Guns at the ballot box

Since many of our regular readers belong to what’s referred here as the ‘Geneva disarmament community’, it might be of interest to have a brief look at what their Swiss hosts have recently been up to on the weapons regulation front.

As many who live in Switzerland are aware, Swiss citizens enjoy the right to ‘popular initiative’; that is, they can propose a change to the federal constitution and submit it to a nation-wide vote, provided they manage to collect 100’000 voter signatures within 18 months in support of the initiative.

One such popular initiative recently managed to gather the required number of signatures and even made it into the foreign press.The initiative for the ‘protection against gun violence’ proposes stricter regulation in Swiss law of the private use, acquisition and carrying of weapons and munitions. It would require legislators to specify the licensing requirements for hunters, collectors, sportsmen and other professionals who wish to possess weapons, and calls for the establishment of a federal firearms registry. In addition, the law would oblige the federal authorities to advocate the reduction of small arms availability at the international level.

But what has really caused a stir among the Swiss is that, outside of military service, army weapons would have to be deposited in secure military facilities. Switzerland has a militia army, and military service is (in principle) compulsory for men. It means that about 200’000 Swiss men undertake military service in annual courses of a few weeks in duration every year. Outside of this period, such men are required to keep their military weapon at home and cannot leave it in the military arsenal.

Proponents of the initiative argue that to store military guns in cupboards or under the bed is not required for effective national defence. They say the practice can be connected to gun homicides and relatively high suicide rates in Switzerland. Nevertheless, the initiative strikes at the heart of the Swiss ‘keep-your-gun-at-home’ tradition. Opponents, including, naturally, the right wing Swiss People’s Party (SVP/UDC) see this as undermining the very foundations of the militia army (which plays an important role in Swiss national identity), and is thus a threat to the security, independence and sovereignty of the country. When exactly this initiative will be put to the vote – and whether Switzerland’s Parliament will present a counter-proposal – is yet to be decided.

Another popular initiative, ‘against new fighter jets’, is currently at the stage of signature collection. If this initiative reaches the voting stage, the Swiss will have to decide on whether to impose a moratorium on the purchase of new fighter jets from 2010 until December 2019. The initiative was launched mainly with a view to decreasing Swiss military expenditure, but also because there is no possibility to call for a referendum once a decision on an armaments purchase has been made. Whether the committee initiating this effort will succeed in collecting the necessary signatures is unclear. It is worth recalling that an initiative ‘against the noise of fighter jets in tourism regions’ failed at the ballot in February last year, and several previous initiatives to limit the size of the Swiss army were also voted down.

One initiative deposited successfully in 2007 called for a ‘prohibition on the export of war materials’. It obliges the federal authorities to support and further international disarmament and arms control efforts and it would prohibit the export of war materials (regulated by the ‘Swiss Federal Act on War Materials’), including small arms, light weapons and ammunition, and special military goods (subject to the Swiss ‘Goods Control Act’), as well as technologies that are of particular importance for the development and use of these goods. The brokering of the transfer of these goods to recipients abroad would also be prohibited. Exceptions are provided for mine clearance, sport and hunting devices, as well as weapons that Swiss authorities use abroad and re-import subsequently. The proponents of the initiative consider that Switzerland’s ‘business with death’ is at odds with the country's world-wide humanitarian engagement and peace promotion policies, and is also inconsistent with its claim to neutrality. Moreover, they express concern about the impact of this trade on international peace, security and sustainable development in recipient countries.

The Federal Council has advised the Swiss Parliament to reject the initiative, though. Parliament has to take a decision by March 2010. Whereas the government acknowledges that an export ban on war materials would not have severe consequences for the Swiss economy, it warns that the Swiss army would depend on foreign armaments production to ensure the country’s defence as, without exports, Switzerland's arms industry would largely perish. As independence from other states is – for many Swiss – still part of their self-understanding (Switzerland is not in the EU and has joined the UN only in 2002) this argument could cause many to reject the initiative.

