U.S. Must Uphold the Arms Trade Treaty’s Limits at 1st Conference of States Parties

By Ammoland

By Ted R. Bromund, Ph.D.
This article first appeared at The Heritage Foundation.

Washington, DC –-(Ammoland.com)- The first Conference of States Parties (CSP) to the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) will be held in Cancun, Mexico, on August 24–27, 2015.

This CSP will establish the rules of procedure for this and all future CSPs, decide how to organize and fund the treaty secretariat, adopt procedures for the reporting mandated by the treaty, and perhaps begin the campaign to amend the treaty.

At the CSP, the U.S. needs to resist efforts to set precedents and create institutions that could be used to expand or reinterpret the treaty. The U.S. delegation should respect Congress’s opposition to funding the secretariat and, above all, emphasize that the treaty is the creation of U.N. member states and is to be implemented by only those states, not by the treaty secretariat or by a coalition of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs).

The Rules of Procedure

Article 17 of the ATT requires the states party to the treaty to convene a CSP no later than one year after the ATT entered into force, which occurred …read more

Source:: AmmoLand