Arms Trade Treaty
The final item of business is a members’ business debate on motion S4M-02884, in the name of Jamie Hepburn, on time for an international arms trade treaty. The debate will be concluded without any question being put.
Motion debated,
That the Parliament understands that, in July 2012, the UN will begin negotiations on a treaty to better regulate the arms trade; notes that the process toward this was instigated in December 2006 when the UN General Assembly adopted resolution 61/89, Towards an Arms Trade Treaty: establishing common international standards for the import, export and transfer of conventional arms; understands that, although the trade in arms is not illegal, campaigning organisations, such as Amnesty International and Oxfam, have expressed concerns that such weapons are often used to violate human rights; considers that this view was echoed by Sergio de Queiroz Duarte who, in December 2010, in his then capacity as the UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, told the Arms Trade Treaty Preparatory Committee that, “in all parts of the world, the ready availability of conventional weapons and ammunition has led to human suffering, repression, crime and terror among civilian populations”; notes that Amnesty International has estimated that more than 1,500 people die every day from armed violence and 85% of all of the killings it documents involve guns; further notes that Amnesty International claims that two out of three people killed as a result of armed violence die in countries that are not at war and 60% of all of the human rights abuses it reports involve the use of arms; notes what it understands to be the concerns of many Scots, including those in Cumbernauld and Kilsyth, regarding the impact of such human rights breaches; welcomes the support that has been shown by many member states of the UN, such as the UK, France and Germany, to the concept of an arms trade treaty, but understands that these three countries are among the world’s biggest arms exporters; further welcomes the change in stance of the US Government, under President Obama, indicating that it is now in favour of a treaty; would welcome a strong arms trade treaty that all member states of the UN can ratify, which restricts the trade of arms to regimes that are likely to use them to violate human rights, and believes that such a treaty is necessary to achieve a more human rights-centric international arms trade.
17:08
I thank members who signed my motion to enable it to be debated this evening, and members who have remained in the chamber either to take part in the debate or to hear at least a bit of it.
I thank Amnesty International, Oxfam and the Scottish Catholic International Aid Fund for the background information that they have provided in advance of tonight’s debate. I declare my membership of Amnesty International and that my wife works for that organisation.
This Parliament does not, at this time, have any direct locus in the matter that we are debating this evening, but that does not make the debate any less important. I suspect that all of us, despite our differences, entered politics to make the communities that we directly represent, Scotland as a whole and the world, better places. Despite our different starting points, I am sure that that is true.
We should make no mistake: a comprehensive, internationally agreed arms trade treaty is required to make our world a better place. I know that there is cross-party support for such a treaty. I was very pleased that my party agreed a resolution in favour of an arms trade treaty at its recent national council meeting just last Saturday, and I know that Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats have made statements in support of such a treaty. That is, of course, as it should be on an issue that must concern all decent-minded individuals.
However, let me make it clear that an arms trade treaty is not in itself a criticism of the trade in arms per se; rather, it is recognition that such trade must be properly regulated, and that those who seek to violate the human rights of their own citizens should not be able to procure arms internationally to do so.
I have concerns about the fact that, globally, annual military spending is of the order of $1.6 trillion and that it far outstrips our expenditure in supporting the developing world. It is perverse that, on a planet of 6 billion people, some 12 billion bullets are manufactured each year, as Oxfam has told me is the case. I think that those are legitimate concerns to raise in any debate about the international arms trade.
However, I doubt that anyone in the chamber is so naive as to imagine that the arms trade will not endure. On that basis, it is important to secure, through the international negotiations that will take place next month, the arms trade treaty that we are debating.
Amnesty International estimates that more than 1,500 people die every day from armed violence, while Oxfam estimates the figure to be more than 2,000. Eighty-five per cent of all killings that are documented by Amnesty International involve guns and 60 per cent of all the human rights abuses that the organisation reports involve arms. It also says that two out of three people who are killed as a result of armed violence die in countries that are not at war. Who, then, can disagree with the words of the then United Nations High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, Sergio de Queiroz Duarte, who in December 2010 said:
“In all parts of the world, the ready availability of conventional weapons and ammunition has led to human suffering, repression, crime and terror among civilian populations”?