On the other hand, revelations about the use and misuse of war materials and related goods ‘made in Switzerland’ in conflicts abroad have repeatedly shocked the Swiss public. The latest such incident involved a Swiss Pilatus aircraft exported to Chad for military pilot training, which was later equipped for and used in an attack in Darfur in January 2008. This prompted the federal council to call for a strengthening of the licensing criteria of such goods. Additional grounds for denying an export license in cases where the recipient state is involved in an internal or international armed conflict or where there is a risk that the good would be used against the civilian population were initially envisaged. However, the draft amendment of the Goods Control Act presented last month turned out to be rather vague. On the basis of the new paragraph the Federal Council may deny a license if the ‘protection of substantial interests of the country so demands’.

Whether this change in legislation will indeed be enough to avoid further war materials export scandals is doubtful. Many might find this kind of response inadequate and support more radical measures, such as a total ban on war materials exports.

Maya Brehm

Photo credit: Image used by the women's magazine 'Annabelle' in their campaign against army guns at home. Taken from IANSA's website.

Moving closer to an Arms Trade Treaty

Glen Cove Mansion, Long Island, NY, where the Geneva Forum held a high-level retreat on an Arms Trade Treaty last weekend (Photo by Mike Costolo on Flickr)

Imagine a legally-binding multilateral treaty that would regulate the global trade in all conventional arms. Under such a treaty, States would be obliged to take into account certain criteria before authorising arms exports. These criteria could include the importing State's respect for international humanitarian and human rights law, the overall security situation in the recipient State's region, and the risk of the exported arms being diverted or misused, for example.

Believe it or not, such a treaty does not yet exist. States do have a range of obligations under existing international law when it comes to the arms trade. These are contained, however, in a patchwork of disparate regulations at the global, regional and national levels, some of which are legally-binding, some not. This would not be so much of a problem if States consistently complied with the obligations they already have. The fact is, not all do, and so the irresponsible trade in conventional arms continues.

But an 'Arms Trade Treaty' (ATT) is in the works. The purpose of such a treaty would be to identify and clarify States' existing obligations under international law when it comes to the arms trade and to compile these into a single, legally-binding treaty text that would provide clear criteria for States to use when deciding whether or not to authorise an arms export.

The UN General Assembly identified the need for an ATT in 2006 with resolution 61/89. This resolution, supported by 153 States, put in motion a process for elaborating such a treaty. It solicited the views of all UN Member States on the feasibility, scope and parameters of an ATT. An unprecedented 98 States made their views known. The vast majority of these believe that an ATT is both needed and feasible (see the 2007 and 2008 UNIDIR reports analysing the views of States).

The resolution also established a Group of Governmental Experts (GGE) to continue examining the feasibility, scope and parameters of an ATT, informed by the views expressed by UN Member States. The GGE, comprising experts from 28 States from all regions of the world, met for two weeks during the first half of 2007. On July 28, the GGE began its final, two-week meeting, during which it should draft a report to this autumn's session of the UN General Assembly. It will then be up to the General Assembly to decide how best to proceed towards an ATT.

On 25-27 July - over the weekend before the GGE began its final session - the Geneva Forum convened an informal meeting at Glen Cove Mansion on Long Island, New York, (pictured above) to discuss the modalities of moving towards an effective Arms Trade Treaty. Twenty-one of the 28 States represented on the GGE participated, together with 13 other interested States and a number of experts from NGOs, international organisations and the arms industry.

The purpose of the meeting was to facilitate interaction between GGE members and a wider group of States, along with civil society and industry experts, and also to provide constructive input to the work of the third and final meeting of the GGE by providing an opportunity for wider stakeholders to air their views on areas of substance. The discussion that took place was both interesting and illuminating and provided a rare insight into the ambitions and concerns held by certain key States. I do not have space here to summarise the weekend's discussion but a brief (4 pages) report of the meeting is available online.

The meeting demonstrated two things very clearly. First, there is a very high level of support for an effective Arms Trade Treaty among States, civil society, international organisations and the arms industry. Second, there are currently some differences of opinion, particularly among States, on the scope of an ATT and on the parameters that should be used in its application if it is to be effective.

The outcome of the meeting also suggests two things; first, that the differences of opinion that do still exist are not insurmountable and, second, that there would seem to be a strong preference for an ATT with a broad scope and relevant, clear parameters that include, at a minimum, considerations related to the respect of UN Security Council arms embargoes, international human rights law and international humanitarian law.

