In international negotiations, while the interests and will of the States engaged in the process guide the outcome, the people in the room matter. Stimson brought together some of the original stakeholders involved in the ATT process, including diplomats and civil society researchers and advocates, a decade after its adoption to provide reflections on the ATT’s past decade and key insights into the treaty’s current impact and future trajectory.
Read all the commentaries and the report on the ATT at 10 webpage.
From 2008 through 2012, I led the ATT process. From the first Group of Governmental Experts that looked at the parameters, scope, and feasibility of a potential Arms Trade Treaty, through the Open-Ended Working Group and to the end of the July 2012 negotiations, I looked to find the common ground in those working towards common purpose. As I think back over those years, I am reminded of how much of an accomplishment this was.
During the Cold War, countries and blocs used arms transfers as tools to establish or maintain spheres of influence. Arms transfers were jealously guarded secrets in many States, and militaries frequently did not share information on them with their civilian counterparts. In the early to mid-1990s, as the Cold War ended and the geopolitical situation began to change substantially, the proliferation of conventional weapons began to attract more attention, and several sets of guidelines or principles on arms transfers were agreed upon by regional groups of countries. Though such groupings included some of the world’s largest arms exporters, there was no globally oriented activity. In 1991, lessons learned from the First Persian Gulf War led UN Member States to create the UN Register of Conventional Arms (UNRoCA) to promote transparency in the conventional arms trade. The UNRoCA was broadly supported by exporting States, but it was only a confidence-building measure that collected data on licit transfers of heavy weapons to help identify “excessive and destabilizing accumulations” of arms.
In the mid-1990s focus on arms transfers shifted towards small arms and light weapons (SA/LW), and civil society became increasingly vocal on arms transfer issues. SA/LW were outside the scope of the UNRoCA, but they were regarded by many as the most destabilizing conventional weapons — they seemed to be fueling conflicts around the world. This led to the creation in 2001 of the UN Programme of Action to Prevent, Combat and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects (UNPoA). However, disagreements on the extent of the problem and on how it should be resolved led to the UNPoA existing as a political commitment, not a treaty, focused narrowly on combatting the illicit trade in SA/LW.
By 2006 attention had moved back to conventional arms as a whole and the need to address their licit trade to tackle the problems arising from their irresponsible transfer. That fall, seven countries — Argentina, Australia, Costa Rica, Finland, Japan, Kenya, and the United Kingdom — circulated a resolution in the UN General Assembly’s First Committee (UNFC) titled “Towards an Arms Trade Treaty (ATT).” The resolution attracted widespread but not universal approval, with three of the largest arms exporters not in support. Although these same three States also did not support the UNFC resolution in 2007 that convened a UN Group of Governmental Experts (GGE), they participated in the GGE when it was convened in 2008. This was real progress.
I chaired the 2008 GGE on the ATT, and it included many of the largest importing and exporting States. The mandate of the GGE was to discuss “the feasibility, scope and draft parameters for a comprehensive, legally binding instrument establishing common international standards for the import, export and transfer of conventional arms.” Views in the Group on an ATT ranged from ardent supporters who wanted a treaty done yesterday, to skeptics who feared that such a treaty would inevitably either be too weak to make a difference or too strong to attract enough members to make a difference, to opponents who did not want a treaty at all. However, the Group put aside the debate over whether it was possible to satisfy everyone in a treaty and instead focused on the question of what an ATT would need to do for it to be “feasible.” Over the course of three sets of meetings, the Group came together around a recommendation for further work on the international arms trade at the UN (rather than at an ad-hoc forum that was not open to all Member States) on a step-by-step basis (spreading the discussions out over several years to build common ground) in an open and transparent manner (engaging with stakeholders in civil society and industry to take advantage of their knowledge and experience), on the basis of consensus (needed to get ‘buy-in’ from those who feared an ATT). The Group recognized that States acquire and produce arms for different reasons, that exporters and importers have different responsibilities and interests, that arms traded illicitly can be used for terrorist acts, organized crime, and other criminal activities, that all States need to ensure that their national systems and internal controls are at the highest possible standards, and that some States will need assistance in doing this. This was not a treaty, but it identified many of the issues that would be involved within such a treaty and laid out a forward-moving path if subsequent discussions bore fruit.