We see that today. My colleague Jim Eadie secured an extremely important debate on the appalling situation in Syria, where the regime is responsible for violating the human rights of so many of its citizens using arms that have been bought through the international arms trade. We were given a salient reminder of that just the other day, when arms from Russia that were bound for Syria were embargoed off our own shores.
The fact that there is currently no international arms trade treaty may come as a surprise to many, but even more surprising is the fact that there are international treaties to regulate the trade in dinosaur bones, postage stamps and bananas. How can it be that we, as human society, properly regulate such trade but not the trade in arms? In that regard, SCIAF told me that the Vatican’s permanent observer to the United Nations, Archbishop Francis Chullikatt, made the highly pertinent observation that
“arms cannot simply be compared with other goods exchanged in global or domestic markets.”
It is right that we should have an effective arms trade treaty, which would be based on the simple principle that there should be no transfers of weapons that are likely to be used for violations of international law, including human rights law. The treaty should establish common binding standards to assess international weapons transfers, which would be based on existing international law, including international human rights and humanitarian law, and the UN charter.
An effective arms trade treaty is not in itself a weapons-ban treaty, but it must ensure that states rigorously control the export, import and international transfer of all types of conventional arms that have been designed, modified or adapted for the deployment of potentially lethal force. That is what Amnesty International is calling for, and I think that it is absolutely right. It is essential that we prevent such transfers from being used for serious human rights violations or from being diverted to the illicit trade, the illegal market or end users who would use the weapons to commit atrocities.
It is important that I welcome David Grimason to the public gallery. Members will recall that he tragically lost his son Alistair when he was shot and killed during a family holiday in Turkey. He is here with representatives from Amnesty International. David Grimason, along with Dr Mick North, who lost his daughter Sophie in the Dunblane tragedy, have been working with Oxfam and Amnesty International to demand global action on the arms trade. As a father, I cannot begin to imagine how, after the tragedies that befell them, they have gathered the strength to go on, let alone to campaign in this fashion. I think that we owe it to the memory of their children, and to all the men, women and children who can be saved, to see that an international arms trade treaty is secured.
I have a number of requests from members who wish to speak, so I am afraid that I will have to keep speeches to a tight four minutes. I call Roderick Campbell, to be followed by Malcolm Chisholm.
17:15
I thank Jamie Hepburn for bringing his motion to the chamber for debate. I declare an interest as a member of Amnesty International.
Last week, I attended a meeting of the cross-party group on human rights, where I heard David Grimason talk with great conviction about his son, who—as Jamie Hepburn said—was killed in Turkey by a stray bullet. I am delighted that David has been given the opportunity to meet Michael Moore, the Secretary of State for Scotland, to encourage the United Kingdom Government to take the issue very seriously indeed.
I hope that, in the days between 2 and 27 July, we will see a strong and robust arms trade treaty take shape during the negotiations in New York—one that has as a priority reduction of the human rights abuses that occur as a result of the arms transfers that go ahead regardless of the political climate.
There have been efforts in the past to control and measure the number of arms that are sold in the global market. The UN has gone to some lengths to prevent interstate conflict and reduce the stockpile of weapons. An instrumental tool that the UN has used in combating the problems is the UN register of conventional arms, which came into existence in 1991 and has, to date, received reports from more than 170 states. The register was created out of a desire to establish greater co-operation between states, but as the control arms campaign says, the UNRCA is a transparency mechanism and a recording tool, not a tool to control arms transfers. The campaign also points out that the classification of arms categories was created to satisfy a similar goal and it does not consider the kind of weapons that are found today in conflict zones where human rights violations take place.