As the recent 3rd Biennial Meeting of States to consider implementation of the UN Programme of Action on small arms and light weapons demonstrated, many States are losing patience with the low level of results being posted by multilateral disarmament and arms control processes (see our post "UN small arms process 'back on track'." A lot of time and resources have already been invested in moving the ATT process to the stage it is at today. Much more work remains to be done if negotiations are to be successfully initiated and concluded and if an ATT is to be put into practice in a timely and effective manner.

The eyes of the international community are on the GGE as it commences its final meeting. The international community expects from the GGE a full examination of the issues before it so that progress towards an effective ATT can be continued.

Patrick Mc Carthy

The Arms Trade Treaty that States Want

I've just arrived back to Geneva from an eventful week spent in New York at the First Committee of the UN General Assembly, the one that deals with disarmament and international security. In my last posting, I described the First Committee as a "carnival," and it certainly lived up to expectations. Imagine representatives of almost 200 States crammed into a conference-room, each trying to persuade the others to support draft resolutions on some aspect of arms control that they are preparing. And that's just what happens on the margins! Only when one puts on an ear-piece does it become apparent that, somewhere in the cacophony of noise, a delegate is actually making an official statement or participating in a thematic debate.

Last week was the week for thematic debates on such issues as conventional weapons, regional disarmament and security, and the "disarmament machinery." This week, States will be voting on all draft resolutions before the First Committee wraps up its work on Friday. Once all the votes have been registered, I will do a retrospective posting analysing what has been achieved this year (you can also follow what is going on, week by week, by subscribing to the First Committee Monitor).

For now, I would like to focus on a number of lunchtime events that took place last week on an Arms Trade Treaty (see our previous posts on this issue). To recap, last year's First Committee passed a resolution calling for a new treaty to regulate the trade in all conventional weapons. As a first step, States were encouraged to send their views to the UN Secretary-General on the feasibility, scope and draft parameters of such a treaty. To date, some 97 States have done so; an unprecedented number for such an exercise.

These submissions have been analysed by two organisations, working independently. The United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR) presented an initial statistical analysis of the submissions, constituting the first part of a two-part analysis that UNIDIR plans to complete by the end of the year. You can listen to the presentation at the UN Audio Library. A coalition of NGOs - including the leaders of the Control Arms Campaign; Oxfam, Amnesty International and IANSA - presented a comprehensive analysis of the submissions entitled, "A Global Arms Trade Treaty: What States Want." So what do these two studies tell us about the kind of Arms Trade Treaty that States want?

First and foremost, it would seem that most States agree that such a treaty is feasible. 153 States voted in favour of the Arms Trade Treaty resolution last year. Of the States that have submitted their views to the Secretary-General, 89 specifically state their belief in its feasibility. Also, a number of regional and international instruments relating to the arms trade already exist. Finally, an Arms Trade Treaty would largely collect and codify fundamental principles of international law that also already exist.

What States think about the scope of an Arms Trade Treaty can best be illustrated by a quote from the UNIDIR study:

"Most States indicated that an Arms Trade Treaty should cover 'all conventional weapons.' Many gave specific examples such as 'tanks and other armoured vehicles', 'combat aircraft', 'helicopters', 'warships' and so on. Most states included 'small arms and light weapons', 'landmines' and 'Man Portable Air Defence Systems (MANPADS)' in their lists.

In addition, some States included within the scope of the treaty such items as ammunition, parts and components, technology, and manufacturing equipment, as well as activities like brokering, licensed production and technical assistance.

The criteria that States consider most important to take into consideration before authorising arms transfers are: Security Council arms embargoes, human rights considerations, potential violations of international humanitarian law, and possible diversion to terrorists or use in terrorist acts.

The Geneva Forum will bring the authors of the two studies together at the beginning of next year to compare results and to help transmit any lessons learned from the analyses to the Group of Governmental Experts that will conduct an Arms Trade Treaty feasibility study beginning in February 2008.


Patrick Mc Carthy


Reference

Photo credit: Control Arms