Thread: Obama Urged to Sign Arms Trade Treaty Immediately

Obama Urged to Sign Arms Trade Treaty Immediately

By Cydney Hargis

The Control Arms Coalition demonstrated in front of the United Nations in July 2012 to remind delegates of the price paid every day by armed violence. Credit: Coralie Tripier/IPS

WASHINGTON, May 31 2013 (IPS) - Advocacy groups here are stepping up a campaign to pressure President Barack Obama to quickly sign on to a new United Nations treaty aimed at regulating, for the first time, the international small-arms trade.

The Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), adopted by the U.N. in April following on years of preparation, opens for country ratification on Monday. It passed with just three “no” votes, coming from Iran, North Korea and Syria, and will require the ratification of 50 countries to come into effect.

"The issue here is simply the symbolism of saying that [the U.S.] is committed to this on an international level." -- Rachel Stohl of the Stimson Center

“The U.S. has said that it feels its export control system is one of the best in the world, and that it would like to see those standards replicated in the ATT,” Clare Da Silva, legal advisor on the ATT with Amnesty International, told IPS.

She says she is confident that the United States will sign on, though it most likely will not be on Monday.

“There is nothing in this treaty that requires the U.S. to do anything differently,” Rachel Stohl, a senior associate at the Stimson Center, a think tank here, said at a panel discussion Friday. “Rather, the issue here is simply the symbolism of saying that [the U.S.] is committed to this on an international level – that’s really important.”

For the first time, the ATT states that if a country knows its weapons will be used to commit genocide or violate a U.N. arms embargo, they cannot be transferred. Stohl believes the ATT has the potential to address some U.S. national security and foreign policy concerns, including terrorism.

A significant majority of U.S. allies, human rights and religious groups have supported the treaty, the passage of which was seen as a key victory for the United States. And while many groups are now calling on President Obama to sign on to the ATT immediately, others are saying he will need to do so no later than the U.N. General Assembly meeting in September.

“If he doesn’t do that, the momentum behind the force will be undermined,” Daryll Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, a bipartisan advocacy group here, said Friday.

“U.S. credibility will be questioned, we are going to be pulling the rug out from under our allies, and the president is going to have a lot of explaining to do.”

According to both Kimball and Stohl, other countries will be looking to the U.S. to sign on before they make their final decisions. Neither Russia nor China, for instance, has announced whether they will ratify the ATT, and analysts suggest that these decisions will hinge on the U.S.’s own moves.

“The U.S. is the largest weapons exporter in the world,” Stohl says. “So people will look and say, well if its okay with the United States, then [signing the ATT] must not be too damaging to legitimate trade.”

Political momentum

The Obama administration has formally supported the ATT, a turnaround from previous U.S. policy under George W. Bush.

Nonetheless, it appears unlikely that the United States will sign the treaty on Jun. 3. Observers say this is due simply to typographical errors in translations from the original English text, however, which are currently being corrected following which countries will have three months to lodge comments.

Even once the Obama administration does sign on, the U.S. Congress will still need to approve the ratification before it can be signed into law. According to Amnesty International’s Da Silva, many international treaties never get ratified, and she does not expect to see the ATT made into law anytime soon.

Indeed, Republican politicians have already moved to pass legislation specifically barring the United States’ ratification of the ATT, while gun-rights advocates here continue to see opposition of the treaty as a primary rallying point. The majority of this opposition has come from the National Rifle Association (NRA), a lobby group.

“The text of the approved treaty is deeply problematic and threatens the rights of privacy of American gun owners,” the NRA says on its website.

In fact, the ATT deals solely with the international arms trade between governments. Nonetheless, this opposition has been so strong that U.S. delegation specifically wrote into the ATT text language that no infringement will occur for recreational, cultural, historical and lawful ownership.

Still, the Stimson Center’s Stohl notes that there remains an important opportunity for the United States to set an example.

“The symbolism is not that there has to be any change to U.S. law,” she told IPS. “Rather, it would be sending a signal to the rest of the world that the United States, which is responsible for 75 percent of the arms trade, is taking on this obligation as the world’s largest [arms] exporter.”

