On April 2, 2013, the U.N. General Assembly overwhelmingly approved a major new treaty regulating international trade in several of the most important categories of conventional weapons and associated materiel. Of the Member States whose delegations were present when the vote was taken, 154 voted in favor, 23 abstained (including China, Russia, and India). Only three countries cast ‘no’ votes: Iran, Syria, and North Korea.
The new treaty (PDF) does several important things: it restates — in clear and unambiguous language — existing prohibitions on weapons transfers which take place in contravention of U.N. embargoes and agreements on arms trafficking. It explicitly prohibits arms transfers in which the transferring state knows that the weapons in question will be used to commit genocide or crimes against humanity, to contravene international humanitarian law, or to attack civilians. It requires transferring states to assess the likelihood that any weapons they are about to ship might be used to “commit or facilitate” violations of international humanitarian law — and, more generally still, whether those weapons will “contribute to or undermine peace and security” once in the hands of recipient states. Finally, the treaty includes an important reporting requirement: ratifying states must submit reports of their transfers to a supervisory body constituted by the treaty itself and designed to facilitate consultation and consensus among the several parties.
This framework looks likely to require further elaboration once the treaty goes into force — which, per Article 22, will happen 90 days after the fiftieth state signs it. UN-watchers expect that this threshold will be crossed relatively easily, and that the document’s provisions will therefore acquire binding force sooner rather than later, but the abstentions from the General Assembly vote are still somewhat worrisome. China and Russia are two of the world’s largest exporters of conventional weapons. The United States, another influential player in the global arms industry, supported the treaty’s passage and the latter stages of its drafting but may not ratify it due to (largely exaggerated) domestic concerns about its constitutionality.
An interesting quirk of treaty law — and particularly of treaty law relating to weapons — is that, while the provisions of a given instrument might be formally binding only on its parties, if the number of parties is high enough those provisions can effectively become the new international standard, operative even in countries that opt not to ratify. Given the strength of the support for the conventional weapons treaty in the General Assembly, such an outcome is not unthinkable in this case.
It is most certainly an outcome to be hoped for.