After
Indonesian
Informals, US
Opposes Ammo
in ATT,
Loophole in
Tier?
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
July 20 -- A
week before
the end of the
Arms
Trade Treaty
negotiations,
the mood was
surprisingly
and perhaps
unrealistically
upbeat.
Thursday
evening
negotiators
filed by the
Security
Council
stakeout,
where Inner
City
Press was
covering the
dueling Syria
draft
resolutions,
and headed up
two flights of
stairs to the
Indonesian
Lounge.
There
they
engaged in two
clusters of
"informals,"
with the ATT
president
taking
agreements on
goals and
objectives
from one group
to
the whole.
But
back
in the North
Lawn building
on Friday, one
of the claimed
successes was
being
questioned. A
"tiered"
process the
last
step of which
is for now the
sought after
"shall not"
transfer
weapons to
violators was
found to have
a loophole.
While
a
country "may"
seek to
mitigate the
harm, some
read the
tier as
allowing the
country to
avoid the
"shall not"
prohibition by
NOT seeking to
mitigate. If
the loophole
is closed,
will it still
be agreed?
The
United
States is said
by many
delegations to
be
intransigent
on
including
ammunition in
the ATT,
conflating a
duty at the
time of
transfer with
a duty -- not
in the ATT --
to track the
ammo
post-transfer.
Some
worry that if
this US
concern is
applied to
arms
themselves,
the US will
agree to
nothing.
Earlier this
month, Inner
City Press
asked now -
today -
outgoing lead
US Mission
spokesman Mark
Kornblau to
please "state
the US
position on
ammunition
being covered
by an Arms
Trade Treaty."
Kornblau
and the
Mission to
their credit
quickly
responded,
with a
previous
statement by
another US
representative
to the talks,
Tom
Countryman,
that "the
United States
has made clear
that
ammunition
should not be
included
within the
scope of the
ATT."
Countryman
concluded, as
cited by NGOs,
that
"we
will continue
to listen to
any proposals
for including
ammunition.
Our criteria
in evaluating
such proposals
are simple –
they must be
realistic and
limited in the
burdens they
impose, and
they must be
effective in
achieving the
goals and
objectives of
the ATT. In
the absence of
such a
proposal and a
compelling
case for its
benefits, the
United States
remains
steadfast in
its opposition
to including
ammunition in
the ATT.
So
for now the US
feels no
"compelling
case" has been
made.
The
"Christmas
tree" of items
to include or
not include in
the
ATT, which
Inner City
Press described
last Friday,
is said to
have
been whittled
down. But as
one delegation
put it, the
whole tree can
still catch
fire. Watch
this site.
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