Following a recent legislative defeat of President Obama’s attempts to strengthen domestic gun laws – unrelated to the ATT – Stohl notes that the treaty could be an opportunity for the administration, as well.

“Here’s an opportunity to say, the NRA didn’t like this and we did it anyway,” she says.

Paul O’Brien, an advocate with Oxfam America, a humanitarian group, agrees.

“Do they sign it in a moment when the world is paying attention? We hope so,” he said at Friday’s panel discussion.

“Do they wait until Congress isn’t paying attention and the NRA has probably gone to bed for a couple of weeks? We hope not. We hope they use the moment to continue to build political momentum”.

http://www.ipsnews.net/2013/05/obama...y-immediately/

those 2000 dead - a majority are those breaking into or attempted robbery's that end badly for the bad guys; its also suicides a person committing suicide will do it by what ever means necessary

it is also Illegal Guns own by gangs which are killing other gang members

Guns given by Obama to drug cartels

these are NOT the actions of the public

I also want to say Temporary Politicians cannot change the Permanent Constitution

If crack head signs - Impeach his broke ass and remove him from Office for TREASON

Rep. Kelly Sends Bipartisan Letter to Obama Administration Urging Rejection of UN Arms Trade Treaty

May 30, 2013 Issues: Foreign Affairs and Defense, Second Amendment Rights

WASHINGTON — U.S. Representative Mike Kelly (R-PA) issued the following statement today regarding a bipartisan letter he authored and submitted to President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry petitioning the administration not to sign the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty (ATT). The letter was signed by a total of 130 members of Congress – including Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon (R-CA), Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), and Rules Committee Chairman Pete Sessions (R-TX) – and declares all of the signatories’ opposition to “both the ratification of the Arms Trade Treaty and any effort to treat it as internationally or domestically binding upon the United States.”
“As the signing period for the ATT gets underway next week, President Obama has an opportunity to take a monumental stand for our national sovereignty and our Constitutional rights. The ATT threatens both of these things and should be fully rejected. Any treaty that would put the United States – the world’s defender of peace and freedom – on equal footing with the world’s worst dictatorships and terror-sponsors ought to be condemned, dismissed, and ultimately denied our country’s signature. I sincerely hope the administration will listen to the very real objections my colleagues from both parties in Congress share and rightly decide that joining the ATT is not at all in America’s interest.”
NOTE: On June 3, 2013, the ATT opens for national signatures and will enter into force for its signatories 90 days after the 50th nation-state has ratified the treaty. In order to take domestic effect, the ATT must be signed by the president, receive the advice and consent of the Senate, and be the subject of implementing legislation by the Congress.
Rep. Kelly is a national leader of the movement to stop the ATT. On March 15, 2013, heintroduced H. Con. Res. 23, a bipartisan concurrent resolution to oppose the treaty, which currently has 142 co-sponsors in the House and 36 supporters in the Senate. On April 23, 2013, he submitted a bipartisan letter to the House Committee on Appropriations urging the body to deny funding for the treaty’s implementation.
Text of the letter:

May 30, 2013

Dear President Obama and Secretary Kerry:

