hello and welcome to crossfire all things considered i'm peter lavelle global gun control the u.n. has passed the arms trade treaty to regulate the international conventional weapons business supporters of the treaty claim it is a positive first step to tame an industry because over a half a million people a year opponents are dismissive they say the treaty is not balanced and favors the interest of arms exporting states. across not the arms trade treaty i'm joined by jeffrey cole in new york he is a defense reporter with business insider in washington we have daryl kimball he is the executive director of the arms control association and in london we cross to the key to maki she is an associate fellow at chatham house in an expert in conventional arms and disarmament and if you can jump in anytime you want jeffery in new york are you happy with this treaty because there are it passed

overwhelmingly with a lot of abstentions though important abstentions yeah there were a lot of abstentions but i really honestly think that regulating a seventy billion dollars business with several actors both government and private running arms through convoluted means some of them over the table some of them under the table is just ridiculous to do with twelve or fifteen page treaty i mean i think the idea. is laughable tell you the truth ok darrell. laughable treaty go ahead well this is this is an effective strong first step toward some common sense in the international arms trade which currently doesn't have any standards governments are not required to report on their arms transfers they are not required even to have national regulations on weapons exports imports or ammunition why is that does not take

a sterile ok why is that the case. why is that the case yeah well first of all to today there are no standards ok russia can sell weapons to the assad regime in syria even though it's quite obvious that the assad regime is targeting civilians it's likely they were able to russian words to sell that would still be legal under international law. which it's not it today is legal today it is illegal ok if you will put in there. would this treaty would end. like arms sales to parade in the united snakes it clear it makes it clear that such purpose such transfers would be prohibited if they if the state has knowledge that it could violate human rights lead to war crimes or be used to target civilians so i mean this is a common sense first step it's not going to solve all the problems but it it is a very important step in the right direction to tip the balance in favor of

civilian protection and human rights in london jump in. you like this treaty. i do and i completely agree with what he just said i think it's a it's a landmark first step in controlling the trade in conventional arms i also wouldn't be too concerned about the number of sanctions. on the on the contrary i think it was actually maybe even good that we could pause the treaty in the general assembly as you may know as background the treaty was originally blocked in a conference in march when the three countries objected to it and it would have there it would have had to be adopted by consensus now. too many times i think in the history of the u.n. they sort of landmark. processes have been blocked just by less than

a handful of countries and in that sense i thought it was really good that we could well and to me it's a very good policy with a landslide it's a feel good thing but you know jeffrey does it make any difference. no it doesn't i mean look calling it a good first step is like you know complimenting your mother in law's bad. it's not going to do anything and there's no enforcement mechanism it's going to take two years to put in place and then we're counting on the united states and russia and all these state actors and private actors to sort of police themselves i mean let's be honest you think that they're going to. give you adequate reports on what they're trading what they're not trading i mean we're talking about very powerful people with lots of money involved and the idea that the u.n. can step in and take a good first step is you know it's kind of like an alcohol get or alcoholic getting close to admitting that alcohol is a problem and you know we still have

a long way to go and and to tell you the truth i feel like it's just like lives are the gun control debate in the u.s. i think we'll get to that we're going to adapt. jeff those are those are nice quips jeff but i mean look the countries that approve this treaty one hundred fifty five are deadly serious about putting in place regulations that for the first time make sure that governments report on what they're transferring that establish clear regulations for policing in enforcing those regulations and also this would apply to arms dealers the people who are operating the black market who are who have sold weapons to your responsible rebel groups in the past so you can say that this won't make a big difference but if you're a person in congo if you're a person in sierra leone and or your person in syria ok it makes

a difference if certain people don't get a k forty seven and ammunition or attack helicopters it makes a difference to real people on the ground who's data from going to make a difference tomorrow to know how to make a difference tomorrow because this has this is going this is going to take time to take effect and the big suppliers the big exporters have all signed on russia has said that it's going to go back and study the treaty that the three countries who blocked the the conclusion of the treaty were iran syria and nor are there you know playing ok these countries are are under arms embargoes it's no surprise that they blocked this is against their interest because they are they're trying to get weapons ok so they're also i mean they're also enemies of the united states all right now we go ahead jump in this is crossed on i had just maybe to take comments about that they thought i would say that they arms trade treaty again ones it will come to for us hopefully in the next two years and so we'll have an effect not only

to the countries that will sign up to it but also those countries who might choose to opt out just because they as. a historical treaty will start changing the norm of how we see acceptable arms transfers and. thereby also those guys who might not want to join are de facto going to be affected by it as well jeff you want to reply. well you know i think that all these countries of who are who have signed on who are deadly serious have been deadly serious about other things before like palestinian statehood and it's been twenty years they've been thirty years they've been you know deadly serious about that and what's happened you know i think at the bottom line is where there is demand there's going to be supply you can call it what you want to call you can call it assault rifle you can call what assad's doing in syria killing civilians but to him there combatants i mean there's

