Arms Trade Treaty

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What If The Palestinians Were “State Representatives” To UNSCAR

April 21, 2016 by

A post on the Volokh Conspiracy by Eugene Kontorovich from Tuesday caught my eye. He was discussing the demand of 28 US senators that funding for the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change be stopped. The reason that they were demanding that US funding to this UN agency be stopped is that the Palestinian Authority has been accepted by that agency as a “state party”.

Federal law bars any funding for U.N. agencies or affiliates that “grants full membership as a state to any organization or group that does not have the internationally recognized attributes of statehood.” In the official U.S. view, “Palestine” is not a state. Thus when the Palestinian Authority joined the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in 2011, it triggered federal defunding of that organization. Now, federal law requires a similar cessation of any funding to UNFCCC.

The purpose of Professor Kontorovich’s article to speculate what might happen if the Obama Administration ignored the clear law that prohibits the funding. However, for my purposes, the article made me speculate how this law could be used to cut funding of the UN’s gun control efforts.

The Arms Trade Treaty is administered by UN Trust Facility Supporting Cooperation on Arms Regulation or UNSCAR. While the United States has not ratified the treaty, it is a signatory to it. The Arms Trade Treaty seeks to control not only major weapons systems but also small arms and ammunition. As of now, the Palestinian Authority is not considered a “state representative” to UNSCAR insofar as I can tell. That said, UNSCAR has two current projects going in the Arab and Middle Eastern states.

It would be in the interest of gun rights NGOs like the National Rifle Association and the Second Amendment Foundation to lobby to get the Palestinian Authority full recognition as a state and full membership in UNSCAR. While neither organization nor its members usually have much love for the Palestinian Authority given its connections to Hamas and the PLO, getting them recognized as a state representative does cut potential funding for more international gun control efforts.

In my view, that is a good thing.

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About That Arms Trade Treaty

October 16, 2013 by

Controlling your and my rifle is important but brake pads for those grounded Iranian F-14 Tomahawks are not. If a story published in the Philadelphia Inquirer by the lefty journalism group Propublica is correct, then that is the intent of the Obama Administration.

Starting yesterday, a number of items that previously had been controlled by the State Department through its arms control regulations will be transferred to the control of the Commerce Department which has weaker controls on exports of these items.

In the current system, every manufacturer and exporter of military equipment has to register with the State Department and get a license for each planned export. U.S. officials scrutinize each proposed deal to make sure the receiving country isn’t violating human rights and to determine the risk of the shipment winding up with terrorists or another questionable group.

Under the new system, whole categories of equipment encompassing tens of thousands of items will move to the Commerce Department, where they will be under more “flexible” controls. Final rules have been issued for six of 19 categories of equipment and more will roll out in the coming months. Some military equipment, such as fighter jets, drones, and other systems and parts, will stay under the State Department’s tighter oversight.

Commerce will do interagency human rights reviews before allowing exports, but only as a matter of policy, whereas in the State Department it is required by law.

While spare parts that will now be regulated by the Commerce Department may not be exported directly to such rogue nations as Iran and Syria, the controls on re-exports of these spare parts will have much less regulation. Spare parts are the key to keeping aging fleets of jet fighters in the air and not the ground.

The story does note that the one area in which the Obama Administration refused to switch to the Commerce Department was, you guessed it, firearms and ammunition.

In one area, the administration does appear to have temporarily backed off – firearms and ammunition. Any decision to loosen exports for firearms could have conflicted with the president’s call for enhanced domestic gun control.

According to a memo obtained by the Wall Street Journal last spring, the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security both opposed draft versions of revisions to the firearms category. (The Justice Department press office is out of operation due to the government shutdown, and the Department of Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment.) Shifting firearms was also likely to be a lightning rod for arms control groups. As the New York Times’ C.J. Chivers has documented, small arms trafficking has been the scourge of conflicts around the world.

Draft rules for firearms and ammunitions were ready in mid-2012, according to Lawrence Keane, general counsel for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, a trade group for gun manufacturers. The Commerce Department even sent representatives to an industry export conference to preview manufacturers on the new system they might fall under.

But since the school shooting in Newtown, Conn., last December, no proposed rule has been published.

Keane thinks the connection is irrelevant. “This has nothing to do with domestic gun control legislation. We’re talking about exports,” he said. “Our products have not moved forward, and we’re disappointed by that.”

Read the whole article to see the hypocrisy of the Obama Administration.