As defenders of the sovereignty of the United States, we write to express our grave concern about the dangers posed by the United Nations’ Arms Trade Treaty. Our country’s sovereignty, and the protections it affords our individual freedoms, including those recognized by the Second Amendment, must not be infringed.
In April of 2013 at the U.N. General Assembly, your administration voted for this treaty, which opened for signature this month. We understand that your administration is conducting a review of this treaty before deciding whether or not to sign it. We wish to make it clear, at the outset, that we regard this treaty as an international agreement requiring the advice and consent of the Senate, and not as one that can be concluded as an executive agreement, or as one that is in any way binding on the United States before it receives Senate advice and consent. We also wish to emphasize that we regard this treaty as non-self-executing, and therefore as having no domestic legal effect within the United States unless and until Congress adopts appropriate implementing legislation.
Notwithstanding these concerns, we urge your administration not to sign this treaty for the following reasons:
First, the treaty as adopted by the General Assembly is deeply flawed. It includes only a weak preambular reference to the lawful ownership and use of, and trade in, firearms, and recognizes none of these activities, or personal self-defense, as inherent rights. It frequently employs the term “end users,” which can refer to individual firearms owners, and, in its sixth Principle, it creates a national “responsibility” to “prevent . . . diversion” of firearms, a requirement that could be used to justify the imposition of further controls within the United States. This risk is enhanced by Article 5.1, which requires nations party to the treaty to implement it in accordance with this principle. We know that, in the final March negotiating conference, your administration opposed a number of these treaty elements: we do not believe that your administration should now support them by signing the treaty.
We are also profoundly dissatisfied by the fact that the treaty, in Article 20.3, allows amendments by a three-quarters majority vote. We note that Article 20.4 makes it clear that amendments are binding only on those nations that accept them, but we do not regard this as an adequate safeguard. Your administration supported the negotiation of the treaty on the basis of consensus, and amendments to the treaty should be subject to the same rule. Moreover, a majority rule amendment process will over time create an international instrument with diverging interpretations and commitments. Such an instrument will be a source of political and legal pressure on the United States to comply in practice with amendments it has not accepted. We believe that the effect of this would be to circumvent the power and the duty of the Senate to provide its advice and consent on treaty commitments before they are assumed by the United States, and thus to abridge the sovereignty of our nation.
Second, the treaty suffers from vagueness. It defines none of the terms essential to interpreting or implementing it, or defines them only by reference to terms that are themselves undefined. This means that, by becoming party to the treaty, the United States would be accepting commitments that are inherently unclear. This would open the United States to repeated charges of breach of faith, and would become another means to pressure the United States to adopt new interpretations of the treaty text and the obligations inherent in it. This problem is particularly serious as it relates to Article 7.1(b)(i) and (ii) of the treaty, which requires nations party to the treaty to assess whether exports could be used to “commit or facilitate a serious violation of international humanitarian law,” or of “international human rights law.”
We agree that respect for the laws of war and for human rights are deeply important, and that the export control system of the United States should – as it already does – give appropriate weight to these grave considerations. But like the “facilitate” criteria, the standards of “international humanitarian law” and “international human rights law” are easily-politicized and readily subject to redefinition by the so-called international community. In practice, because these terms are at the heart of the treaty, the United States cannot know what commitments it would assume by becoming a party to the treaty. The State Department has already acknowledged that the treaty is “ambiguous.” The Senate can never effectively provide its advice on an ambiguous treaty, and thus it should never provide its consent to such a treaty.
This problem is even more serious because Article 6.3 prohibits the export of arms if the exporting nation has “knowledge” that they will be gravely misused. This prohibition invites U.N.-led investigations of United States’ policy-makers, to determine what they knew, or should have known, about an arms transfer. Together, Articles 6.3, 7.1, and 11 (the latter on “Diversion”) also raise a high legal barrier against covert arms transfers by the United States to assist any resistance to a repressive regime. In summary, the treaty would commit the United States to adopting criteria and standards it does not define and control, and would restrict our ability to conduct our own foreign policy, and therefore again impinges on our national sovereignty.
Third, and finally, the procedure by which the treaty was adopted violates a red line set out by your own administration. In October of 2009, when then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced your administration’s support for the negotiation of the treaty, she stated:
As long as that Conference operates under the rule of consensus decision-making needed to ensure that all countries can be held to standards that will actually improve the global situation by denying arms to those who would abuse them, the United States will actively support the negotiations. Consensus is needed to ensure the widest possible support for the Treaty and to avoid loopholes in the Treaty that can be exploited by those wishing to export arms irresponsibly.
Similarly, the State Department noted that consensus was necessary to provide “the opportunity to promote the same high standards for the entire international community.” But when the March 2013 negotiating conference failed to reach a consensus agreement, your administration supported the move to adopt the treaty through the U.N. General Assembly, where opponents and abstainers included many of the world’s most important and irresponsible arms importers and exporters, including Iran, North Korea, the People’s Republic of China, Russia, and Egypt. The United States thus did not come close to “ensur[ing] that all countries can be held to standards that will actually improve the global situation.”
By failing to uphold this red line, your administration has done grave damage to the diplomatic credibility of the United States. In future consensus-based negotiations on this or any other subject, other nations can now threaten to abandon consensus and secure a majority-rule outcome through the U.N. General Assembly. The principle of consensus is of particular significance to the United States -- and many previous administrations have employed and defended it -- precisely because it protects our interests, and our sovereignty, from the majority-rule adoption of treaties on subjects of importance to us.
The principle of consensus has long been unpopular with many nations and nongovernment organizations precisely because it limits their ability to pressure the United States. By supporting the move to the U.N. General Assembly, your administration has endorsed a precedent that the opponents of consensus will be free to use against the United States in all future negotiations. We do not believe that your administration should give any further credibility to this treaty, which was adopted by a procedure that has done serious damage to our ability to protect our sovereignty.
As your review of the treaty continues, we strongly encourage your administration to recognize its textual, inherent, and procedural flaws, to uphold our country’s constitutional protections of civilian firearms ownership, and to defend the sovereignty of the United States, and thus to decide not to sign this treaty. As members of Congress, we will oppose both the ratification of the Arms Trade Treaty and any effort to treat it as internationally or domestically binding upon the United States.
We appreciation your consideration of this issue and look forward to your response.
Sincerely,
Members of Congress