The other registers that exist include the Wassenaar arrangement, which is used by 41 countries including the USA, the United Kingdom, France and Russia—four of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and the largest exporters of arms in the global market—and the European Union consolidated military list. Those two lists perform a similar task to that of the UNRCA in allowing clarity in the recording of armaments, but in contrast to the UNRCA they have a far greater scope with regard to weaponry and machinery. The main aim of those registers has been to create transparency in armaments and, as the UN explains, to avoid
“excessive or destabilising accumulations of arms taking place and to champion preventative diplomacy.”
However, despite their success in recording the vast majority of official transfers, they do not inhibit the transfer of arms, which could be more effectively checked by the proposed arms trade treaty. In addition, it seems that the UNRCA does not offer as efficient a role as alternative registers and it is now clear that there is a need for a humanitarian-based treaty to alleviate current and potential human suffering.
The arms trade treaty seeks to prevent the trade of arms in circumstances that would lead to the infringement of human rights, allow human rights abuses or war crimes to take place and allow poverty to grow. In order to do that, the treaty must have a broad spectrum and encompass not only conventional weapons and equipment but, as Amnesty International proposes, the technology to develop, maintain and produce them. I agree with Amnesty International that the arms trade treaty should also cover small arms, light weapons, ammunition and munitions of all kinds, and weapons that are used for internal security.
Many countries have national lists of controlled military equipment that correspond to the acceptable control lists that are suggested by the Wassenaar arrangement and the EU consolidated military list, but many countries do not. Accordingly, the arms trade treaty should aim to be comprehensive. We need as many states as possible to set a similar standard and not to accept the less-stringent UNRCA categorisations.
As Jamie Hepburn’s motion suggests, the arms trade treaty should aim to prevent civilian deaths and human rights abuses. That is a laudable aim and I hope that the Scottish Government will do all that it can to encourage the UK Government to be effective participants in the arms trade treaty negotiations.
17:19
I congratulate Jamie Hepburn on bringing the issue to the chamber. I am sure that the debate will unite members across parties. We can be in no doubt that, at a time of great international unrest and conflict between nations and regions, the flow of arms needs to be monitored and controlled.
There has been a great deal of debate in recent months about how best to encourage countries to relinquish their nuclear weapons, particularly in the light of recent developments in the middle east. However, when we see the human rights abuses that are caused by the unregulated and free trade of conventional weaponry across borders, we must acknowledge that the time to address that issue is now.
The flagrant disregard for the rights of citizens in favour of profiteering and strengthening economic ties cannot be allowed to continue. We have seen that situation most recently in the export of Russian arms to Syria through Cyprus. That is widely believed to have contributed to the escalation of civil unrest in Syria.
We must not forget that we are trying to achieve a safer and more secure world for our children to inherit. Some young people in Scotland have shown that the issue should not be confined to one generation or one elite group of decision makers.
A delegation of students from Scotland who are working with Amnesty International travelled to Westminster this week with the aim of lobbying the relevant Foreign Office minister to push for the most robust treaty within the realms of what is politically possible. Students from Paisley grammar school, the University of St Andrews, the University of Glasgow, the University of Stirling and Queen Margaret University will have a chance to learn more about the UK Government’s stance in advance of the conference in July. They have shown enthusiasm and willingness to engage with the difficult questions that the treaty throws up, and we should adopt a similar approach. If we do not try, we do not progress.
As the UN conference prepares to meet at the end of July to discuss a route to a lasting and sustainable strategy, we must welcome the indications of support from many large member states, but we must also acknowledge that, as the global annual burden of armed violence stands at $400 billion, the undertaking will be mammoth. However, it is a starting point for a long-overdue process.
Until now, there have been no internationally agreed standards to ensure that arms are
“only transferred for appropriate use”.
That phrase was used by the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs. I am sure that we would be interested to know exactly what “appropriate use” is determined to be when we refer to the transfer of conventional weaponry between ruling powers in nations. However, the arms trade treaty gives us cause for optimism, as signatories to it will begin to take a more proactive approach to regulating trade, in what it is hoped will be the first step towards far greater internationally enforced restrictions.
