Campaigners in treaty support bid

12 April 2012

Campaigners will target the embassies of five governments with a demand that they support an international arms trade treaty.

Activists from South Africa, India, Pakistan, Nigeria and Brazil will join Amnesty International and Oxfam to call on their governments to support a treaty making it illegal to sell weapons if they will be used to abuse human rights.

The campaign for tough new controls on the international arms trade has received the backing of Prime Minister Tony Blair and Conservative leader David Cameron.

A new treaty would aim to make suppliers more accountable and stop exports to unscrupulous regimes.

The lobbying, part of the Control Arms Day of Action running in 16 countries, is in preparation for a draft resolution to be presented to the United Nations General Assembly next month.

The campaign currently has the support of 50 countries, but the draft resolution will need 192 member states to vote in its favour at the UN next month.

Ambassadors are set to discuss the proposed controls with UK ministers on September 14.

Amnesty International UK Director Kate Allen said: "The international community now has a golden opportunity to stop the flow of weapons into the wrong hands. It is crucial that an arms trade treaty is formally on the UN agenda."

She continued: "We are pleased that the UK has led the process in putting forward a draft resolution. However, the draft does not go far enough - there is currently no reference in the resolution to human rights law which is a serious omission."

Campaigners are also concerned that the process could drag on for several years. Anna MacDonald of Oxfam said: "Currently, 1,000 people are killed every day by armed violence. Governments must take this opportunity to make sure that progress towards an arms trade treaty is speedy so no more lives are lost unnecessarily."

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in