I. The Arms Trade Treaty

Chapter:

15. Dual-use and arms trade controls

Source:

SIPRI Yearbook 2015

Author(s):

Sibylle Bauer, Mark Bromley, Pieter D. Wezeman, Noel Kelly

The 2014 Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) is the first international legally binding agreement to establish standards for regulating the trade in conventional arms and preventing the illicit trade in weapons.¹ The 2001 United Nations Firearms Protocol is also legally binding but only relates to controls on the trade in firearms.² The ATT sets out controls on the trade in all conventional arms covered by the UN Register of Conventional Arms (UNROCA) as well as small arms and light weapons, with central provisions also applicable to ammunition and parts and components.³ The process of negotiating the ATT under the auspices of the UN began in 2006 and concluded in 2013.⁴ The final UN conference on the ATT, held in March 2013, ended without achieving consensus on the treaty text. Nonetheless, the ATT was adopted following a vote in the UN General Assembly on 2 April 2013 and opened for signature on 3 June 2013.⁵ Article 22 of the ATT stipulates that the treaty shall enter into force 90 days after the 50th state deposits its instrument of ratification. On 25 September 2014 a group of eight states deposited their instruments of ratification of the ATT, bringing the total number of ratifying states to 53.⁶ As a result, the ATT entered into force on 24 December 2014, 19 months after it opened for signature. By 31 December 2014, 130 states had signed the ATT and 61 had ratified it.⁷ In comparison, the UN Firearms Protocol required 40 ratifications to enter into force and this took four years to achieve.⁸