by Joseph P. Tartaro
© Photo by Milton Grant
Executive Editor
The US State Department has spelled out its policy positions for the upcoming Arms Trade Treaty at the United Nations in July and concerned gunowners who have been worrying about the treaty may be able to breathe a sigh of relief.
The United States won’t sign any Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) that prohibits Second Amendment rights, changes any domestic gun and ammunition transfer and possession laws, or alters current US arms export laws, according to a statement by a ranking State Department official on April 16.
Thomas Countryman, assistant Secretary of State, Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation (ISN), articulated the objectives and positions of the US government for the month-long UN headquarters meeting designed to draft a binding international treaty regulating the small arms and munitions trade.
Countryman’s official statement, the first clearly setting out administration policy, is available on the State Department’s website. It was made public at a panel discussion at the Stimson Center in Washington, DC, on April 16. The center named for former Secretary of State and Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson, who served Republican and Democrat presidents, is a non-profit, no-partisan organization promoting international peace and stability.
According to an observer for the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, which has been monitoring the drafting of the ATT over several years, the US goal in the current ATT negotiations is to set international standards for arms exports, which should strive to model related US laws and regulations, that were characterized as the “gold standard” for the world.
After explaining the various areas of ISN activity over years of international munitions control negations, Countryman focused on the enormity of the task of drafting a small arms agreement that would gain consensus among 193 member nations of the UN.
“You don’t have to have a political point of view to be concerned about the situation in Syria, in which old Syrian citizens are today being killed by new, Iranian bullets; to recognize the flow of weapons to areas of conflict is destabilizing for people on the ground and for the international community,” Countryman told his audience.
He explained the US interest in establishing world standards for arms imports and exports as a step forward for stability, noting that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had announced in October 2009 that the US would participate in “negotiations by consensus” for an Arms Trade Treaty that would establish common international standards, standards that would help prevent the acquisition of arms by terrorists and criminals and by those who violate human rights or are subject to United Nations arms embargoes.
In UN parlance, “consensus” means universal agreement.
Countryman went on to highlight the main policy considerations of the US.
“First, this is not a disarmament negotiation; it is an arms trade regulation negotiation. International transfer of conventional armaments is a legitimate commercial and national security activity. Providing defense equipment to reliable partners in a responsible manner actually enhances security, stability, and promotion of the rule of law. We want any Treaty to make it more difficult and expensive to conduct illicit, illegal and destabilizing transfers of arms. But we do not want something that would make legitimate international arms trade more cumbersome than the hurdles United States exporters already face.
“What we want is for other countries … to elevate the international standard for export control of armaments to get it as close to the level that we have in the United States as we can get it.…
“Second, let me be clear once more on the question of domestic transfers. The Treaty must not touch on domestic transfers or ownership. The United States has received widespread international support for this oft-repeated position that only international transfers would come within the purview of this Treaty.”
“We will not support outcomes that would in any way infringe on the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution,” Countryman stated, and then clearly referred to the administration’s receipt of letters from US senators opposing any treaty restricting the Second Amendment.
“This has been the position of the Executive Branch since 2009, and it remains our position today,” Countryman said. “We will not support or agree to any Treaty that would do so. We believe that the international community can draft a Treaty on international arms transfers that would both increase international security and still protect sovereign rights of nations. That is the Treaty that the United States will pursue in July and for which we expect there will be widespread support.”
He went on to say that while the Obama administration has been working long and hard to complete an export control reform that will change how a number of armaments-associated items are treated under US export control laws and regulations, that effort is completely independent of negotiations on the ATT.
However, he noted that one of the central points of the US position in the July Conference is that the ATT will correspond to and be supportive of US export control reform.
Countryman also touched on the ammunition control question which has bothered many in the gun rights movement and the firearms and ammunition industry, and which must continue to be monitored.
“Many states and organizations—many of them without major armaments industries or significant international arms trade—have sought to include ammunition in the scope of an ATT,” he said. “The United States, which produces over seven billion rounds of ammunition a year, has resisted those efforts on the grounds that including ammunition is hugely impractical. We have asked our international partners, who proposed this inclusion, to lay out some specific means where such a fungible and consumable commodity could effectively and practically be accounted for and that would result in a degree of real control consistent with the goals of the Treaty. We are skeptical that there is such a proposal on the table or ready to be proposed, but we will remain open-minded in respecting the wishes of international parties and partners in studying such a proposal.”
Countryman went on to reassure his audience and the public that the positions of the US on an Arms Trade Treaty entering the July negotiations is consistent with the past history of negotiations. He also stressed how difficult it will be to get a multilateral consensus on an actual text, especially in four weeks time, and he rejected the need for any new international organizations to police and enforce any such treaty.
However, whatever the US position in negotiations on the ATT, the voices and votes of 193 different nations may shape a treaty the contents of which will not be known until the UN meetings conclude.
