As part of the “100 Days of Speaking Out!”, a countdown to the treaty negotiations, Control Arms will regularly feature stories and profiles of different people who support a bulletproof ATT.

Oxfam International released a new report yesterday, “The Devil is in the Detail: The importance of comprehensive and legally binding criteria for arms transfers”. The report focuses on the extensive trade in arms that has occurred in violation of regional and multilateral arms embargoes and argues that a legally binding international Treaty can help to close the loopholes these embargoes have and provide much-needed regulation on the deadly trade.

More than $2.2bn worth of arms and ammunition have been imported since 2000 to countries operating under arms embargoes, the report states.

It also demonstrates how the lack of robust and legally binding obligations on the sale and transfers of arms has allowed weapons to continue flowing into Syria. In 2010, for example, Syria imported $167m worth of air defence systems and missiles as well as $1m worth of small arms and light weapons, ammunition and munitions.

Anna Macdonald, Oxfam’s Head of the Control Arms Campaign said: “We are on the brink of a historic moment but the challenge is to ensure the new Treaty is really strong. It must unambiguously stop arms transfers where they would fuel conflict, poverty or human rights abuses.”

The report is available online in multiple languages and is the first in a series of reports that Oxfam will be releasing before the ATT negotiations in July.

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