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The Rt Hon. Tony Blair MP
10 Downing Street
London SW1A 2AA
United Kingdom
Fax: 44 20 7925 0918
12 June 2001
Dear Prime Minister,
Re: Priorities for arms control at EU-US
Summit
We are writing on the occasion of the EU-US Summit on 14
June, to urge you to take joint steps to curb the unregulated
flow of arms, including moving forward on a common set of
norms on arms transfers and endorsing a progressive agenda
for the UN 2001 Conference on Small Arms and beyond.
A key priority is to move quickly toward establishing a set
of common arms export criteria, preferably in a legally binding
format. Both the United States and European Union Member Governments
have already committed to building international standards
for regulating arms exports. Operative provision 11 of the
EU Code of Conduct on Arms Exports commits Member States to
encourage other arms exporting states to subscribe to the
principles of the Code. The US International Arms Sales Code
of Conduct Act of 1999 commits the US President to take steps
to begin negotiations aimed at establishing an international
arms sales code of conduct. Furthermore, in a joint declaration
issued at the last EU-US summit in December 2000, it was stated
that the US and the EU share a common vision on the question
of arms exports, that they had special responsibilities in
this respect, and that they were committed to promoting the
highest possible standards of conduct and enhanced export
control practices. Such commitments should translate into
a comprehensive agreement on arms exports as soon as possible.
In addition, we urge you to play a leading role in making
the United Nations Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small
Arms and Light Weapons in all its Aspects a success. This
Conference, to be held from 9 to 20 July, represents a unique
opportunity to address the urgent problems of the proliferation,
misuse and abuse of small arms and light weapons (SALW). It
is crucial that the US and the Member States of the EU work
together to advance a meaningful and substantive "Programme
of Action" which develops and raises international standards
concerning the trade in and use of these classes of weapon.
Together, the EU and the US include three of the Permanent
Five members of the UN Security Council, are responsible for
approximately three quarters of world arms exports, and provide
a substantial proportion of the world's development assistance.
Your combined efforts can make a real difference. But where
the US and the EU cannot agree a common approach, the likelihood
of significant progress will be seriously undermined. The
US and the EU share common interests in ensuring that SALW
are not used to fuel armed conflict or perpetrate human rights
abuses; a failure to grasp this opportunity to promote these
interests would be extremely disappointing.
There are a number of specific issue areas where joint EU-US
positions are of particular importance, including inter
alia the following:
1. The success of the 2001 Conference will depend upon
the extent to which states acknowledge and address the link
between the authorised and illicit trade in small arms and
light weapons. Accordingly, in order for states to make
effective progress in tackling the "illicit" trade in small
arms and light weapons, states must develop a common understanding
of, what constitutes the "illicit" trade in small arms and
light weapons and, accordingly, what should be considered
legal. There already exists a body of international law
which makes clear what constitutes the legal trade. The
EU and the US should ensure that this is made explicit within
the Programme of Action through the elaboration of internationally
agreed criteria governing the international trade in and
use of small arms and light weapons, based on States' existing
obligations under international law.
2. The Conference must explicitly recognise that on a practical
level the authorised and illicit trades in SALW are inextricably
linked. Attempts to address the latter while ignoring the
former fail to consider the fact that many of the SALW in
illicit circulation began their lives as legally manufactured
and traded weapons. The means by which arms become
illicit, for example through lax end-use controls or poor
stockpile management, must be effectively and comprehensively
addressed by the Conference. The EU and the US should therefore
be at the forefront of negotiations on developing agreements
on tightening end-use controls, on effective stockpile management
and on the destruction of surplus stocks.
3. In light of the shared political acknowledgement of
the need to address the problem of irresponsible arms brokering
and trafficking, the existing comprehensive legal controls
on arms brokers and traffickers in the US, and recent moves
in a number of EU states to tighten their own arms brokering
legislation, the EU and US are well placed to endorse calls
for an international binding agreement that creates international
norms and strengthens national laws to prosecute traffickers
and transportation agents who violate those norms. Such
an agreement should include a system of registration and
a licensing requirement for all brokered arms transfers,
as well as penalties for violations.
