The broader military, police, and recreational shooting and security industries, not just firearms and ammunition exporters, must get serious about the post-ATT regulatory threats to their international business.
By Jeff Moran | Geneva
New York –-(Ammoland.com)- The Final United Nations (UN) Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) is scheduled to conclude 28 March 2013.
The current UN ATT Conference is a follow-up to the July 2012 UN ATT Conference, which ended without agreement. The UN ATT is a culmination of over 10 years of advocacy and pre-Conference negotiations by states and humanitarian civil society groups.
Based on an analysis of positions and advocacy to date, and as described in our pre-conference executive brief published on Amazon, reaching consensus on the ATT is possible but not likely. [2] The text of the treaty is still very much in flux with substantial changes having been made in the past few days.[3]
If a treaty is agreed to by consensus, it is uncertain if the US would even sign the treaty. If the US signs the treaty, it may not be ratified for decades, if at all. What is certain is that the ATT is a bow wave for more game changing international regulatory developments to come. These developments will be pushed forward by a group over 30 states and humanitarian advocates by what I call the Oslo faction.
Long after the ATT negotiations a concluded, the Oslo faction, guided by its vision and long-term agenda, will continue to advance policies and regulations that are based in admirable humanitarian idealism but must be seen as serious potential strategic business threats for the broader shooting and security industry.
This article describes the Olso faction, its idealistic ATT vision and long-term agenda, and the perception among leading arms exporting states that this faction is promoting a form of misguided if not dishonest humanitarianism. It concludes with a warning and ten recommendations.
The Oslo Faction
The core of the Oslo faction is a subset of states led more or less by Norway, Austria, and Mexico that gave birth to the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions.[4] They are viewed by delegates from some arms exporting nations as a smug alliance of “holier than thou” states. This faction importantly includes a constellation of supporting humanitarian and disarmament non-governmental organizations (NGOs) whose members are direct participants in the ATT negotiations on certain state delegations.[5]
Within the context of the ATT negotiations, the Olso faction is perhaps the greatest challenge driving against consensus. This is because their aims are to pursue a very strict and extremely controversial set of treaty provisions. The faction may kill the treaty if they don’t get their way, and this is something they’ve done before within UN treaty fora.[6] Current consensus rules require that no state seriously object to the treaty in the final plenary session on 28 March. A consensus killing protest by the Oslo faction will probably open a path toward a more radical treaty adopted under simpler 2/3 majority rules.
A good approximation of the core of this Oslo faction is found here:
Read the Complete Article Here: https://tsmworldwide.com/precarious-position/