So, the Arms Trade Treaty is an international, in my view, disarmament
treaty that establishes criteria for when the transfer of conventional arms
may be lawful. So, by conventional arms of course we mean arms other than weapons
of mass destruction. Now the Arms Trade Treaty does not cover every single
conventional weapon, but it does cover the vast majority. Perhaps notable
emissions are hand grenades, for example, anti-personnel mines. for
example. But it's a disarmament treaty with a humanitarian, a very strong,
humanitarian element to it, so when a state is considering transferring,
exporting to another country, it has to look at what will be the consequences if
we transfer those weapons. How are they going to be used? Are they going to be
used in accordance with international law? If not, what is the risk that they
are going to be used in violation and how if possible can we mitigate those
risks in order to allow the transfer to go ahead?
Well, right at the outset there was this almost banal statement that bananas are
more regulated than arms and at the time it was true, there was more international
regulation of fruit than there was of these deadly weapons. That clearly cannot
be right. There were more informal political arrangements, one called the
Wassenaar Arrangement, the EU has a position on arms transfers, obviously domestically,
some states have prohibitions or moratorium on certain weapons. But to not
have this sector regulated was a clear anomaly and to a certain extent I think
we've addressed it.
Well, probably the biggest innovation was this idea that
international human rights law, international terrorism law,
international humanitarian law, are criteria that an exporting state must
assess when it is considering authorizing a transfer and it must
consider whether the arms, for example, might be diverted to illicit purposes
and if so, what the likelihood was that those weapons would be misused.
It was possible to argue by analogy beforehand, under the law of state
responsibility, that there were already obligations but there wasn't the
clear and fast rules that we have set out in Article 7 and for that reason in
the commentary, a lot of space is devoted to that provision because I think it is
an innovation in international law.
The old joke about what's the difference between a pessimist and an optimist. A
pessimist says 'things can't get any worse' and an optimist says 'oh yes they
can' and that's the danger that we find ourself at the moment and there's one
particular scenario that brings that to the fore and that's Saudi Arabia and the
coalition's use of force in Yemen. I have argued quite strongly that the UK and
other European and Western nations that are supplying weapons to Saudi Arabia,
given how these weapons are being used in Yemen, is a violation of international
law and a violation of the Arms Trade Treaty in particular. It is clear that
some of the targeting in Yemen has been indiscriminate. Indeed earlier this
summer, we saw the British government tell Parliament that in fact when they
said they had assessed the risk of Saudi Arabia misusing these weapons, in fact
they hadn't assessed the risk of Saudi Arabia misusing. That is a very clear
admission of an Arms Trade Treaty violation. Now, subsequently in the autumn
they have backed away from that position, but they've gone on to even more
dangerous territory by suggesting that you only prohibit a transfer if it's
going to be used for a war crime. That's not what the treaty says and we make
that very clear in the commentary on Article 7. A serious violation of
international humanitarian law, yes, includes war crimes, absolutely, but it is
not limited to war crimes. It includes indiscriminate attacks even where you
don't have the requisite intention to kill or injure
civilians. Although I made clear my concerns in particular around transfers
to Saudi Arabia based on what is happening at the moment, that does not
mean that the treaty is a failure, because it's not. It doesn't mean that
the treaty will be a failure, because I don't believe it will. It was clear at
the beginning of the negotiations, you don't turn around a sixty billion dollar
market overnight. It takes time, it effort and I think we will need to look
back in a decade from now to really assess how the ATT has hopefully worked
and where there are problems, what those problems are and how we can address them.
It would be too soon to make a judgement either way as to the success of the
ATT, but I think the fact that it exists, despite opposition from a small number
of states, the fact that it exists is a first step. The ratification levels are
increasing - that's positive, but we do have concerns about implementation.
There is a clear requirement to set up a control regime. One that makes these
assessments, assesses whether weapons are going to be used for crimes against
humanity or war crimes. Assesses, if not, whether arms are going to be used, or
what the likelihood is that arms are going to be used in violation of
human rights law or international humanitarian law. In terms of the
establishment of the control regimes, I think we can see some progress. States
are setting up the requisite inter-ministerial, or official bodies, to
do those analyses. I think though, internationally the implementation has
been more problematic and we see that in the context of the annual conferences of
States Parties. States Parties to the convention get together once a year
formally to look at the status and operation of the convention and it is
clear that they are very reluctant to look at the criteria for transfer and
how those are being applied. They're much happier talking about universalization
of the treaty and the establishment of the control regime. Those are important,
but so are the criteria for arms transfers.