http://kelly.house.gov/press-release...-un-arms-trade

ACT OF TREASON? Obama to Sign U.N. Firearms Treaty Rejected by Senate

Posted on 1 June, 2013 by Amy




(Kit Daniels) — President Barack Obama will soon sign an international arms trade treaty previously rejected by the United States Senate.

The United Nations Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) establishes regulations for international arms sales. Categories of firearms listed in the treaty includes tanks, artillery, and small arms such as handguns. The U.N. General Assembly passed the treaty on April 2nd with a vote of 153-4, with the United States voting in favor. Obama intends to sign the treaty on June 3rd.

On March 23rd, Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.) introduced an amendment to prevent the U.S. from entering into the treaty. It passed by a vote of 53 to 46.

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) introduced another amendment to ensure “that the United States will not negotiate or support treaties that violate Americans’ Second Amendment rights under the Constitution of the United States.” This amendment passed in the Senate by a voice vote.

Signatories of the treaty are encouraged to keep records on the recipients of imported arms and to introduce domestic legislation to support the treaty’s requirements, according to the National Rifle Association Institute for Legislative Action.

Due to the Senate’s response to the treaty, Obama’s signature will be symbolic at best. According to Article II, Section 2, Clause 2 of the U.S. Constitution, the President “shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur.”

Read more at http://redflagnews.com/headlines/act...cted-by-senate


http://gopthedailydose.com/2013/06/0...ted-by-senate/

1 Hour Ago by Tim Brown

UN Arms Trade Treaty Opposed By 130 Members Of Congress

1 Comment

The United Nations Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) is scheduled to be signed by Barack Obama on June 4, this Monday. He has already said he will sign it.

However, the United States Senate has passed a resolution that they will not ratify the document. Now a letter has been sent to Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry by 130 members of the House of Representatives opposing the ATT.

On May 30 the 130 congressmen wrote to remind both Obama and Kerry that they are supposed to be “defenders of the sovereignty of the United States and as such the representatives wrote to “express…grave concern about the dangers posed by the United Nations’ Arms Trade Treaty.”

According to the letter, “Our country’s sovereignty, and the protections it affords our individual freedoms, including those recognized by the Second Amendment, must not be infringed.”

The letter then went on to cite three reasons not to sign the treaty:

1. The treaty as adopted by the General Assembly is deeply flawed.
2. The treaty suffers from vagueness.
3. The procedure by which the treaty was adopted violates a red line set out by Obama’s own administration.

