The U.S. Senate : Stalling Hemispheric Arms Control

...Recently, Biden may have eradicate illicit arms trafficking, while protecting the legal trade been too busy campaigning for the Oval Office to champion the in firearms...

...the minority leader, Richard Lugar (R-iN), takes arms vention is “an outstanding example of the contribution that the control very seriously, and has his name attached to some of Oas is making to the security of the hemisphere,” asserts the the most effective bilateral arms control efforts in existence...

...NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS report: guns universally adopted a politically binding code of conduct on small arms, ammunition, and explosives transfers in December 2005...

...But unlike oth-U.s...

...Under called a “global gun grab...

...senator dianne Feinstein (d-Ca) in-de-mining, development assistance, and a fund dedicated to sists that ratifying the convention “will help create a regime for “strengthening democracy...

...But he has not championed the Oas convention either...

...About 100,000 guns were publicly destroyed in June 2001, 10,000 in July 2002, and 5,000 in 2003.31 For Brazil, which has a firearm death rate more than twice the world average, and where more people have been killed by guns during the last 10 years than in any other country (including countries at war), the public destructions build confidence that the government is addressing the problem of gun violence, raise awareness about the problem, and places political pressure on the Brazilian congress to develop stronger national gun laws.32 In 2004, Brazil undertook a National Voluntary Firearms Handover campaign, which led to the recovery of nearly 250,000 weapons in six months, exceeding the program’s original target of 80,000...

...discrimination against women, have been languishing for Part of the reason for the lack of movement could be an un-decades despite an absence of opposition...

...Senate: Stalling Hemispheric Arms Control i n 1997, President Bill Clinton, standing beside Mexican presi-On June 9, 1998, the U.s...

...same statement...

...international expansion of the President and vice President’s a 2000 state department fact sheet boasted that “the United domestic gun control agenda...

...It prohibits signatories from transferring weapons to governments that commit human rights abuses or violate international humanitarian law...

...Although the referendum failed, it was the first vote of its kind and served to raise awareness by Frida Berrigan Yet in the state department’s 2002 letter to the senate For-support for the convention...

...in more recent editions of that annual letter, the convention budget of about $77 million, the United states’ share accounts has sunk lower down that list...

...the washington’s close collaboration on the treaty is ironic, given pro-gun group’s influence is visible in repeated exhortations that the flow of guns from the United states to Mexico remains that nothing in the Oas treaty limit constitutionally protected an enormous problem and a source of growing tension...

...in a 1999 leta period of intense conflicts, many of which where perpetuated ter to the agency, Helms wrote that the “project proposes using by illicit weapons flows across national borders...

...it eral government attempted such activities here at home...

...Still, a Firearms Working Group has worked to coordinate subregional implementation of CIFTA, as well as a cooperative tracing of weapons and harmonization of national laws.30 Individual countries within Latin America have also adopted national and unilateral small-arms policies...

...the presidents had joined together to sign an Oas treaty to ratify the treaty...

...In January 2003 the Andean Community (Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela) adopted Decision 552, approving a plan to crack down on illicit arms trafficking.29 The MERCOSUR states have also focused on small arms through explorations of urban violence, drug trafficking, and criminality...

...it re-Relations Committee, where he earned the nickname senator quires that ratifying nations create laws (if they do not already No...

...First proposed But Helms no longer bangs the gavel in Foreign Relations...

...laws, regulations, and practices...

...Meanwhile, with only a slim major-the Bush administration, the United states struck out on its ity in the midst of a defining political moment, the democrats own, ignoring, undermining, and in some cases toppling key might be timid about pushing a treaty that could serve to unify international agreements negotiated by earlier administratheir opposition...

...today, the United states— ing is an issue of national security for our governments, and together with Canada, the dominican Republic, Jamaica, Guya matter of neighborhood security for all of us in the ameri-ana, suriname, and saint vincent and the Grenadines—has yet cas...

...taxpayers’ money (among other things) to lobby or promote er regions emerging from warfare, the americas include both policies in foreign countries that may very well be a violation major suppliers and major importers, making an agreement that of the second amendment to the U.s...

...gun ownership in the United states...

...there are states should be one of the nations so urged is strongly implied...

...the measure did not pass...

...washington also contributes well over $1 milthere has been a little movement on the Convention, but not lion annually to specific projects it deems important, including from the senate leadership...

...these contributions “give the the control of illicit trade in small arms which serves the stra-United states significant leverage over the types of projects tegic, economic, and political interests of the United states...

