Arms Trade Treaty

Background

"There are more than 600 million small arms and light weapons in the world today, and over eight million more are produced every year. Unless governments act to stop the spread of arms, more lives will be lost, more human rights violations will take place, and more people will be denied the chance to escape poverty." Oxfam

Now

"Today 147 states at the United Nations voted overwhelmingly to move forward with work on an Arms Trade Treaty. This is an increase on the 139 states who voted to start the UN process in October 2006, showing increasing global support for the treaty. The vote was particularly strong in Africa, South and Central America and Europe indicating strong demand for arms control both from countries severely affected by armed violence and from major exporters. Only the US and Zimbabwe voted against, ignoring increasing global consensus for an ATT.

Every day, over 1000 people are killed directly with firearms and many thousands more die indirectly as a consequence of armed violence or are driven from their homes, forced off their land, raped, tortured or maimed. Since the UN process started in December 2006, approximately 695,000 people have been killed directly with firearms, illustrating the urgent need for an Arms Trade Treaty. Any further delay means more lost lives."

Control Arms - from the latest article