The arms trade treaty’s overarching goal will be the creation of a standard set of guidelines for international arms transfers through requiring all states to abide by transfer controls, which will go some way towards increasing global security. I wanted to go into detail on that but, as I am restricted to four minutes, I had better not.
We should acknowledge the part that we have to play as residents of one of the main exporters of conventional arms among UN member states. Let us make the case for establishing a strong—or, as Amnesty terms it, a “bulletproof”—treaty. Let us realise that we have a part to play in encouraging representatives of the UK to approach the meetings next month with a proactive attitude, mindful of the immense political challenges that we face.
Before the debate, I tweeted:
“About to speak in Arms Trade debate in support of proposed UN treaty. Thinking of Dylan’s great song Masters of War which goes a bit further”.
Indeed it does, but the proposed treaty is an important step in the right direction. I congratulate Jamie Hepburn again on bringing the issue to Parliament.
17:23
I was pleased to sign Jamie Hepburn’s motion and I congratulate him on bringing the debate to the chamber. As I am interested in the work of the cross-party group on human rights, I welcome the opportunity to discuss the urgent need for a practical yet far-reaching arms trade treaty.
The panoply of statistics that my colleague Jamie Hepburn cited in his motion and his speech is truly harrowing. When we consider that my home town, Ullapool, has fewer inhabitants than the number of people who die every day from armed violence, one gets a sense of the enormity of this human crisis.
There is little regulation of the arms trade. It is ludicrous that weapons as devastating as grenade launchers and serious assault rifles are subject to lax control at best, while the trade in harmless commodities—such as the aforementioned bananas—is strictly regulated globally. That is madness. Those weapons are not used only by countries that are officially at war, but are in many cases used to suppress human rights within countries, with two out of every three people who are killed by armed violence dying in countries that are not at war.
That cycle of violence has obvious human costs, but what must also be borne in mind is the social cost of such needless conflict. Nations at war with themselves, whether it be over territory, resources or another struggle, will never be able to heal and to develop. An unregulated arms trade perpetuates endemic poverty across the world, harms democratic debate and tears apart communities.
For many issues, the treatment can be worse than the disease, but Amnesty’s proposals for an effective arms trade treaty are plausible. Instead of imposing a punitive weapons ban, it proposes a weapons transfer system that would prohibit the sale of weapons that are likely to be used for violations of human rights or international law. It defies belief that any nation could oppose a treaty with such laudable aims that, despite preconceptions, clearly does not call for an outright ban. The support of the UK Government and the defence community, one of the world’s major arms exporters, for such a treaty shows the impact that the lobbying of MSPs and others across civil society can have on this issue.
I urge everybody in the chamber to continue to press the UK Government to hold firm to its line on this first step towards minimising the human cost of armed conflict. This is not some esoteric debate, but a subject on which lives and communities depend, and we must never lose sight of that.
17:26
Congratulations to Jamie Hepburn on getting this important debate.
As some will know, my usual line in matters to do with armaments is in opposition to nuclear weapons and in favour of non-proliferation and eventual disarmament. In the debate on conventional weaponry, I tend towards the non-proliferation element of the argument as I feel that pursuing achievable major reductions in the small-arms trade in particular will make a major difference to the lives of millions of people across the world.
I have spoken to the former UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, Sergio Duarte, about the issue on a number of occasions and I know that his comments on the suffering of so many from the effects of both the legal and the illegal arms trade come from his in-depth discussions with politicians and non-governmental organisations over many years.