The UN embraced this direction by convening an Open-Ended Working Group (OEWG) for the ATT in 2009 and then pivoting to Preparatory Committee Meetings in 2010 and 2011. I chaired those meetings as well. While the 2008 GGE laid out a general framework for what it thought a “feasible” ATT would have to do, it made no real attempt to discuss either its substantive content or how it should go about such context-heavy discussion. The 2009 OEWG robustly exchanged views on the goals and objectives of a feasible ATT, the scope of a potential ATT, the principles and draft parameters of a potential ATT, and other aspects to be addressed by a potential ATT. In these discussions, I paid careful attention to what was said, focusing more on where common ground existed rather than on where there was disagreement. By the end of OEWG’s 2009 discussion, the different perspectives on the ATT began to coalesce around a general outline for a feasible ATT, even if its specifics were still unformed. It would need to be global, cover arms identified as potentially threatening and/or destabilizing, include the various ways that arms are transferred (export, import, and transshipment), respect the national sovereignty of States, contain objective and agreed-upon global criteria reflecting the responsibilities of both exporters and importers, and include reporting and international cooperation and assistance. In short, an ATT would have to be a mixture of the UNRoCA and UNPoA, but put on steroids. The progress made at the OEWG led some key skeptics of a treaty to reassess their views and come around to support a negotiation with a properly framed mandate. Accordingly, the remaining OEWGs planned for 2010 and 2011 were repurposed into Preparatory Committees (PrepComs) for a 2012 UN Conference on the ATT.
With the switch from discussion to negotiation and a deadline of July 2012 for concrete results, work ramped up considerably. Multilateral negotiations of arms control, disarmament, or nonproliferation agreements generally happen at a glacial pace and are conducted by States in private due to security interests. However, the ATT was going to be a hybrid treaty combining trade regulation (of admittedly lethal items) with security and humanitarian concerns. The complexity of the issues involved in the arms trade and the relatively short timeline for completion required a ‘big tent’ approach with all key stakeholders participating: Member States (who would be bound by a treaty), industry (who would be regulated by States in carrying out their treaty obligations), and civil society (including or representing those who are most directly affected by the irresponsible transfer of arms). Everyone had something to contribute.
Consultations between States intensified as they took advantage of the time between the PrepComs to start hammering out substantive positions on content, both bilaterally and in larger groupings. Civil society and industry each began lobbying States in earnest trying to influence this content, with each sharing their unique perspectives and experiences. As Chairman, I consulted widely with stakeholders and listened carefully to what was said in the room at the UN. I took the same approach as I had at the 2008 GGE — listening for common ground and looking for what was possible. To avoid participants fighting over commas in a rolling text filled with brackets, I prepared a Chairman’s text with what I believed to be the way forward and continually updated it to reflect the discussions in the room. I made these texts slightly provocative to challenge people to evaluate and defend their positions. Ad hoc coalitions constantly formed and reformed around individual issues, and we managed to avoid the traditional regional groupings that tended to lock people into group positions that they did not always fully agree with.
All of this came together in 2012 at the UN Conference on the ATT. We had a draft text that reflected the middle ground between all stakeholders and thus enjoyed widespread support. No one party was fully happy with all its content, but it seemed to have everything that people said they needed. Admittedly it had some rough edges that needed sanding and could have benefited from further refinement, but it was all there. Unfortunately, what was not there was enough time to perfect the text in 2012. That would have to wait until 2013 and the Final Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty.
The end result of this work is something unique, the culmination of more than twenty years of discussion and ten years of implementation against a constantly changing international stage. We have a treaty that balances the interests of States against the wishes of civil society and the needs of industry; a treaty to which two-thirds of the UN membership have committed themselves. It promotes greater responsibility by States on their arms transfers and, for the first time, formally brings humanitarian concerns into the security space of arms transfers. It lays out how the international arms trade can be conducted in a responsible manner — something that no one would have expected at the start of this journey. It does not accomplish everything that everyone wanted it to do, but it does achieve what everyone agreed that it must… or least it provides the framework for doing so.
