"When Amnesty International activists were among a small group of people who first proposed regulating the irresponsible international arms trade in the early 1990s, some even mocked the idea. Two decades on, the [arms trade] treaty now becomes a legally binding reality," Salil Shetty, Amnesty International's Secretary General, said.
According to the watchog, every year at least half a million people die and millions more are hurt and forced to leave their homes due to inadequate international weapons trade regulation. The global arms trade is said to be worth almost $100 billion, but a significant portion of the weapons trade is illegal and remains undocumented.
The ATT consists of a number of laws aimed at stopping the flow of arms to countries participating in severe human rights violations, including war crimes and genocide. Amnesty International cites weapons supplied by the United States to Iraq and arms shipments from China to South Sudan, countries where numerous proven crimes against humanity are committed.
In April 2013, the United Nations General Assembly voted to adopt the ATT by 155 votes. The ATT was ratified by 50 states on September 25, permitting the treaty to enter into force 90 days later, on December 24. As of now, 60 states, including five of ten top arms exporters, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK, have already ratified the ATT.
Amnesty International has been campaigning to create international binding laws to limit weapons trade since the early 1990s. Since then, over a million people have joined the call for governments to sign and ratify the ATT.