In related news to the Arms Trade Treaty, a number of Senators and Congressmen have come out in opposition to the ratification of the ATT. The treaty needs 67 votes in favor for it to be ratified. So far 50 Senators have come out in opposition to it.

From the NRA on the letter from 50 Senators and 181 Congressmen to President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry opposing the ATT:

Fairfax, Va. – Today, a bipartisan group of 50 members of the U.S. Senate and 181 members of the U.S. House sent a clear message to President Barack Obama, Secretary of State John Kerry and the United Nations that the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty will not be ratified. Earlier this year, the U.N. adopted and President Obama directed Secretary Kerry to sign this treaty, which does not exclude civilian arms from its scope and therefore directly threatens the Second Amendment.

“The Obama administration has repeatedly demonstrated its contempt for our fundamental, individual Right to Keep and Bear Arms,” said Chris W. Cox, executive director of the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action. “On behalf of our 5 million members, the NRA would like to thank those who signed these letters for their principled stand in defending the Second Amendment freedoms of all law-abiding Americans.”

The Senate effort in opposition to the ATT was led by Sens. Jerry Moran (R-KS) and Joe Manchin (D-WV). Their letter, signed by 50 senators, states clearly that “as members of the Senate, we pledge to oppose the ratification of this treaty, and we give notice that we do not regard the U.S. as bound to uphold its object and purpose.”

A bipartisan group of 181 members of the U.S. House sent a separate letter of opposition. That effort was led by Reps. Mike Kelly (R-PA) and Collin Peterson (D-MN).

“The NRA will continue to fight against ratification of the U.N. ATT, which undermines the constitutional rights of law-abiding Americans,” concluded Cox. “With 67 votes in the U.S. Senate being necessary for ratification, these letters send a clear message to President Obama and Secretary Kerry that this attempt to undermine our Right to Keep and Bear Arms will be met with strong opposition.”

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What Does The NRA Have In Common With Syria, Iran, and North Korea?

October 3, 2013 by 3 Comments

Rational, reasonable people know that the National Rifle Association has nothing in common with Syria, Iran, and North Korea. The NRA doesn’t shoot dissident members, it isn’t trying to develop a nuclear capacity, and it isn’t headed by an incompetent leader who got the job because Dad and Granddad had the same job before him.

That said, this hasn’t stopped the Editorial Board of the New York Times from lumping the NRA in with those rogue countries. Their reasoning is that since the NRA and those countries both oppose the UN’s Arms Trade Treaty, they are all pariahs.

In April, the 193-member General Assembly adopted it overwhelmingly by a vote of 154 to 3, clearing the way for individual states to sign and then ratify the pact. The states in opposition were familiar outliers in the international system: North Korea, Syria and Iran.

The National Rifle Association, like those nations, rejects this sensible international weapons regulation. It is opposed to the arms treaty even though the treaty has no impact on the American domestic market.

The group falsely claims the treaty will somehow infringe on Americans’ gun rights under the Second Amendment. In fact, as Secretary of State John Kerry stressed when he signed the treaty, the pact not only does not restrict Americans, it specifically “recognizes the freedom of both individuals and states to obtain, possess and use arms for legitimate purposes.”

But the N.R.A., with its lucrative campaign coffers and fear-mongering, has long been extremely effective at keeping lawmakers in line with its pernicious agenda. Months before the Obama administration signed the treaty, one-third of the Senate introduced a resolution opposing ratification on Second Amendment grounds. That is a signal of the tough fight ahead whenever the Senate formally takes up the issue.

Lucrative campaign coffers. Fear-mongering. Pernicious agenda. Rejecting sensible regulation.

So much for civil discourse.

One could use all of those perjorative phrases to describe the behavior of the President, Mayor Bloomberg, and others of the so-called progressive bent. Bloomberg certainly has deeper pockets than the NRA. President Obama has repeatedly engaged in fear-mongering to further his agenda. Many of us consider the agenda of Democrats in Congress to be pernicious and they have consistently opposed any regulation of mortgage lenders Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. I won’t even touch on their aversion to any regulation of abortion providers.

Say what you will but these rogue regimes and the Editorial Board of the New York Times agree on one thing: controlling their opponents.

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CCRKBA On Signing Of Arms Trade Treaty

September 26, 2013 by 4 Comments

The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, like the NRA, was dismissive of the signing of the UN’s Arms Trade Treaty by Secretary of State John Kerry in New York today.