The congressmen expounded on the flaws of the treaty. They wrote, “It includes only a weak preambular reference to the lawful ownership and use of, and trade in, firearms, and recognizes none of these activities, or personal self-defense, as inherent rights. It frequently employs the term “end users,” which can refer to individual firearms owners, and, in its sixth Principle, it creates a national “responsibility” to “prevent … diversion” of firearms, a requirement that could be used to justify the imposition of further controls within the United States.”

“This risk is enhanced by Article 5.1, which requires nations party to the treaty to implement it in accordance with this principle,” the letter reads. “We know that, in the final March negotiating conference, your administration opposed a number of these treaty elements: we do not believe that your administration should now support them by signing the treaty.”

The letter also points out that “in Article 20.3, allows amendments by a three-quarters majority vote. We note that Article 20.4 makes it clear that amendments are binding only on those nations that accept them, but we do not regard this as an adequate safeguard.”

The vagueness of the treaty was also pointed out. “It defines none of the terms essential to interpreting or implementing it, or defines them only by reference to terms that are themselves undefined. This means that, by becoming party to the treaty, the United States would be accepting commitments that are inherently unclear.”

By being unclear, it would thus open the US to repeated charges of breach of faith, and no doubt it would also place pressure on the US to adopt new interpretations or amendments to the treaty.
Specifically the congressmen point out Article 7.1 (b)(i) and (ii) of the treaty, which requires nations party to the treaty to assess whether exports could be used to “commit or facilitate a serious violation of international humanitarian law,” or of “international human rights law.”

As for the violation of the “red line” set by the Obama administration, well they used former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s owns word to bolster their claim, citing Obama’s support for the negotiation of the treaty. Clinton stated in October of 2009:

“As long as that Conference operates under the rule of consensus decision-making needed to ensure that all countries can be held to standards that will actually improve the global situation by denying arms to those who would abuse them, the United States will actively support the negotiations. Consensus is needed to ensure the widest possible support for the Treaty and to avoid loopholes in the Treaty that can be exploited by those wishing to export arms irresponsibly.”

They further pressed Obama’s hypocrisy in the matter by stating “the State Department noted that consensus was necessary to provide “the opportunity to promote the same high standards for the entire international community.” But when the March 2013 negotiating conference failed to reach a consensus agreement, your administration supported the move to adopt the treaty through the U.N. General Assembly, where opponents and abstainers included many of the world’s most important and irresponsible arms importers and exporters, including Iran, North Korea, the People’s Republic of China, Russia, and Egypt.”

Therefore, the US didn’t even come close to ensuring “that all countries can be held to standards that will actually improve the global situation.”

Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA) issued a statement regarding the letter he authored and submitted:

“As the signing period for the ATT gets underway next week, President Obama has an opportunity to take a monumental stand for our national sovereignty and our Constitutional rights. The ATT threatens both of these things and should be fully rejected. Any treaty that would put the United States–the world’s defender of peace and freedom–on equal footing with the world’s worst dictatorships and terror-sponsors ought to be condemned, dismissed, and ultimately denied our country’s signature. I sincerely hope the administration will listen to the very real objections my colleagues from both parties in Congress share and rightly decide that joining the ATT is not at all in America’s interest.”

The letter’s signatures included Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon (R-CA), and Rules Committee Chairman Pete Sessions (R-TX).

Rep. Steve Stockman, who also signed the letter, said “The right to keep and bear arms is granted by God and protecting from government aggression by the Constitution. It is not subject to the whims of global totalitarians massed in New York City. I oppose any UN treaty touching the right to keep and bear arms. It’s beyond time for the United States to withdraw from the UN.”

