Arms Control Treaty torpedoed

Negotiations to establish a UN treaty to regulate the multibillion-dollar global arms trade were lying dead in the water at the weekend, after the United States torpedoed any chance of agreement by the Friday midnight deadline.

“This was stunning cowardice by the Obama administration, which at the last minute did an about-face and scuttled progress toward a global arms treaty, just as it reached the finish line,” said Amnesty International US executive director Suzanne Nossel.

“It’s a staggering abdication of leadership by the world’s largest exporter of conventional weapons to pull the plug on the talks just as they were nearing an historic breakthrough.”

There has never been an international treaty regulating the estimated $70 billion (£44bn) global arms trade.

For more than a decade activists and some governments have been pushing for international rules to try to keep illicit weapons off the streets and the battlefields.

Conference chairman Roberto Garcia Moritan announced that negotiations had failed, while also predicting that “we certainly are going to have a treaty in 2012.”

Arms Control Association executive director Daryl Kimball said that the general assembly needed to decide whether to move forward with the treaty text that was close to adoption or to instead reopen old issues.

“What we have now is an uncertain outcome that leaves in doubt the support of the major arms exporters and importers, including the US and Russia, and that needs to be overcome,” he said.

“This is a delicate moment and it’s going to require real leadership on the part of key states including the European countries, Washington and others.”