...MARCH/APRIL 2008 report: guns small arms, including gun destructions...

...Constitution—if the fedremoves contradictions between national laws necessary...

...for almost 60...

...and Fair Enforcement in arms trafficking act, which (among the Oas convention—a sensible security tool—is just one other things) sought to urge the Congress that the “secretary of the many casualties of the Bush administration’s disdain of state should encourage those countries that have not done for international and multilateral treaties: the Kyoto Protocol, so to sign and ratify” the Firearms Convention...

...the Clinton administration submitted to his will...

...Although MERCOSUR adopted a Joint Firearms Registration Mechanism in 1998, it has not yet become operational...

...The Brazilian government has also worked closely with nongovernmental organizations like Viva Rio, which works to prevent urban crime and conducts large-scale public demonstrations on The U.S...

...the United states helped develop the convention, Firearms Convention, but all that is needed is his green light, and according to a 2002 state department fact sheet, and it was the committee will hold hearings setting the ratification wheels “modeled on U.s...

...From the administration’s perspective, it is possible that ratification is not a priority because the United states wields Frida Berrigan is a senior program associate with the New America considerable power throughout the Oas despite its lack of Foundation’s Arms and Security Initiative...

...undertaken by the Oas,” according to the Congressional Rein 2004, she and three other senators sponsored the security search service...

...Mexico City and willingness to aggravate the “sleeping lion” of the NRa...

...states was a leader in concluding” the treaty...

...In all, the yearlong collection program removed 450,000 firearms from the hands of civilians.33 In October 2005, Brazil voted on a resolution that would ban civilian possession of guns and ammunition...

...senate received the treaty and dent Ernesto Zedillo in the Organization of american states’ referred it to the Foreign Relations Committee “by unanimous flag-bedecked Hall of the americas, declared: “Gun traffick-consent...

...technically, all 35 independent eign Relations Committee outlining the administration’s treaty nations in the western hemisphere are members of the Oas, priorities, the convention was the first on the list of treaties that although Cuba is barred from participating under its current should be given very high priority, right below “urgent” priori-government...

...more than two dozen treaties awaiting congressional action...

...while all nations contribute to the group’s annual ties...

...this bill was also referred to the senate Foreign Relations Com-some, like the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of mittee, and that was the end of that...

...Brazil has been extremely active in addressing small-arms proliferation at the national level and has taken incremental steps to achieve great progress...

...thatthefirstinternational special disdain for arms control, as is evident in his dispatching arms-control agreement was signed in the americas reflects a of a modest $200,000 Usaid-sponsored measure calling for a number of crucial dynamics...

...tions in the interest of peace and security...

...senator John work...

...The initial success of the initiative prompted the Brazilian president to extend the program an additional six months...

...the region was just emerging from moratorium on the small-arms trade in west africa...

...by Mexico and negotiated in just seven months,” it continued, the chairman is Joe Biden (d-del...

...as Zedillo noted at the signing, the convention is “the first in-a strong ally of the National Rifle association, Helms had a ternationallegalinstrumentofitssort...

...the Firearms Convention and countless other treaties were exist) that establish procedures for importing, exporting, and victims of Helms’ beef with the United Nations and President tracing small arms, light weapons, and ammunition, and as Clinton, and he was not going to allow debate on any treaty until well as mechanisms for enforcement...

...that the United the international Criminal Court, the list goes on...

...certainly it has not reached the same apoplexy over Kyl (R-aZ) sums up the administration’s anti-treaty philosophy the Oas treaty as it did over UN work on small arms, which it as “peace through strength, not peace through paper...

...Responsibility for this, at least at first, rested known as the Firearms Convention, or by its spanish initials as on the shoulders of one man: senator Jesse Helms (R-NC), who CiFta, designed to end the illicit manufacture and trafficking from 1995 to 2001 served as the chairman of the senate Foreign of guns, ammunition, explosives, and related materials...

...Perhaps knowing it has the senate’s inaction on this and similar treaties further the senate committee’s ear, the NRa has not made defeat-indicates the deep antipathy toward internationally binding ing the Firearms Convention a central plank in its international agreements that permeates washington politics...

...who received an F from the “this agreement strengthens the ability of the Oas nations to NRa for his pro-gun-control votes...

...and then . . . nothing...

...the usefully includes both supplier and recipient states, has broad proposed aid, Helms wrote, was “nothing less than a brazen definitions of firearms and explosives, and is legally binding...

...Weapons collection programs prior to the public destructions have taken literally tons of weapons off the street...

...the con-in motion...