I completely agree with his assessment. However, once a treaty is signed by a president, it normally remains available for the Senate to ratify. This treaty must not only not be ratified, but it must be completely removed off the table from any future ratification.

http://freedomoutpost.com/2013/06/un...s-of-congress/

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Obama Administration To Sign UN Arms Trade Treaty -We Must Kill It In The Senate- Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Countryman confirmed that the Obama Administration will quickly sign the dreaded UN Arms Trade Treaty when given the chance. Countryman said they will be signing the treaty in "the very near future." The treaty will be open for signatures on June 3rd. We CAN stop this international treaty from reaching American soil by killing it the United States Senate. The U.S. Senate must ratify an international treaty for it to be effective. They would need 67 votes to ratify the treaty. Tell your U.S. Senators that you do not want this treaty in these United States! Select Here To Fax The U.S. Senate:Demand They KEEP THEIR TREATY AWAY FROM OUR GUNS -DO NOT Ratify The UN 'Arms Trade Treaty'! Radical delegates from over 150 countries have agreed upon the final details of a binding international treaty that requires countries to regulate and control the export of arms. Many gun advocates are weary of the language in the treaty including the fact that 'small arms and light weapons' are among the included weaponry that could be regulated by the United Nations. They do not trust the UN's reassurance that this treaty will not affect our current gun laws or our Second Amendment. After all, the UN Arms Trade Treaty had previously been rumored as a replacement of the Second Amendment. We must make it clear TODAY to the Senate and the White House that the Second Amendment must be protected and that they must reject any and all U.N. Gun Control. Tell them to KEEP THEIR TREATY AWAY FROM OUR GUNS! Select Here To Fax The U.S. Senate:Demand They KEEP THEIR TREATY AWAY FROM OUR GUNS -DO NOT Ratify The UN 'Arms Trade Treaty'! Senator Jerry Moran has given us some confidence but they must be reminded that: "The U.S. Senate is united in strong opposition to a treaty that puts us on level ground with dictatorships who abuse human rights and arm terrorists, but there is real concern that the Administration feels pressured to sign a treaty that violates our Constitutional rights." We must not take his word for it though; there are 99 other Senators that need to be reminded that we will not stand for an international treaty. With an agreement reached it just has to be signed by Obama, our last defense is the U.S. Senate. Anti Gunners will need a 2/3 super majority in a Senate vote to ratify the treaty. We must therefore be sure to remind every member of the Senate to protect our Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms from the overreaching arm of the United Nations. Select Here To Fax The U.S. Senate:Demand They KEEP THEIR TREATY AWAY FROM OUR GUNS -DO NOT Ratify The UN 'Arms Trade Treaty'! The uncertainty begins in the discussion of small arms. Where will the regulations on our small arms start, and where will they stop? They are even trying to include ammunition regulations in the Arms Trade Treaty! Will the United Nations try to impose international licensing requirements, an international registry, or international regulations for the trade, sale, importation, and private ownership of our semi-automatic firearms? The last negotiations for an Arms Trade Treaty took place in July 2012, just four months before the Presidential election. Obama did not want to take a big stance for global gun control just months before his re-election but now he has made it clear he is for total gun control. He also told voters he would not be re-visiting negotiations for an Arms Trade treaty but here we are. Select Here To Fax The U.S. Senate:Demand They KEEP THEIR TREATY AWAY FROM OUR GUNS -DO NOT Ratify The UN 'Arms Trade Treaty'! Since his re-election it has become clearer than ever what is at the top of his agenda; taking our guns away! The Obama Administration has been exploiting tragedies since the election to push gun control at the city, state, federal, and now GLOBAL level. Our Senate took a stance before the Presidential election when 51 of them wrote Obama a letter saying they would not support an Arms Trade Treaty. We must let our entire U.S. Senate know we do not support international gun control. They must not ratify this international treaty. Defend America, Alan M. Gottlieb Chairman Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms If you prefer to donate by check, please mail to: Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA) Dept Code 7807 -n-ccrkba Liberty Park 12500 NE 10th Place Bellevue, WA 98005 With more than 650,000 members and supporters nationwide, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms is one of the nation's premier gun rights organizations. As a non-profit organization, the Citizens Committee is dedicated to preserving firearms freedoms through active lobbying of elected officials and facilitating grass-roots organization of gun rights activists in local communities throughout the United States. Contributions are not tax deductible. The Citizens Committee can be reached by phone at (425) 454-4911 or by email to Patriot@CCRKBAUpdate.org Copyright © 2013 Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, All Rights Reserved.