PRESS RELEASE FROM THE PERMANENT MISSION OF BELIZE TO THE UN
- Following close to a decade of intensive efforts to forge consensus on an international legal instrument to regulate the trade in conventional arms, the United Nations finally adopted a historic Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) on Tuesday, 2 April 2013.
- With the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Syrian Arab Republic blocking consensus on the text during the Arm Trade Treaty Conference held 18 – 28 March 2013, a group of undeterred countries including Belize brought the text to the General Assembly for adoption. The treaty was adopted with 154 votes in favour.
- This Treaty “has the potential to provide significant human rights protection and curb armed conflict and violence if all governments demonstrate the political will to implement it properly and develop it in the future” said a release from Amnesty International.
- The Treaty requires those countries that export arms and ammunition to maintain national records, and prohibits the export of arms and ammunition which would be used in the commission of genocide, crimes against humanity, grave breaches of the Geneva Convention of 1949, attacks directed at civilians protected as such, or other war crimes.
- Also, a country exporting arms and ammunition is required to assess, inter alia, before concluding the export, whether there is a risk that the arms and ammunition will be used to facilitate serious acts of gender-based violence or serious acts of violence against women and children.
- For Belize, there are additional benefits. In the long term, it is expected that small arms and light weapons and the ammunition, parts and components to utilise these weapons, will become less available for diversion to the illicit markets that facilitate endless violence and untold suffering in our small community.
- The new Arms Trade Treaty is not perfect, but the Government of Belize considers it a commendable start.
