Speaking at the UN this week (on 24 September), Costa Rican president, Óscar Arias Sanchez, urged world leaders to show they were serious about disarmament by supporting the Arms Trade Treaty. Addressing the opening session of the UN General Assembly, he said the Treaty, due to be debated at the UN First Committee next month, would boost security and development. “Spending on arms deprives us … of human resources,” he said. “The greatest arsenal of genius in the world is, at this moment, working on perfecting the weaponry and defence systems of nations. That is not its place.”
President Arias is one of the architects of the proposed Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), having led a group of Nobel Peace Laureates to publish a draft International Code of Conduct on Arms Transfers in 1997. The initial proposal sought to prohibit arms transfers to states that were supporting terrorism or were engaged in aggression against nations or peoples. The UN First Committee is now due to debate a draft resolution on a proposed treaty. President Arias said the UN “fails in its historic mission every day that it turns a blind eye to the rampant arms race.” Urging support for a Treaty to control the trade in conventional weapons, he added: “If it is legitimate for us to worry about the possibility that terrorist networks gain access to a nuclear weapon, it is also legitimate for us to worry about the rifles, grenades and machine guns that are given into their hands.”
Other states also explicitly supported the Arms Trade Treaty in their statements to the opening sessions of the General Assembly. These included:
At a high-level meeting of the UN Security Council, Mexican President Felipe Calderón also spoke out in favour of the ATT, noting that the spread of conventional weapons posed a serious threat to world security. “Small and light arms deals cause approximately 1000 deaths and 3000 injured persons worldwide every day,” he said. “Mexico urges Security Council members to seek formulae to stop this crime.”
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