A Small Step Towards a Better World.

Yesterday the UN adopted the first treaty in its history designed to regulate the global arms trade. 154 countries voted in favour of it, with twenty three abstaining, and three, - Syria, Iran and North Korea – voting against. This came at the end of over a decade of hard work by various groups campaigning about this issue.

Didn’t know about it?

I’m not surprised. Not only are there lots of other things going on which all take up precious column inches, - for example the government trying to solve the country’s economic problems by punishing poor people – but also, despite all the good that the UN does, it rarely gets front page coverage. But even taking this into account the lack of attention given to the arms treaty is quite distressing.

This is a far reaching treaty that once it comes into force, probably by the end of the year, will cover virtually every form of weapon, from small arms to warships, from tanks to anti-aircraft missiles. While it won’t cover the domestic use of weapons – the Americans will have to sort that out by themselves – it will mean that every part of the arms trade from the sale of arms to the transfer of parts will be properly regulated. It will also seek to regulate the activities of arms dealers both legal and illegal.

This, I hope you understand, is a bit of a big thing.

The arms trade is a massive money maker, worth an estimated £70bn. And while this treaty won’t be a big blow to the sale of arms in an official setting, it will be a big blow to organised crime and terrorist groups who will now find it much harder to get hold of arms, even illegally. Some people may argue, (in fact some people already have) that this treaty will lead to a surge in the black market. However, now that this treaty is sorted we can get started on cracking down on the black market.

But it’s not only terrorists who have to worry but countries as well. The arms trade and its unregulated nature has been the driving force behind several wars in the last couple of decades, especially in Africa. Countries with dodgy governments will be in trouble too. As noted above, Syria was one of the three countries to vote against the treaty and with good reason. If there ever comes a day when the current Syrian regime ceases to be recognised by the world powers as the official government of Syria, then they will have a hard time laying their hands on the weaponry they need to continue the civil war.

Like I’ve said, the UN doesn’t often (in fact rarely) gets the coverage it deserves considering all the work that it does attempting to make the world a better place. But here it really has done something amazing. Thanks to this Treaty the world is one step further along the path of becoming a more peaceful and overall better place to live.