Fifth and final day of the Second PrepCom - Consultations on the revised Chair's Paper

Overview of the day's discussions

Discussions continued during the final day of the Second PrepCom on the elements and text included in the revised "Chairman's Draft Paper" issued on Thursday. Delegations varied between support and criticism of the Chair's latest draft proposals.

(c) Jesper Waldersten

Delegations' statements

Hungary (on behalf of the EU) supports the incremental improvement of the draft paper. The EU does not consider it appropriate to include provisions on victim assistance, since the ATT "is not a disarmament treaty".

Denmark reiterated its objections to including transportation in the definition of transfer as it is difficult to implement within a licensing system. Sport and hunting weapons should be included, although the reporting measures could depend on the amount/type of weapons transferred (reference was made to the UN Firearms Protocol which foresees the adoption of simplified measures on reporting/licensing.

Algeria suggested deleting any reference to international humanitarian law and human rights law in the criteria section, since this can be "easily politicized" and noted that in any case these issues are covered in the objectives section.

Costa Rica stresses the importance of transparent reporting procedures. As to definition of transfer in Annex A. They suggested to add “or”. This reads as “title to and/[or] control over the equipment”

Norway suggested including a reference to armed violence and not only on armed conflict in paragraph 9 of the Principles section. They also suggested adding a reference to the UNSC resolution on women, peace and security (i.e. Resolution 1820, as well as Resolution 1828 on sexual violence)

Japan suggests that it will not be possible to regulate all the types of transfer, therefore there is a need to redraft the provision on transfer.

Iran called for the need to have an independent section on Principles in addition to the preamble. On paragraph 19 (Recognizing that States may adopt more restrictive measures than those provided in the ATT), they suggested that the provision may be equivalent to a unilateral coercive measures.

Lichtenstein recalled that the three pillars of the UN include human rights and development and noted that these are goals in themselves and should not be dependent on security issues (see Goals and Objectives paragraph 4).

Switzerland referred to ambiguities on transfer (Section 2 of the Scope). They felt there was no specific need to include manufacture under foreign license as a separate item. They proposed new wording to define transfer:

"Section II: International transactions covered by this Treaty include those listed below:
    
a. Export (includes re-export and temporary export)
b. Transit (includes transshipment)
c. Import (includes temporary import)
d. Transfer of title or control over conventional arms from the jurisdiction of one State to another
e. Transfer, by tangible or intangible means, of information which is required for the design, development, production, manufacture, assembly operation, repair, testing, maintenance or modification of conventional arms (Transfer of Technology).
f. Activities of negotiating or arranging contracts, selling or trading of conventional arms from a third country (Brokering)."

Mexico (on behalf of several American States) proposed the inclusion of diversion in the criteria section (5 F). On paragraph 9 (Principles), they suggests adding a reference to armed violence on this paragraph as well as in the section on goals and objectives. On criteria, they called for only “gross and systematic violations” of human rights to be covered (B3) and argued for the inclusion of a reference to international criminal law (B4).

New Zealand suggested changing the word “restrictive” in para 19 of Principles, in order to avoid any confusion on the legitimate right of a State to go beyond its own international legal obligations.