For many people, the threat of crime, violence and Government repression is a big part of their everyday lives. That is helped along no end by the extreme availability of weapons. For instance, despite a review of its arms transfer policies in 2011 following the Arab spring, the USA remains a major supplier of arms to both Tunisia and Egypt. Last year, the Americans delivered 45 M1A1 tanks to Egypt and it has an agreement to deliver another 125. On the other side of the coin is Russia, which supplied 78 per cent of Syria’s arms imports from 2007 until 2011. Such deliveries continue despite the political repression going on there. With surface-to-air and coastal defence missile systems and an order for 36 Yak-130 combat aircraft accounting for a 580 per cent increase in the volume of Syrian arms imports over a five-year period, the large countries in the world that manufacture most of those weapons have nothing to sit on their laurels about.
In sub-Saharan Africa the blight of the small-arms trade goes on, unhindered by the humanitarian catastrophes of drought and starvation. There, as Ghana’s national commission on small arms and light weapons stated just yesterday, the result of the unregulated trade in those guns accounts for the diversion of arms into illegal markets and thence into the hands of criminals, gangsters, drug barons, warlords and terrorists. The Ghana national commission wants sanctions, an arms embargo and other international obligations aimed at preventing armed conflict, the displacement of peoples and transnational crime. It also wants a major international effort put into victim assistance for those affected by that untrammelled trade in misery.
This truly is an international problem that, to the greatest extent, affects women and children. Highlighting that, earlier this week in the Philippines around 80 women dressed in black gathered in front of the Department of Foreign Affairs in Manila to call on the Philippine Government to support a strong gender-responsive arms trade treaty. In support of their case they handed in not only a letter to President Aquino but, as was pointed out earlier, a bunch of bananas in order to highlight the fact that as there are global rules regulating the trade in bananas there must also be a treaty regulating the trade in weapons that at present sees 2,000 people die from armed violence in both conflict and non-conflict situations every day.
Guns and other weapons will not disappear from our world any time soon, but we need all developed and under-developed nations to sign up to regulation and to halting the cynical manufacture of such weapons without adequate concern for where they end up and the carnage that they cause. It is time for a bullet-proof arms trade treaty.
17:30
I, too, thank Jamie Hepburn for giving us the opportunity to debate this important issue.
In 1948, the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and, as part of the international bill of human rights, it has entered into our international law. It provides a universal standard of dignity that all human beings can expect, and a universal bottom line for all nations and states to be judged by.
It is a truly historic document and a set of ideals on which we are making progress. Education in many parts of the world has been transformed and extended to more and more children. We have recognised gender inequalities too, and women around the world are fighting for their rights. Of course, there remain vast problems with incredible leaps and bounds still to be taken—our economic system remains hardwired for inequality and necessitates grinding poverty for some—but we are standing on the verge of a potentially historic breakthrough in human rights: an international arms trade treaty that will ban the trade of weapons where they are likely to be used to kill, to harm, to terrorise and to oppress.
In 2006, we took a big step forward when 153 governments formally voted to work together on such a treaty. The notable absence was the United States, which continued to stand in the way. With the election of President Obama, the US has agreed to engage. In only 11 days’ time, the treaty conference will begin four weeks of negotiation. My hope, and the hope of millions of people around the world, is that in the end we will have a strong, binding treaty that bans the trade of arms—large and small—by states and by arms brokers, where those arms are likely to be used to violate a person’s human rights.
I am sure that that is the UK Government’s hope, too, and to realise the hope I am calling for it to remain resolute in the face of challenges to water down and weaken the proposals. We must remain resolute that a bullet-proof treaty is all that we shall settle for.
The treaty must retain the obligation on states to refuse to authorise the transfer of weapons where there is a substantial risk of human rights violations. If the treaty does anything less than that, I believe, along with Amnesty International and others, that it is better to walk away to negotiate another day than to sign away a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to stop some 1,500 people being killed every day as a result of armed violence.
As has been mentioned, women and children are uniquely affected by this violence. The Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom is campaigning for the treaty to recognise the role that gender plays: weapons facilitate trafficking, forced prostitution and sexual violence, and arms are used to kill, threaten, or intimidate women and children in their homes and communities.
