First Global Gun Treaty Taking Effect
by Joseph P. Tartaro
Executive Editor
It may not significantly impact the United States and American gunowners at this time, but the United Nation’s (UN) Firearms Protocol adopted in June 2001 will be in effect by the end of July as a legally binding agreement, since Poland and Zambia recently became the 40th and 41st countries to ratify it.
The protocol was scheduled to take effect on the ninetieth day following ratification by the 40th nation. The US has neither signed nor ratified the protocol.
According to the International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA), the leading anti-firearm non-government organization (NGO), the Protocol commits UN member states to regulate the manufacture, export, import and transit of firearms, firearm parts and components, and ammunition. It also requires firearms to be marked and records to be kept for at least 10 years, and encourages, but does not require, the regulation of arms brokers.
Many on both sides of the international gun control debate regard this protocol as a possible stepping stone to other protocols and treaties, especially those which target civilian possession of firearms and ammunition. In its present language, the Protocol, which was justified as an effort to control transnational crime and illegal arms dealing, does not have many of the more onerous provisions which drew the most opposition. Most of those were stripped from the original language.
“We objected to the Protocol and helped convince people that many of the more objectionable provisions be removed,” said Thomas L. Mason, executive secretary-US for the World Forum on the Future of Sport Shooting Activities, a pro-gun NGO representing gunowners and shooters from around the world.
“We still object to it,” Mason told Gun Week, because it exempts nations who claim their transnational sale or movement of arms is for security purposes and because it has an exemption for China which does not require the same specific marking of firearms and ammunition as for other countries.”
This Protocol is entirely separate from another UN disarmament initiative called the Programme of Action on Small Arms, which is not legally-binding. The biennial meeting on the Programme of Action is scheduled for New York City July 11-15. That meeting, which will be chaired by Pasi Portokallio of Finland, will not be focused so much on negotiations, but on reports of action, NGO presentations, and discussions of thematic issues. Portokallio, who is the Finnish ambassador to Canada, will oversee a report which will be made public at the conclusion of the meeting.
In the interim, another UN meeting in New York scheduled for June 5-17 will deal with the issue of marking firearms, their parts and components and ammunition. NGO’s especially those with technical expertise and various member government agencies are expected to participate in the meetings to develop a framework for marking firearms and ammunition.
There will probably be a conference of state parties to the Protocol Oct. 10-21, 2005 in Vienna, Austria, all of which is linked to the UN Against Transnational Organized Crime and its other attached protocols. The Protocol will also be administered from Vienna.
While all of these international gun control meetings are proceedings, including the regional meetings in South America, Africa and Asia recently reported in Gun Week, there appears to be a shifting focus directing future action toward civilian access to small arms and ammunition.
The UN has been increasingly involved in the small arms and weapons control issue since 1995, presumably because small arms have been the weapons of choice in recent conflicts on the UN’s agenda.
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