Their release is below:

BELLEVUE, WA – Secretary of State John Kerry may have signed the controversial United Nations Arms Trade Treaty today, but tomorrow it begins gathering dust in the U.S. Senate, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms predicted.

CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb noted that Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) has already warned Kerry that the treaty “will collect dust alongside the Law of the Sea Treaty, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and the Kyoto Protocol, to name a few, which have all been rejected by the U.S. Senate and the American people.”

“If Secretary Kerry and President Barack Obama pursue this farce,” Gottlieb warned, “the full fury of American firearms owners could come back to haunt them. Second Amendment sovereignty is not up for grabs, and we will encourage our members and supporters to contact their senators about this treaty.”

For the ATT to be ratified requires two-thirds confirmation by the Senate. But Gottlieb noted, as did Sen. Inhofe in his letter to Secretary Kerry, that 53 senators have already indicated they will reject any treaty that threatens the Second Amendment.

“If this was all theatrics by the Obama administration,” Gottlieb observed, “the president and Secretary Kerry need better script writers. And we will remind the administration of the warning it received Wednesday morning from Sen. Bob Corker, ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The Senate has not given its advice or consent on this treaty, so ‘the Executive branch is not authorized to take any steps to implement the treaty.’ How does that look to the world when an administration can’t get one of its pet projects approved on Capitol Hill?

“We know that anti-gunners have this ‘thing’ about symbolic victories,” he concluded, “but just how much of a symbol is it if the treaty is filed in the dust bin? After Fast and Furious, Benghazi and Syria, that’s just what the Obama administration needs, another symbol of international ineptitude.”

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NRA Statement On Kerry Signing The Arms Trade Treaty

September 25, 2013 by 3 Comments

The National Rifle Association has been a staunch opponent of the UN’s Arms Trade Treaty from the beginning. They issued the response below to the signing of the treaty on behalf of the United States by Secretary of State John F. Kerry. As Bitter noted in a post on the signing, elections have consequences. Prior administrations not only opposed the talks which led to the Arms Trade Treaty, they actively refused to participate in them. That was then and this is now – unfortunately.

Fairfax, Va. – Today, Secretary of State John Kerry signed the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty on behalf of the Obama administration. The National Rifle Association strongly opposes this treaty, which is a clear violation of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

“The Obama administration is once again demonstrating its contempt for our fundamental, individual Right to Keep and Bear Arms,” said Chris W. Cox, executive director of the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action. “This treaty threatens individual firearm ownership with an invasive registration scheme. The NRA will continue working with the United States Senate to oppose ratification of the ATT.”

A bipartisan majority of the U.S. Senate is already on record in opposition to ratification of the ATT. On March 23, the Senate adopted an amendment to its FY 2014 Budget Resolution, offered by Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), that establishes a deficit-neutral fund for “the purpose of preventing the United States from entering into the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty.” This amendment is in addition to the previous efforts of Sen. Jerry Moran (R-KS) and Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA) to pass concurrent resolutions opposing the treaty in their respective chambers.

Notably, the ATT includes “small arms and light weapons” within its scope, which covers firearms owned by law-abiding citizens. Further, the treaty urges recordkeeping of end users, directing importing countries to provide information to an exporting country regarding arms transfers, including “end use or end user documentation” for a “minimum of ten years.” Each country is to “take measures, pursuant to its national laws, to regulate brokering taking place under its jurisdiction for conventional arms.” Data kept on the end users of imported firearms is a de-facto registry of law-abiding firearms owners, which is a violation of federal law. Even worse, the ATT could be construed to require such a registry to be made available to foreign governments.

“These are blatant attacks on the constitutional rights and liberties of every law-abiding American. The NRA will continue to fight this assault on our fundamental freedom,” concluded Cox.

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Kerry To Sign Arms Trade Treaty Today

September 25, 2013 by

Secretary of State John Kerry, the vaguely French looking former Senator from Massachusetts who, by the way, served in Vietnam, will sign the UN’s Arms Trade Treaty this morning in New York. The State Department release on Kerry’s schedule notes that it will be at 9:45am this morning.

The signing will be mostly symbolic as the treaty will require 67 senators to vote for ratification. There are currently 53 senators on record, both Democrats and Republicans, as saying they are opposed to the treaty. Senator Jim Inhofe (R-OK) said in a letter to Kerry that this treaty “will collect dust alongside the Law of the Sea Treaty, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and the Kyoto Treaty, to name a few, which have all been rejected by the U.S. Senate and the American people.”