What can be done to ensure that we deal with the reality that two bullets for every person on the planet are produced each year? The groundwork has been done. It is now up to our political leadership at the highest level, the Prime Minister, David Cameron, to make a strong public statement for a bullet-proof treaty. I sincerely hope that he will take the floor this week.
17:34
I congratulate my colleague, Jamie Hepburn, on securing this extremely important debate. Like Jamie Hepburn, I wear the hat of a parent when I speak in the chamber and I commend the courage shown by David Grimason and Mick North in channelling their grief positively. It is a testament to the strength of both men.
We should also note the work that is being done by the control arms campaign, which was nominated for a Nobel peace prize this year, and the work that it has done to bring together a range of organisations to campaign for much more stringent controls on the arms trade.
As the situation stands, the problem is that regulation is essentially the responsibility of individual states. Therein lies a conflict. The aggressive lobbying of arms companies often leads countries into a conflict situation. There are nations out there that have questionable foreign and domestic policies, and we cannot necessarily rely on those nations always to act in the best possible way in relation to the arms trade.
I am keen to see an arms trade treaty because I would like to see the prevention of human rights abuses. We have discussed how the countries that were involved in the Arab spring saw the state using weapons against peaceful protesters. Under an arms trade treaty, such states would not be able to import arms and other nations would not be able to continue to trade arms with them, as Russia does with Syria. There is no indication that Russia has changed its policy on the arms trade treaty and, indeed, it is one of the nations that is backing it, but Russia would be in breach of such a treaty if it continued to supply Syria with weapons, as it is doing.
Embargoes are ineffective. Oxfam has estimated that £2.2 billion of arms were imported by countries that were under embargoes. As countries are necessarily forewarned of an embargo, one often sees a spike in arms trading in advance of an embargo coming into force, as happened in Côte d’Ivoire, for example. Embargoes are also ambiguous. Huge loopholes give arms dealers the opportunity to claim that they are unaware of the fact that the nations with which they are trading will use those weapons against their civilian population, as is the case in Syria and was the case in Libya, despite the fact that there is plenty of documented evidence to suggest the contrary.
A key consideration for companies and countries is that they will have to start to think in the long term when it comes to the trading of arms. They need to think about who they are trading with and where those arms might end up. They need to think about the security situation of their trading partner and who else their trading partner does business with.
The arms trade treaty is an important treaty that needs to be passed. I congratulate my colleague Jamie Hepburn on bringing the subject to the chamber. It is important that members of the Scottish Parliament have the opportunity to put our views on the record. I look forward to the treaty being passed and to a much better way of dealing with the international arms trade.
17:37
I, too, congratulate Jamie Hepburn on bringing such an important debate to the Parliament and on the compelling case that he made for an arms trade treaty. I join him in paying tribute to organisations such as Oxfam, Amnesty International and the Scottish Catholic International Aid Fund for their work in highlighting the issue.
As Jamie Hepburn and others have said, later this year at the United Nations, the international community will have an exceptional opportunity to reduce violence and suffering in our world by agreeing an international arms trade treaty. It is therefore vital that we seize this opportunity to secure agreement and for the world to unite behind it. A strong treaty would reduce the number of arms that are going to countries across the world where they are used by Governments, such as the Assad regime in Syria, to repress and kill their own people in violation of fundamental human rights and in breach of international law.
The problem of the international arms trade is hugely significant, but it seems to have been overlooked. Although we have strict global laws on many products, such as bananas, we have failed to properly regulate the trading of tanks, machine guns and bullets. Every minute, at least one person dies from armed violence. Two bullets are produced for each person on the planet every year. The irresponsible transfer of weapons is often responsible for the prolonged violence in many countries, exacerbating poverty and pushing developing nations backwards.
