UN Commission for Genocidal Development

Caught this at the Gun Blogs.

Frightening on many levels.

United Nations member states voted Thursday to create an international treaty to curb the illicit trade in guns and other light weapons, despite strong opposition from the United States and other big powers.

On Thursday, a vast majority of delegates to the U.N. General Assembly's first committee endorsed the resolution calling for the establishment of a treaty to stop weapons transfers that fuel conflict, poverty and serious human rights violations.

As many as 139 countries voted in favour of the resolution while 24 abstained. The United States, the world's largest supplier of small arms, was the only country that opposed the resolution.

Other major arms-manufacturing nations that oppose the treaty but did not participate in the voting include Russia, China, India and Pakistan.

There ya go. Only recognized governments will be able to buy arms. Completely ignoring the abuses of some countries in arming those who commit genocide.

"It's a great victory," Helen Hughes of the London-based Amnesty International told IPS. "We had governments in that room who finally listened to human rights campaigners."

Jeremy Hobbs, director of Oxfam International, described the treaty as an international commitment to "end the scandal of the unregulated arms trade".

Both Amnesty International and Oxfam had been at the forefront of lobbying efforts in support of the treaty. This week they were joined by 15 Nobel Peace Prize-winners in urging nations to vote for the resolution.

"No weapons should ever be transferred if they will be used for serious violations of human rights," they said in a letter to the delegates who are currently attending the General Assembly session.

It will be interesting to see how they propose to control this. Of course the Janjaweed won't be allowed any arms, oh, wait, they already have them. No doubt the UN will clean up Darfur and other human rights hell holes and disarm all those naughty people who are being murdered by those who have government sponsors giving them guns. Then again, places like Rawanda didn't need many guns to have their attempts at genocide.

"No state should authorise international arms transfers that violate the specific obligations under international law," the letter said. It further recommended that governments submit national reports on arms transfers to an international registry.

The current volume of the global arms trade is estimated to be around 1.1 trillion dollars, an amount that is likely to increase further by the end of this year, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

Independent experts who have worked closely with the United Nations on the issue of small arms proliferation estimate that in the past three years more than one million people have been killed as a result of the unchecked flow of guns and other small weapons.

"A thousand people die every day and many more harmed as a result of the proliferation and misuse of small arms," said Rebecca Peters, the director of the International Action Network on Small Arms.

"The world can no longer leave civilians to the mercy of gunrunners and arms brokers who are profiting every year," she added in a statement calling for a worldwide ban on the use and supply of illicit weapons.

There, you get to have your own international registry of who is allowed to get guns, and of course, those governments will be forever honest and never violate the human rights of their citizens.

I may be too sarcastic on this one, but I'm thinking that if the UN is involved, you can be certain that there is going to be failure that is sanctioned and supported by the UN that ends up killing far more people than if they were allowed to be armed.