12 July 2001

U.S. Serious About Seeking Compromise in Small Arms Negotiations

United Nations -- As the U.N. Conference on Illicit Small Arms and Light Weapons ends its first week, U.S. delegates stress that the United States is serious about finding compromises with other nations so that the session will produce a practical program of action that addresses effectively the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons.

The U.S. opening statement, delivered July 9 by Undersecretary of State John Bolton, was a "commitment by the United States to try to negotiate seriously a compromise consensus document which will address the subject," said a senior U.S. official speaking on the condition of anonymity.

Talking with journalists July 12, the senior official said the United States attaches great importance to achieving a successful outcome.

Bolton's remarks, which also outlined areas the United States cannot accept, were not meant to be confrontational or indicate the U.S. was stepping back from negotiations. "We intend to stay and negotiate constructively in the hope -- and we believe there is a good chance -- that we can have a consensus outcome document that everybody can accept which will have a practical and real effect in beginning to affect this serious problem," the official said.

The United States believes that "the problem of small arms and light weapons is a serious problem that does require addressing by the international community," the official said.

"We're very seriously concerned by the humanitarian results of the unrestricted flow or illegal flow of small arms and light weapons into areas of conflicts," the official said. "Secretary of State Colin Powell in his recent trip to Africa spoke exactly to this problem of the terrible injuries and deaths that small arms and light weapons cause and the need to bring the problem under control and, when these conflicts end, to have the excess weapons destroyed."

The official stressed once again that the conference is not about the legal trade in small arms and light weapons nor about civilian possession of small arms, and the United States will not accept any language in the final program of action that addresses those points.

"The difficulty with respect to the text is, in part, a definitional problem," the official said. "Small arms and light weapons have not been precisely defined. There are various definitions which have been given by various groups, but several definitions which refer to small arms include pistols and rifles and therein lies the problem, because ... those are permitted under United States law for civilian possession."

But it would not be realistic to look for a definition at this conference, the official said.

"The likely outcome of this conference is that it will not be possible to achieve a specific definition of small arms and light weapons. But if we can get a political commitment to undertake appropriate measures to address this problem of small arms and light weapons, it will then be up to each nation to interpret, according to its national laws, what that commitment applies to," the official said.

Nevertheless, the United States still would not accept Paragraph 20 of the document, which asks nations to seriously consider prohibitions on civilian possession of small arms and light weapons, because of the right to own firearms guaranteed Americans in the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, the official said.

But the official also added that in the United States, civilians cannot own military weapons.

It is existing United States law that civilians are prohibited from possessing automatic weapons and military-type weapons, the official said. In opposing paragraph 20, "we are not trying to protect opening the door to having civilians own tanks and mortars and things that are already prohibited under United States law."

Even without a definition of small arms and light weapons, the official continued, it's clear to the United States what the problem is and how to address it. The United States is encouraging other countries to "step up to the line" and take strong steps in import and export control, brokering, licensing, end-user certificates and checks, and requirements for retransfer of arms.

"The United States has one of the strictest regimes in the world in terms of export control, in terms of licensing and brokers, in terms of requiring end-use certificates, in terms of monitoring those end-users (and) even of requiring route transfer permission from the United States for those military arms that we export," the official said.

For example, last year the United States had 18,000 requests from abroad to the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, which handles gun markings and tracings, and responded to each. Those were in addition to hundreds of thousands of requests the bureau handled domestically, the official said.

The official said that the United States is looking for other countries to make a political commitment to come up with the kind of arms sales regime the United States has and to honor international agreements.

"These are things which if implemented by nations would have a real effective way of addressing the problem," the official said.

National and international measures have to be enforced, the official noted, adding that despite U.N. Security Council embargoes, many nations continue to sell arms.

International cooperation is the sort of practical, effective means of addressing the problem, the official said.

The United States is not opposed to a review conference but is opposed to mandating a specific review timetable or commitments to negotiate any new treaties. "If we get ... an agreement on effective measures, and we see over a period of time they begin to work and that a subsequent conference by the United Nations might be useful, we will not be opposed," the official said.

The United States also wants to eliminate the provision in the program of action that says small arms and light weapons transfers should occur only between governments.

The senior U.S. official said one of the problems with that item is that there is no clear definition of small arms and light weapons. Some definitions of small arms include legitimate weapons legally transferable to other individuals abroad, including non-state and non-governmental actors, such as hunters.

Secondly, corrupt governments themselves could a problem, the official said. "There are governments around the world who receive arms and use them to fuel conflicts in neighboring countries. We see this in places like West Africa where the United Nation has been imposing sanctions against Liberia and Charles Taylor for that reason."

"The United States is just not in a position to bind its hands in foreign policy for every conceivable hypothetical future situation where there might be an absolutely oppressive, genocidal government which was wiping out an entire people under its control, and the United States -- or other nations -- would be, under this commitment, prohibited from considering assisting those people to legitimately defend themselves," the official said.

With the first week of the conference coming to an end, delegates have so far expressed their country's overall position in a general debate in the plenary and have begun commenting on the draft program of action. They expect to begin intensive negotiations July 16 to have a final document by July 20.