I think Inhofe is correct. However, by signing the Arms Trade Treaty, Kerry now makes it possible for the Senate in the future to consider its ratification. Without the United States signing the treaty, it would never come up for consideration.

The full text of the Arms Trade Treaty in various UN approved languages can be found here.

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“United States Welcomes Opening of Arms Trade Treaty for Signature”

June 4, 2013 by

The headline is from a release put out by the State Department noting that the United States planned to sign the UN’s Arms Trade Treaty. Maybe the vaguely French looking Secretary of State who, by the way, served in Vietnam, welcomes it along with the rest of the Obama Administration but most assuredly I don’t welcome it and neither do at least 130 members of Congress.

Last week, 130 members of Congress signed a letter to Obama and Kerry urging them to reject the measure for this and other reasons.

“As your review of the treaty continues, we strongly encourage your administration to recognize its textual, inherent and procedural flaws, to uphold our country’s constitutional protections of civilian firearms ownership, and to defend the sovereignty of the United States, and thus to decide not to sign this treaty,” the lawmakers wrote.

The chance of adoption by the U.S. is slim, even if Obama goes ahead and signs it — as early as Monday, or possibly months down the road. A majority of Senate members have come out against the treaty. A two-thirds majority would be needed in the Senate to ratify.

 Kerry’s statement goes on to say it won’t infringe on the Second Amendment.

The ATT will not undermine the legitimate international trade in
conventional weapons, interfere with national sovereignty, or infringe
on the rights of American citizens, including our Second Amendment
rights.

I wonder if he considers the walking of guns to Mexico in Operation Fast and Furious to have been “legitimate international trade in conventional weapons” as it certainly did interfere with the national sovereignty of Mexico. Kerry’s remark that it won’t infringe upon the Second Amendment does not even dignify a response.

According to the Toronto Globe and Mail, Canada, by the way, has not yet decided whether or not it plans to sign the Arms Trade Treaty.

The federal government hasn’t decided whether it agrees with the UN’s arms trade treaty, despite having voted to move it ahead in the first place, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird said Monday.

“We believe that any treaty regarding the sale of munitions that helps move the international community closer to world-leading standards is a good thing,” Baird said during question period. “We participated actively in these discussions. I think we have an obligation to listen before we act, and that is why we will be consulting with Canadians before the government takes any decision.”

The Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister went on to say that the Canadian Government sees a potential link between the ATT and their former gun registry which they abolished last year.

I think the Canadians are being a heck of a lot smarter about this than the US which doesn’t surprise me in the least.

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US Abandons Requirement For Consensus On Arms Trade Treaty

March 30, 2013 by

Late this afternoon, the US delegation to the United Nation’s Arms Trade Treaty talks said that the US would vote “yes” on the Arms Trade Treaty regardless of whether other countries do so. In the past, the US had insisted on a consensus for this treaty.

The National Sports Shooting Foundation issued an immediate response taking issue with the US position.

NSSF Objects to U.S. Government Abandoning
Position that U.N. Treaty Must be based on International “Consensus”

NEWTOWN, Conn. — The National Shooting Sports Foundation today strongly objected to the last-minute reversal of the U.S. government position regarding the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty. In the closing hours of negotiations on Thursday, March 28, the government abandoned its previous insistence that the treaty be approved only through achieving “consensus” of all the member states. Requiring consensus had been the United States position going back to earlier administrations.

At the end of the session, a U.S. government spokesperson told reporters “It’s important to the United States and the defense of our interests to insist on consensus. But every state in this process has always been conscious of the fact that if consensus is not reached in this process, that there are other ways to adopt this treaty, including via a vote of the General Assembly.” The spokesperson went on to say that the United States would vote “yes” on the treaty in the General Assembly, regardless of the positions of other member states. By abandoning the requirement for consensus the United States is assuring passage of the treaty by the United Nations.

“This abrupt about-face on the long-standing United States requirement for ‘consensus’ illustrates that the Obama Administration wants a sweeping U.N. arms control treaty,” said Lawrence Keane, NSSF senior vice president and general counsel. “We are troubled by the timing of the Obama Administration’s decision to abandon consensus on the eve of the Senate debate on pending gun control measures. The United Nations treaty would have a broad impact on the U.S. firearms industry and its base of consumers in the U.S.”

