UN arms talks end without deal: official

28 Jul 2012, 10:21 am   -   Source: AAP
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UN negotiations for an arms trade treaty have been called off after governments refused to give in to demands for international regulation of arms exports.

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UN negotiations to establish the first international treaty on the conventional arms trade have ended without a deal, the conference president says.

Some countries objected to the final treaty draft, Argentine envoy Roberto Garcia Moritan said.

The UN General Assembly will decide whether and when there will be more negotiations.

Diplomats attending the talks said the United States had joined with Russia and China in calling for a delay.

The countries are among the world's biggest arms exporters.

"The text I proposed was a draft treaty... some delegations did not like it but the overwhelming majority did," Moritan said.

A consensus of all 193 countries involved in the talks must agree on the accord.

The next UN General Assembly meeting takes place in late September.

"We always thought this was going be difficult and that this outcome was a possible one," Moritan said.

"We knew from the beginning the diplomatic challenge was going be a big one."

But he predicted that delegates would have a treaty in their hands "soon".

A draft treaty circulated on Tuesday was severely criticised by rights groups, including Amnesty International and Oxfam, as full of "ambiguities and loopholes," especially in not including ammunition and allowing too much scope for arms transfers that would escape the treaty.

A second draft proposed on Thursday by Moritan was an improvement, according to Amnesty International's senior director for international law and policy Widney Brown.

The text stated that every country must determine whether the arms sold could be used to commit human rights violations or terrorism.

A group of 90 like-minded countries, including most of Europe and small countries suffering the impact of illicit arms trade, said an agreement was within reach if governments were willing to compromise.

"Key countries have dropped the ball today and let the rest of the world down," said Anna MacDonald of Oxfam International.

"Today was the day for political courage - not delays and dithering."

MacDonald said one major area of contention in the draft concerned arms transfers under defence contracts.

Governments rejected demands for more transparency in defence contracts.

The draft said governments that are parties to the treaty would not authorise transfer of conventional arms "for the purpose of facilitating the commission of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes" as stipulated in the Geneva Conventions of 1949.

It also said that signatories would not authorise arms exports that could be diverted to the illicit market, used to commit violence against women, children or for transnational organised crime.

The draft treaty would also ban arms exports that would violate UN Security Council arms embargoes.

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