H.E. Ambassador Roberto García Moritán, Former Ambassador of Argentina to the UN and Chair/President of ATT Process 2008-2012
The ATT at 10
By H.E. Ambassador Roberto García Moritán
Conventional Arms
In international negotiations, while the interests and will of the States engaged in the process guide the outcome, the people in the room matter. Stimson brought together some of the original stakeholders involved in the ATT process, including diplomats and civil society researchers and advocates, a decade after its adoption to provide reflections on the ATT’s past decade and key insights into the treaty’s current impact and future trajectory.
Read all the commentaries and the report on the ATT at 10 webpage.
From 2008 through 2012, I led the ATT process. From the first Group of Governmental Experts that looked at the parameters, scope, and feasibility of a potential Arms Trade Treaty, through the Open-Ended Working Group and to the end of the July 2012 negotiations, I looked to find the common ground in those working towards common purpose. As I think back over those years, I am reminded of how much of an accomplishment this was.
During the Cold War, countries and blocs used arms transfers as tools to establish or maintain spheres of influence. Arms transfers were jealously guarded secrets in many States, and militaries frequently did not share information on them with their civilian counterparts. In the early to mid-1990s, as the Cold War ended and the geopolitical situation began to change substantially, the proliferation of conventional weapons began to attract more attention, and several sets of guidelines or principles on arms transfers were agreed upon by regional groups of countries. Though such groupings included some of the world’s largest arms exporters, there was no globally oriented activity. In 1991, lessons learned from the First Persian Gulf War led UN Member States to create the UN Register of Conventional Arms (UNRoCA) to promote transparency in the conventional arms trade. The UNRoCA was broadly supported by exporting States, but it was only a confidence-building measure that collected data on licit transfers of heavy weapons to help identify “excessive and destabilizing accumulations” of arms.
In the mid-1990s focus on arms transfers shifted towards small arms and light weapons (SA/LW), and civil society became increasingly vocal on arms transfer issues. SA/LW were outside the scope of the UNRoCA, but they were regarded by many as the most destabilizing conventional weapons — they seemed to be fueling conflicts around the world. This led to the creation in 2001 of the UN Programme of Action to Prevent, Combat and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects (UNPoA). However, disagreements on the extent of the problem and on how it should be resolved led to the UNPoA existing as a political commitment, not a treaty, focused narrowly on combatting the illicit trade in SA/LW.
By 2006 attention had moved back to conventional arms as a whole and the need to address their licit trade to tackle the problems arising from their irresponsible transfer. That fall, seven countries — Argentina, Australia, Costa Rica, Finland, Japan, Kenya, and the United Kingdom — circulated a resolution in the UN General Assembly’s First Committee (UNFC) titled “Towards an Arms Trade Treaty (ATT).” The resolution attracted widespread but not universal approval, with three of the largest arms exporters not in support. Although these same three States also did not support the UNFC resolution in 2007 that convened a UN Group of Governmental Experts (GGE), they participated in the GGE when it was convened in 2008. This was real progress.
I chaired the 2008 GGE on the ATT, and it included many of the largest importing and exporting States. The mandate of the GGE was to discuss “the feasibility, scope and draft parameters for a comprehensive, legally binding instrument establishing common international standards for the import, export and transfer of conventional arms.” Views in the Group on an ATT ranged from ardent supporters who wanted a treaty done yesterday, to skeptics who feared that such a treaty would inevitably either be too weak to make a difference or too strong to attract enough members to make a difference, to opponents who did not want a treaty at all. However, the Group put aside the debate over whether it was possible to satisfy everyone in a treaty and instead focused on the question of what an ATT would need to do for it to be “feasible.” Over the course of three sets of meetings, the Group came together around a recommendation for further work on the international arms trade at the UN (rather than at an ad-hoc forum that was not open to all Member States) on a step-by-step basis (spreading the discussions out over several years to build common ground) in an open and transparent manner (engaging with stakeholders in civil society and industry to take advantage of their knowledge and experience), on the basis of consensus (needed to get ‘buy-in’ from those who feared an ATT). The Group recognized that States acquire and produce arms for different reasons, that exporters and importers have different responsibilities and interests, that arms traded illicitly can be used for terrorist acts, organized crime, and other criminal activities, that all States need to ensure that their national systems and internal controls are at the highest possible standards, and that some States will need assistance in doing this. This was not a treaty, but it identified many of the issues that would be involved within such a treaty and laid out a forward-moving path if subsequent discussions bore fruit.
