Nagpur March 26: The National Council of Churches in India in the memorandum sent to the foreign Affair Minister government of India Mr Salman Khurshid urged upon him to see that the Arms Trade Treaty that will be sign on the 28 of this month at Heague ia a course of concern for many.
The memorandum that sent to the minister concern read as follow,
Shri. Hon’ble Salman Khurshid
Minister of Foreign Affairs
4,Kushak Road,New Delhi- 110 01,Indi
Your Excellency,
Greetings of Peace from the NationalCouncil of Churches in India!
The National Council of Churches inIndia is the apex body of the 30 Protestant and Orthodox Church Traditions and 44 All India Christian Organisations, Regional Councils, RelatedAgencies and Autonomous Bodies representing over 13 million people. We write this request as members of the World Council of Churches ‘Ecumenical Campaign for a Strong and Effective Arms Trade Treaty, which is part of the global civil society coalition, Control Arms.
We write to request your urgent action during this final week of negotiations on the Arms Trade Treaty at the United Nations in New York.
Throughout the first week of the negotiations, an overwhelming majority of States called for considerable improvements of the draft Treaty. This included a joint statement by 118 Member states expressing their support for stronger provisions on the important issues of controlling ammunition, the prevention of diversion, and clear language around the application of comprehensive criteria for assessing whether to authorize an arms transfer. Throughout last week, a huge number of states voiced their strong shared support for such improvements in numerous national and group statements. The Chair promised to listen to the majority in formulating his text.
However, we, together with many states, find that these concerns have not been adequately addressed in the most recent draft of the Arms Trade Treaty that the Chair produced on Friday 22March. In particular:
1. Ammunition and parts and components are still subject to more limited controls than other types of weapons. In particular, they are subject to a more limited set of risk assessment criteria and are exempt from provisions on transit and transshipment, diversion, record keeping and reporting.
2. Prohibitions on transfers when the exporter knows the arms will be used to commit war crimes only apply to obligations that states are explicitly bound by, and not customary international law nor is there any reference to international human rights, which may lead to unacceptable transfers to regimes that use the arms to abuse human rights.
3. The term ‘overriding risk’, which has no clear meaning in existing international legal standards, remains as the standard for assessing whether to authorize a transfer of arms. A large number of states are calling for its replacement with the less ambiguous term substantial risk’.
4. Inadequate provisions for recordkeeping, reporting and transparency including a lack of provisions for mandatory public reporting on arms transfers, a key requirement for oversight, accountability and confidence-building.
We commend the dedication and hard work demonstrated by all delegations, including INDIA during the past week, to address critical loopholes in the draft treaty. To ensure that these efforts produce a strong and effective Arms Trade Treaty on28 March 2013, it is critical that the above concerns raised by the overwhelming majority of states are addressed in the final text.
We urge INDIA to continue to push forth necessary improvements on these vital elements in order to ensure that the Arms Trade Treaty achieves its humanitarian aims.
After all, a weak treaty that serves only to legitimate irresponsible arms transfers could be worse than no treaty at all.
Yours sincerely,
Rev. Dr. Roger Gaikwad
GeneralSecretary
c.c. Dr. Jonathan Frerichs,Co-ordinator, WCC-ATT
The memorandum is given in ditto for the benefit of the readers .(SP News)
