Jakarta Globe, December
25, 2012
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| President Barack Obama says it's time for US lawmakers to tackle the divisive issue of gun control. (AFP Photo) |
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United
Nations. The UN General Assembly voted overwhelmingly on Monday to restart
negotiations on a draft international treaty to regulate the $70 billion global
trade in conventional arms, a pact the powerful US National Rifle Association
has been lobbying hard against.
UN
delegates and gun control activists have complained that talks collapsed in
July largely because US President Barack Obama feared attacks from Republican
rival Mitt Romney before the Nov. 6 election if his administration was seen as
supporting the pact, a charge US officials have denied.
The NRA,
which has come under intense criticism for its reaction to the Dec. 15 shooting
massacre of 20 children and six educators at an elementary school in Newtown,
Connecticut, opposes the idea of an arms trade treaty and has pressured Obama
to reject it.
But after
Obama's re-election last month, his administration joined other members of a UN
committee in supporting the resumption of negotiations on the treaty.
That move
was set in stone on Monday when the 193-nation UN General Assembly voted to
hold a final round of negotiations on March 18-28 in New York.
The foreign
ministers of Argentina, Australia, Costa Rica, Finland, Japan, Kenya and the
United Kingdom — the countries that drafted the resolution - issued a joint
statement welcoming the decision to resume negotiations on the pact.
"This
was a clear sign that the vast majority of UN member states support a strong,
balanced and effective treaty, which would set the highest possible common
global standards for the international transfer of conventional arms,"
they said.
There were
133 votes in favor, none against and 17 abstentions. A number of countries did
not attend, which UN diplomats said was due to the Christmas Eve holiday.
The exact
voting record was not immediately available, though diplomats said the United
States voted 'yes,' as it did in the UN disarmament committee last month.
Countries that abstained from last month's vote included Russia, Saudi Arabia,
Syria, Sudan, Belarus, Cuba and Iran.
Among the
top six arms-exporting nations, Russia cast the only abstention in last month's
vote. Britain, France and Germany joined China and the United States in the
disarmament committee in support of the same resolution approved by the General
Assembly on Monday.
NRA
threatens 'greatest force of opposition'
The main
reason the arms trade talks are taking place at all is that the United States —
the world's biggest arms trader, which accounts for more than 40 percent of
global transfers in conventional arms — reversed US policy on the issue after
Obama was first elected and decided in 2009 to support a treaty.
Obama
administration officials have tried to explain to US opponents of the arms
trade pact that the treaty under discussion would have no effect on gun sales
and ownership inside the United States because it would apply only to exports.
But NRA
Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre told UN delegations in July that his
group opposed the pact and there are no indications that it has changed that position.
"Any
treaty that includes civilian firearms ownership in its scope will be met with
the NRA's greatest force of opposition," LaPierre said, according to the
website of the NRA's lobbying wing, the Institute for Legislative Action
(NRA-ILA).
LaPierre's
speech to the UN delegations in July was later supported by letters from a
majority of US senators and 130 congressional representatives, who told Obama
and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that they opposed the treaty, according
to the NRA-ILA.
It is not
clear whether the NRA would have the same level of support from US legislators
after the Newtown massacre.
US
officials say they want a treaty that contributes to international security by
fighting illicit arms trafficking and proliferation but protects the sovereign
right of states to conduct legitimate arms trade.
"We
will not accept any treaty that infringes on the constitutional rights of our
citizens to bear arms," a US official told Reuters last month.
The United
States, like all other UN member states, can effectively veto the treaty since
the negotiations will be conducted on the basis of consensus. That means the
treaty must receive unanimous support in order to be approved in March.
Arms
control activists say it is far from clear that the Obama administration truly
wants a strong treaty. Any treaty agreed in March would also need to be
ratified by the parliaments of individual signatory nations before it could
come into force.
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