The UN embraced this direction by convening an Open-Ended Working Group (OEWG) for the ATT in 2009 and then pivoting to Preparatory Committee Meetings in 2010 and 2011. I chaired those meetings as well. While the 2008 GGE laid out a general framework for what it thought a “feasible” ATT would have to do, it made no real attempt to discuss either its substantive content or how it should go about such context-heavy discussion. The 2009 OEWG robustly exchanged views on the goals and objectives of a feasible ATT, the scope of a potential ATT, the principles and draft parameters of a potential ATT, and other aspects to be addressed by a potential ATT. In these discussions, I paid careful attention to what was said, focusing more on where common ground existed rather than on where there was disagreement. By the end of OEWG’s 2009 discussion, the different perspectives on the ATT began to coalesce around a general outline for a feasible ATT, even if its specifics were still unformed. It would need to be global, cover arms identified as potentially threatening and/or destabilizing, include the various ways that arms are transferred (export, import, and transshipment), respect the national sovereignty of States, contain objective and agreed-upon global criteria reflecting the responsibilities of both exporters and importers, and include reporting and international cooperation and assistance. In short, an ATT would have to be a mixture of the UNRoCA and UNPoA, but put on steroids. The progress made at the OEWG led some key skeptics of a treaty to reassess their views and come around to support a negotiation with a properly framed mandate. Accordingly, the remaining OEWGs planned for 2010 and 2011 were repurposed into Preparatory Committees (PrepComs) for a 2012 UN Conference on the ATT.
With the switch from discussion to negotiation and a deadline of July 2012 for concrete results, work ramped up considerably. Multilateral negotiations of arms control, disarmament, or nonproliferation agreements generally happen at a glacial pace and are conducted by States in private due to security interests. However, the ATT was going to be a hybrid treaty combining trade regulation (of admittedly lethal items) with security and humanitarian concerns. The complexity of the issues involved in the arms trade and the relatively short timeline for completion required a ‘big tent’ approach with all key stakeholders participating: Member States (who would be bound by a treaty), industry (who would be regulated by States in carrying out their treaty obligations), and civil society (including or representing those who are most directly affected by the irresponsible transfer of arms). Everyone had something to contribute.
Consultations between States intensified as they took advantage of the time between the PrepComs to start hammering out substantive positions on content, both bilaterally and in larger groupings. Civil society and industry each began lobbying States in earnest trying to influence this content, with each sharing their unique perspectives and experiences. As Chairman, I consulted widely with stakeholders and listened carefully to what was said in the room at the UN. I took the same approach as I had at the 2008 GGE — listening for common ground and looking for what was possible. To avoid participants fighting over commas in a rolling text filled with brackets, I prepared a Chairman’s text with what I believed to be the way forward and continually updated it to reflect the discussions in the room. I made these texts slightly provocative to challenge people to evaluate and defend their positions. Ad hoc coalitions constantly formed and reformed around individual issues, and we managed to avoid the traditional regional groupings that tended to lock people into group positions that they did not always fully agree with.
All of this came together in 2012 at the UN Conference on the ATT. We had a draft text that reflected the middle ground between all stakeholders and thus enjoyed widespread support. No one party was fully happy with all its content, but it seemed to have everything that people said they needed. Admittedly it had some rough edges that needed sanding and could have benefited from further refinement, but it was all there. Unfortunately, what was not there was enough time to perfect the text in 2012. That would have to wait until 2013 and the Final Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty.
The end result of this work is something unique, the culmination of more than twenty years of discussion and ten years of implementation against a constantly changing international stage. We have a treaty that balances the interests of States against the wishes of civil society and the needs of industry; a treaty to which two-thirds of the UN membership have committed themselves. It promotes greater responsibility by States on their arms transfers and, for the first time, formally brings humanitarian concerns into the security space of arms transfers. It lays out how the international arms trade can be conducted in a responsible manner — something that no one would have expected at the start of this journey. It does not accomplish everything that everyone wanted it to do, but it does achieve what everyone agreed that it must… or least it provides the framework for doing so.
H.E. Ambassador Roberto García Moritán, Former Ambassador of Argentina to the UN and Chair/President of ATT Process 2008-2012
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