4. Subsequent to the agreement of the Firearms Protocol,
endorsed by all EU member states and the US, the Conference
creates the ideal forum to develop an international agreement
on the marking and tracing of all SALW, including
those covered by state-to-state transfers and transfers
for the purposes of national security. This should develop
systems for the reliable marking of arms at point of manufacture
and import, including the country and date of manufacture,
the manufacturer and a unique identifying number for each
weapon. There should also be provision for effective record-keeping
on arms production, possession and transfer.
5. As the EU (both as an institution and through its Member
States) and the US play such a central role in providing
development assistance in general, it is vital that they
jointly lend strong support for the development of capacity-building
mechanisms, as well as for development programmes aimed
at reducing demand for SALW. These must be linked to commitments
made within the Programme of Action, for example concerning
specific commitments to support effective stockpile management
through provision of technical and financial assistance.
Other examples include supporting and providing funding,
training and resources for disarmament and demobilization
of ex-combatants and their subsequent rehabilitation and
reintegration into civil society.
6. In light of these commitments, the EU and the US should
work together to make substantive progress toward instituting
internationally agreed standards for controlling arms exports,
both within and without the UN Conference process. NGOs
have been advocating the conclusion of a legally-binding
treaty which codifies states' existing commitments under
international law and to this end have developed a draft
Framework Convention on International Arms Transfers. On
the understanding that such a Convention is consistent with
the stated commitments of the EU and US, we therefore call
upon the EU and the US to support attempts to develop the
Framework Convention as an internationally-binding treaty.
It is also important that the 2001 Conference provides for
explicit follow-up mechanisms and a plan for implementation
of the Programme of Action. The problems the Conference is
intended to address are complex and multi-faceted. If real
progress is to be made, the Conference must be viewed as the
start, not the end, of an ongoing process. This process, which
should include biennial meetings of states along with the
five-yearly formal review conference, should link with existing
programmes and institutions. It can best be carried forward
through meaningful dialogue with the international NGO community
and civil society.
Thank you very much for considering our proposals. We wish
you a successful Summit.
Yours sincerely,
Paul Eavis,
Director, Saferworld
On behalf of:
James Matlack
Director, Washington Office
American Friends Service Committee
Kate Allen
Director
Amnesty International
Ruth Schmitz
Chair
Amnesty International, Belgium
Carl Söderbergh
Secretary General
Amnesty International, Sweden
Susan Waltz
Chair, Military, Security and Police Working Group
Amnesty International, USA
Lara Blanco
Director
Arias Foundation
Dan Plesch
Director
British American Security Information Council
Tiffany L. Heath
Legislative Director
Church Women United - Washington D.C. Office
Michael Beard
President
Coalition To Stop Gun Violence
Tamar Gabelnick
Director, Arms Sales Monitoring Project
Federation of American Scientists
Loretta Bondi
Advocacy Director
The Fund for Peace
Michel Wery
Groupe de Recherche et d'information sur la Paix et la Sécurité
Joost R. Hiltermann
Executive Director, Arms Division
Human Rights Watch
Martha Honey
Director
Peace and Security Program
Institute for Policy Studies
Eugenia Piza-Lopez
Head of Policy and Advocacy
International Alert
Phil Bloomer
Head of Advocacy
Oxfam GB
Peter Deccy, Executive Director
Peace Action Education Fund
Peter Davies
US Representative
Saferworld
Stephen G. Price
Director, Office of Justice and Peace
Society of African Missions
Peter Brune
Secretary General
Swedish Fellowship of Reconciliation
Jens Peterssen
Secretary General
Swedish Peace and Arbitration Society
For further information, please contact
Saferworld
46 Grosvenor Gardens
London SW1W 0EB
United Kingdom
Tel: 44 (0)20 7881 9290
Fax: 44 (0)20 7881 9291
Email: peavis@saferworld.demon.co.uk
Cc: George W. Bush, President of the United States
Jack Straw, Foreign Secretary, United Kingdom
Jessica Hand, Non-Proliferation Department, Foreign Office
Göran Persson, Prime Minister of Sweden
Anna Lindh, Minister of Foreign Affairs
Sune Danielsson, Special Negotiator on Small Arms, Foreign
Ministry
Guy Verhofstadt, Prime Minister of Belgium
Louis Michel, Minister of Foreign Affairs
Marie-France Andre, Head Export Control Department, Foreign
Ministry
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