Industry analysts have identified three major areas of concern with the treaty text. The treaty clearly covers trade in civilian firearms, not just military arms and equipment. It will have a major impact on the importation of firearms to the United States, which is a substantial source for the consumer market. And it will impose new regulations on the “transit” of firearms, the term defined so broadly that it would cover all everything from container ships stopping at ports to individuals who are traveling internationally with a single firearm for hunting or other sporting purposes.

“We hope that the Members of the U.S. Senate are closely watching the White House abandon its principles and promises in the rush to ramrod this flawed treaty into effect. Not only will they later be asked to ratify this attack on our constitution and sovereignty, but they will also be lavished with new promises from the administration in its drive to push a broad gun control agenda through the U.S. Senate when it returns from recess. They would be right to question those promises strongly,” concluded Keane.

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A Lump Of Coal From The UN

December 28, 2012 by 1 Comment

As a lump of coal for our Christmas stockings, the United Nations voted on Christmas Eve to restart debate on the Arms Trade Treaty.

The talks had collapsed in July when a consensus couldn’t be reached. It was felt at the time that this was due in part to President Obama not wanting the ATT hung around his neck going into the fall elections. Of course, this was denied by the US delegation.

That was then and this is now. According to Reuters, the US supported the resumption of talks.


But after Obama’s re-election last month, his administration joined other members of a U.N. committee in supporting the resumption of negotiations on the treaty.

That move was set in stone on Monday when the 193-nation U.N. General Assembly voted to hold a final round of negotiations on March 18-28 in New York.

The foreign ministers of Argentina, Australia, Costa Rica, Finland, Japan, Kenya and the United Kingdom – the countries that drafted the resolution – issued a joint statement welcoming the decision to resume negotiations on the pact.

“This was a clear sign that the vast majority of U.N. member states support a strong, balanced and effective treaty, which would set the highest possible common global standards for the international transfer of conventional arms,” they said.

There were 133 votes in favor, none against and 17 abstentions. A number of countries did not attend, which U.N. diplomats said was due to the Christmas Eve holiday.

The exact voting record was not immediately available, though diplomats said the United States voted ‘yes,’ as it did in the U.N. disarmament committee last month. Countries that abstained from last month’s vote included Russia, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Sudan, Belarus, Cuba and Iran.

 The Capitol Hill newspaper The Hill says of the resumption of talks:

The move could intensify another high-profile fight between the
administration, which backs the treaty, and the National Rifle
Association (NRA) which says it will restrict the domestic sale of
firearms.

 As I see it, we will have both a domestic and international battle on our hands in the coming months. Now, more than ever, we need to be united and to deluge Congress with letters, faxes, and emails demanding no new gun control.

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SAF On UN Move

November 7, 2012 by

The Second Amendment Foundation which has been participating in all the United Nations conferences on small arms as an accredited non-governmental organization (NGO) released this statement today regarding the move to push the ATT forward now that Obama has been re-elected.


U.N. CELEBRATES OBAMA RE-ELECTION BY PUSHING GLOBAL GUN CONTROL
For Immediate Release: 11/7/2012


BELLEVUE, WA – Less than 24 hours after winning re-election, President Barack Obama’s administration joined with China, France, Germany and the United Kingdom, and more than 150 other governments, in supporting renewed debate on the proposed United Nations Arms Trade Treaty, confirming the worst fears of the American gun rights community.


The vote came at the U.N. General Assembly’s meeting of the First Committee on Disarmament at the world organization’s headquarters in New York City.


“It’s obvious that our warnings over the past several months have been true,” said Alan Gottlieb, founder and executive vice president of the Second Amendment Foundation. “The election was called about 11 p.m. Tuesday and by 11 a.m. this morning, we got word that the United States was supporting this resolution. We have to be more vigilant in our efforts to stop this proposed treaty.”


SAF Operations Director Julianne Versnel, who has been back and forth to the United Nations over this proposal, said the fight is not finished. The measure will be considered for finalization in March 2013.


“We will continue to monitor this issue and oppose any effort to enforce a global gun control measure,” she stated.


Amnesty International issued a statement Wednesday lauding passage of the resolution, saying the treaty will protect human rights.


“The right of self-defense is a human right,” Gottlieb countered, “and in this country, the Second Amendment protects that right.


“Just days ago as he campaigned for re-election,” he concluded, “Barack Obama told his supporters that voting is the ‘best revenge.’ I guess now we know what he was talking about. The revenge he seeks is against American gun owners and their Second Amendment rights.”