain. Another US firm has supplied such weapons to Egypt. In both Bahrain and Egypt, protesters have died or been severely injured during 2011 and 2012 as a result of the security forces allegedly misusing tear gas

So far 111 states have signed, ratified or acceded to a separate international treaty banning these weapons.

Cluster bombs have been used in recent conflicts. Russian and Spanish-made cluster munitions were photographed in 2011 in Libya. Amnesty International found that al-Gaddafi forces used the weapons in residential areas in Libya and also that Syrian government forces used cluster bombs in Syria in 2012.

“It is unconscionable that internationally banned weapons like cluster bombs that blow the legs off children long after conflicts end are still being peddled at a major international trade fair,” said Wood.