all sorts of legal problems here and it's just not clear enough and you know also what are they going to do but let's be honest the u.s. and some of these these major countries they pretty much control the u.n. as they demonstrated in two thousand and three so with the invasion of iraq so you know i just i can't help but ask what exactly are they going to do if they're deadly serious give me an example of what they're going to do and you go ahead. i think where comparing sort of the. mother in law's lesson you haven't been as i mean we do have to remember that we're talking here about an arms trade treaty. gets put into the same basket with say treaties on land mines or cluster munitions that are aimed to for example preventing the use and production of sets and types of weapons now they say is not that go of the arms trade treaty what we often hear is to improve and to improve the regulations on illegal trade in arms and

recognizing that these arms will be produced in the future they will be traded but what we want is more responsible trade and more transparency over the guns that are transferred don't you want to jump in there. yeah that one example of where this is going to help five years down the road ok is when there is the next victor boot the russian arms dealer who was involved in selling weapons to the some of the west african conflicts in the ninety's. these arms dealers today can operate because half the nations in the world don't have national regulations that govern arms transfers so arms dealers who want to sell to the wrong people can evade those countries they can cover the governments could do the same thing they do have governments could use the same thing can't they well claim against in dublin raking in the us a minute peter i'm talking talking about the illicit arms trade for the second ok

and this treaty has specific provisions to bar against diversion it also requires all countries to establish regulations so what that means is that law enforcement authorities can cooperate when one of these arms dealers is operating in their countries and is is pursuing weapon sales that contravene the criteria and the guidelines in the prohibitions in this treaty that can make an important difference in shutting down the pipeline for some of these rebel groups terrorist organizations that threaten small countries medium sized countries and large countries and you know that can make a huge difference in the years ahead as this treaty becomes more universally applied or jeff jump in i mean that's assuming that it's going to become more universally applied and i just don't think that that's realistic. you know there's going to be war and there's going to be people who need weapons for war and there's going to be suppliers and really that's you know i think it's wishful thinking.

they are going to congress actually you're going to be wanted this is really going forward it will have brought it's not the first time a hundred and i think there's a lot of montresor agreed on anything and we had last word before the break well that's true and the last word before we go to break that's. no absolutely and again to just repeat what i said i don't think we should be even with this arms trade treaty alone be aiming at total prevention a war or elimination of all human suffering this is a step that is a first step towards more responsible legal trade in weapons ok i'm going to jump in here we're going to go to a short break and after that short break we'll continue our discussion on the trade treaty state. her belief.

i mean so should the u.s. city in europe on the host of the twenty fold she wins or the pictures. thank you. so much. thank you. john these are. days of. calm. so. low. technology innovation all the lives developments from

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the uk about international and world in the very heart of moscow. is a. welcome back to cross talk we're all things are considered on peter lavelle to remind you we're discussing the arms trade treaty. ok jeff do you think the senate the u.s. senate will pass this. with the n.r.a. in the background and that's that's a whole other topic you know and it's very important. there's no way they're going to pass this yet but in they need sixty seven votes they're not going to do it most of these major companies a lot of these major companies are they operate and manufacture from within the

u.s. you know it's just not going to happen they have their teeth to song deep and to into the senate you know so to be brief no no it's not going to pass darrell jump in what do you think. you can go for this treaty was just concluded this treaty was just include a few days ago and the senate which has a hard time making any decisions need to take a little bit of time to actually analyze what this treaty don't the n.r.a. has already analyzed it the n.r.a. has already well no they haven't analyzed it if they've been demagogue you for something i agree with a rock ok go ahead with iran and north korea iran north korea and about thirty five senators right now oppose this treaty everybody else supports it but let me just get to the key point the united states already has a system of export control laws that's quite good that is consistent with this treaty as do a lot of the european countries and some other major exporters so the united states

ratification of the treaty is not so important as having president obama signed the treaty and signature by obama does not require senate advice and consent the treaty will enter into force when fifty countries ratify and i think that is a quite easy bar to achieve within the next one to two years and then the treaty will begin to have full effect on the states that have signed signed the treaty so in my view the senate's views on this are actually not so important for the overall effect of this treaty on the international arms trade and we how important not so important except they're the ones who write the laws and we jump in in london and. if anyone's going to have what i say is important here and should. be mentioned is that if we look at the beginning of the process in the un some years ago two thousand and six two thousand and eight the first resolutions the us voted against them since then they two thousand and nine altered their view and voted for the

want why did they change any of the whole why did you change it. that's partly the administration administration after obama's election that's when two thousand and nine changed and i think that is an encouraging sign also when we look at the signature of the u.s. to the treaty but then again as was already said earlier it is not actually the u.s. is not the real sort of target country for these treaty if you want because yes they have one of the most sophisticated export control. systems and legislations in place already what they have been are doing and have been doing for years is to support that sort of of the development of similar systems in other countries of the world and in that i think the arms trade treaty will just be a sort of a continuation of their goals that the u.s.

