The Programme of Action, the Arms Trade Treaty, and the UN Register of Conventional Arms: Seeking Synergy and Overcoming Challenges (2016)

Two major United Nations treaties govern illicit arms trade and trafficking since the early twenty-first century. The Protocol against the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, Their Parts and Components and Ammunition (generally known as the Firearms Protocol (FP)), adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in May 2001, supplementing its parent instrument, the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC), which entered into force in July 2005. Over a decade later, the second instrument, the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), was opened for signature in June 2013, and entered into force in December 2014.

One of the objectives of the ATT is to address the “absence of common international standards on the import, export and transfer of conventional arms.” As the UN General Assembly has noted, this absence contributes to “conflict, displacement of people, crime and terrorism” thereby undermining peace, reconciliation, safety, security, stability and sustainable development.” In other words, the absence of such common international standards contributes to armed violence.

This briefing paper focuses on the UNPoA, the ATT, and the UN Register of Conventional Arms. It addresses core challenges related to conventional weapons and their transfer, and suggests areas of current and potential synergy among these instruments.