U.N. Confab OKs Global Curb On Small Arms.

To address what many countries and non-governmental organizations, or NGOs, have called "the scourge of small arms," the United Nations--after nearly two years of planning--this summer convened a two-week conference on illicit trade in small arms and light weapons.

Conferees agreed to a final program of action including measures to prevent, combat and eradicate the illegal trade at national, regional and global levels through international cooperation and information sharing. They were unable, however, to reach a consensus on rules on private ownership or arms transfers to non-state actors.

In the opening session, one of the U.S. representatives to the conference-Under-secretary of State for Arms Control John Bolton--made it clear that the United States had serious reservations about a supranational organization dictating domestic laws to govern individual gun ownership. The United States, he said, also was concerned about the conundrum of dealing with regulations on trade with non-state actors, meaning terrorists, guerrillas and liberation movements.

The idea that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter makes trade with non-state actors, illicit or otherwise, a foreign-policy issue that individual countries need to decide based on national interests, according to U.S. policy experts. Representatives from African nations, such as Nigeria, preferred to retain provisions in the document that would restrict small-arms transfers to governments.

The Chinese delegation took exception to the idea proposed by Japan and the European Union that small arms should not be exported to nations guilty of human-rights abuses. To reach final consensus, the conferees agreed not to include these two issues in its final recommendations. Several delegates, in their final remarks, said they regretted that these issues could not be addressed because of the wishes of a single delegate.

A regular feature in recent years at some U.N. meetings, NGOs were allowed to have their say. it was reported that more than 170 NGOs were represented at the conference. One NGO representative suggested that a way to measure the success of the UN's new program would be the number of lives saved as a result of its implementation. A representative from the Arias Foundation said that controlling the illegal trade in small arms was a right-to-life issue. Members of Amnesty International and Oxfam were concerned about the possibilities of human-rights abuses if small arms were allowed to reach non-state actors.

The flip side of the issue is that non-state actors may be attempting to overthrow a non-democratic government that is guilty of human rights abuses, some conferees noted. If states are prevented from supporting non-state actors, that may not help improve human rights, but instead may help keep corrupt, undemocratic governments in power, these conferees warned. This, they said, could put organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch in the unusual position of supporting an authoritarian government.

Also addressing the conference were spokesmen for pro-gun organizations. A representative from the U.S. National Rifle Association voiced concerns about several of the U.N.'s small-arms transfer initiatives as they affect domestic laws governing the individual's right to own firearms. The NRA I is one of the few activist groups in the international small-arms debate that has recognized NGO status at the United Nations.

The NRA, along with other non-governmental organizations, had been preparing for the U.N. conference attending international meetings and exchanging views at meetings with U.N. representatives and other NGOs concerned with small-arms transfer issues in Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Japan and the United States. This series of meetings provided opportunities for opposing activist groups to exchange views on issues including gun-ownership rights and the marking of weapons and ammunition.

As a result of early discussions on weapons markings, a topic of interest to the United Nations and disarmament groups, an ad hoc working group representing manufacturers took shape. The manufacturers' group--in coordination with the World Forum on the Future of Sport Shooting Activities, an international pro-gun activist group heavily sponsored by European manufacturers and the NRA--has been working on an education program to assist members of NGOs interested in understanding the technology of small arms.

At private meetings held prior to the U.N. conference, the group met with international experts to reach an agreement on the definition of military small arms. It was believed that distinguishing military weapons from civilian firearms would help to restrict the U.N. discussions regarding regulation of individual ownership.

At what became a raucous meeting of leading military and civilian arms experts in London, the group revealed its proposed definition for a military weapon to be any weapon with a fully automatic firing capability. It rejected the notion that simply having been used as a military weapon restricted the weapon to the military realm. There was some contention even within this group of experts about whether this definition would protect the rights of all individual gun owners, since the United States continues to allow individuals with the appropriate licenses to own fully automatic weapons.

Individual nations agreeing to the document now will move to implement the proposed program of action at the national and regional levels. Governments agreed to develop methods to exchange information, to devise and implement laws to improve control of export and transit of small arms including improvements in authentication of end-user certificates, and, where possible, to develop effective measures to collect, demobilize and destroy small arms in post-conflict areas.

According to Peter Batchelor, co-author of a special survey of small-arms transfers at the Geneva-based Graduate Institute of International Studies, the results of the conference provided a "platform for future action at the national, regional and sub-regional levels. It was especially important to governments in Asia and Africa." But because of the U.S. inclination to keep the "two-dimensional issue" of trade with non-state actors out of the program of action, he said, this remains an important issue to be addressed in the years ahead.

The conference concluded with an additional agreement that the United Nations should convene a follow-up meeting on small arms no later than 2006.

Virginia Hart Ezell is president of the Institute for Research on Small Arms in International Security and a reserve lieutenant colonel in the US. Army Ordnance Corps.