is one of them anyway jeff do you think anything will stop the united states selling arms to israel. no not at all i mean that's a no no of course not. and that's that's another big reason why i don't expect to see any any moves out of congress and maybe obama will sign it but in the end you know the wait there may be one hundred fifty five countries put the weight behind arms exports is way heavier than those countries and to include russia and other other major powers so i don't i don't see. really again i just don't see any any changes occurring it and if they do if there are new laws then you know these companies and these countries will just circumvent them somehow you know i mean if you have to go covert then you have to go over again and seen that in the past. so i mean i need to know in ninety nine c. in the end if it was not a sort of a treaty it would have been impossible and now we are here we actually have

a treaty how many people believe that that would have been possible in ten years and now do we have a lot of people who still think it's just law ok possible it's still just talk. well it's not it is it's real all right and it's easy it's easy to be cynical about the world we live in and change does not occur overnight ok this is not a twitter. speed process ok this is going to take time to be put in place and the global arms market is going to change over the next ten to twenty years the united states is not always going to be the world's largest arms supplier necessarily other arms makers are going to come into the market it's important that they have higher standards for they are transfers that we have more transparency about it there will be new arms buyers and it's important that they are part of the systems too so we can't just be looking at today's issues tomorrow's issues we need to be looking down the road because there are hundreds of

thousands and millions of lives at stake if we don't put some common sense rules in place in this treaty begins to do that in. said no one could have imagined fifteen years ago that we would have this treaty but this was accomplished despite the obstacles and it's now in place and it's going to become a reality in the next one to two years and we'll see how effective it is the effectiveness in my view depends on governments acting on the principles on publics and journalists also paying attention to what the rules of the treaty say and what governments and companies are doing are they meeting the commitments of the arms trade treaty jeff you can apply to any of the. yeah well you know i think fifteen years ago twenty years ago thirty years ago i mean we can talk about the past but i think that really the treaty is a reflection of the present in terms of conventional warfare and these these major superpower sort of tilting away from conventional warfare so the need for these

these weapons is sort of. you know it's sort of not as necessary anymore but so yeah i can see them talking about it that great but still again i just don't think that i don't think that it has any real teeth i think if anything it's a reflection of our you know pumping the brakes a little bit on the on conventional wars going more towards korean and counterinsurgency which doesn't require such a large weapons so i mean yeah really i don't i don't i think it's just a reflection of what we are right now today militarily you know you want to jump in there in london. well obviously it's sort of a to repeat what was said earlier but again this is this is a treaty on conventional arms so it is about conventional arms we can talk about the importance of those in in future warfare of course and probably once we move to

the future we will need new types of treaties to to. counter and to deal with those situations however given that we are here now and these weapons do cost hundreds of thousands of lives every year and they do link to the illicit market and we as was said so many countries have non-existent or really poor regulations over their arms transfer controls i don't see why they split anything but absolutely positive and needed development dural who's going to punish the people to break this law countries that break this law he's going to do it. the the countries themselves or going to police their own laws all right that's what you got remember peter is that half the country israel daughter has regulated regard well it does work ok some countries do in force or laws they've got different

capacity to do that but this is a start. the second way in which this tree's going to be enforced is that. countries are going to be reporting on their arms imports and exports that's going to allow other countries non-governmental organizations human rights organizations on the ground and elsewhere and reporters and journalists to identify where there are anomalies where they are going to and instead tell the treasure on those countries do you trust governments to tell the truth i mean that's not really that's the main point they're going to want to they have to report on themselves are they going to tell the truth probably not i mean it's not really there's more there but not to verify there are ways to verify the truth one of the ways is television programs news reporters n.g.o.s that are also providing information that are fact checking what governments are saying no i don't trust every government to tell the truth and so we can verify what we see happening on the ground against

would governments are reporting if russia says they're selling weapons to five country and by then the damage is already done weapons right i mean it internationally are going to six country now and if they're showing up in a six country then we know there is a problem ok then pressure can be on russia or other countries that are along the supply chain jeff you want to jump in go ahead. yeah i like i said i just think that it's way too convoluted it's way too bureaucratic and it's just it's not going to work i mean so we're relying on journalists to report on these areas little did they do that in two thousand and three and i just don't feel you do that if you're in three and and the. did they do that in two thousand and three report on w m d's yeah on w m d's it didn't matter if they did that's the point everyone knew that there wasn't w m d's there and we still we went anyway we did what we want to do anyway so even if they do know that we're we're

arming or or arms of our worse through five or six degrees or ending up somewhere in central africa you know we're still going to do what we're doing any oil ok and i mean that's what i think i'm not saying i agree with it i'm just saying that that's the reality and that and that this treaty is everyone gets a trophy pat on the back and it's really not going to do anything yes or we acknowledge and there's a problem yes but ok i want i want is a program that's hard to do you know action is i want to end a program in a positive note go ahead you've got thirty seven thirty seconds you know. i think we have to remember that we do not have this treaty yet it's just a couple of days saying spend the whole trading paused and it will only open in signature line to these here so just to say that it's not going to work now is. premature maternal that's what i think what we have to say is all right we've had a fascinating conversation maybe something nice and banking like i said you're

going to your time washington and in london and thanks to our viewers for watching us here are key so you next time and remember crosstalk. will. there's is trash to get rid of. but it's also a treasure. worth fighting for. and a trap was no way out.

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