Taking stock of the discussions towards an Arms Trade Treaty

Arms Transfer Researchers: Paul Holtom, Mark Bromley, Henning Weber

Funder: Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Sweden

Timeline: Feb. 2011 - Jun. 2011

This project is intended to provide the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other Swedish stakeholders with an overview of key elements of an ATT which are considered particularly contentious or complex.

The first activity for this project was a workshop entitled 'Arms Trade Treaty: Contentious issues', which was held in Stockholm on 11-12 April 2011. The SIPRI Arms Transfers Programme co-organised a two-day workshop with the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs to discuss some of the contentious and complex issues for an ATT. Individual sessions at the workshop covered the following topics: international perspectives on the current state of play and challenges ahead; scope; criteria; national implementation; reporting, review and monitoring; and international cooperation and assistance. Participants included representatives of a number of Swedish government agencies and international experts from Australia, France, the UK and the USA. The Director of the Arms Transfers Programme, Paul Holtom, chaired several of the sessions at the workshop and senior researcher Mark Bromley provided a kick-off presentation for the session on national implementation. For more information please contact Paul Holtom.
 
The project also resulted in the publication of two SIPRI background papers on 'Import controls in the Arms Trade Treaty' and 'Transit controls in the Arms Trade Treaty', which were launched on 12 July 2011 at a side-event during the Third Preparatory Committee for the United Nations Conference on an Arms Trade Treaty, which was organised by the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and SIPRI. The background papers considered existing practices and options for states to exercise effective controls over the import, transit and trans-shipment of conventional weapons in order to prevent their diversion from the licit to the illicit arms market.