In March, I had the privilege of introducing a debate in the Parliament on the violence in Syria, which, in recent days, has thrown the need for an arms trade treaty directly into the media spotlight. As Jamie Hepburn reminded us, on Tuesday a ship was stopped off the coast of Scotland on its way to Syria. It was found to contain attack helicopters and other weapons thought to be from Russia and intended to be used in violence and repression against civilians in Syria. Dr Mounir Atassi of Scotland4Syria has stated:
“These kind of helicopters are used against civilians—they target innocent people who are being killed every day.”
As Bill Kidd detailed in his speech, Russia has continued to supply weapons to Syria despite the EU arms embargo.
The international community needs to take decisive action, but we must ensure—as Alison Johnstone said—that the treaty that is agreed is effective and comprehensive. It must not be weakened but must be strong enough to protect civilians and uphold human rights. It should be based on the principal of no trading of weapons that would be used to violate human rights and international law. If that principal were upheld in the treaty, it would be not only strong but just.
A strong treaty is essential. First and foremost, it would save many lives and prevent millions of people from having to flee their homes. Secondly, 2,000 people die every day as a result of armed violence and Africa as a whole spends $18 billion a year on armed violence and conflict, which is about the same amount as it receives in aid from the rest of the world. Africa desperately needs to lift itself out of poverty, and we can only reflect on what an extra $18 billion could do to ensure that people in African countries could live free from poverty and increase their standard of living. Thirdly, such a treaty would prevent developing countries from being pressured into spending money on arms that they do not need.
The time for us to act has arrived. There is unity of purpose from individuals to national leaders and from local campaign groups to international non-governmental organisations. As I recalled in the debate on Syria, the UN has declared that everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person. Here is a golden opportunity to give real and significant backing to that ideal, to preserve life and to nurture security. Let us make sure that we grasp it with both hands.
17:42
I, too, congratulate Jamie Hepburn on obtaining the debate. The issues that are highlighted in his motion are not abstract issues for
“far-off countries of which we know little”—
to quote Neville Chamberlain’s infamous phrase. Today’s world is global and interconnected, and no one can profess ignorance. Scotland has its role to play as a respected and responsible nation within the global community.
I pay tribute to David Grimason and the work that he has been doing in conjunction with Amnesty International and Oxfam to raise awareness of the human consequences of the unregulated international trade in weapons. Today’s debate is testament to his efforts to date, and I hope that it serves as both recognition of and encouragement for his efforts and those of the many others who are campaigning for change at the international level. Jamie Hepburn has explained how David’s campaign arose out of the heartbreak of personal tragedy and the loss of his young son, Alistair. The impact of such a crime on a family is difficult to comprehend, but David has sought to connect the private and the political, the local and the global, and to shine a light on the human impact of inadequate gun control and the terrible consequences that the unregulated trade in arms has for many innocent people worldwide. His campaign is a reminder that the arms trade is also about small arms, although a lot of the media focus tends to concentrate on the larger items of military hardware.
The shocking fact is that, worldwide, there are an estimated 750,000 victims of armed violence every year. The unregulated trade of weapons destroys not only lives but livelihoods, communities and human dignity. All too often, the arms trade puts tools of oppression into the hands of unsavoury regimes that are implicated in the abuse of human rights. Where controls are inadequate, even legitimately traded weapons can cascade downwards to militias, local warlords and criminals. The people who pay the heaviest price are invariably the vulnerable and the powerless: women and children, the young and the elderly, and non-combatants of all kinds including those who, like David Grimason’s son, have the misfortune to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Behind the faceless statistics lie personal tragedies, lives lost and lives ruined.
Effective international control of the arms trade is now long overdue. In Scotland and the United Kingdom we have good reason to be conscious of the need for effective controls on guns and other weaponry. The Dunblane massacre horrified us all and we took action to confront the threat that was posed by legally held guns in the wrong hands. However, similar horrors are visited on innocent people around the world and we should remember that uncontrolled international transfers of arms are not a problem only for the so-called third world.
There is genuine cross-party consensus in this chamber and across the UK on the need for a treaty to regulate the international arms trade. People such as Malcolm Chisholm, Jean Urquhart, Bill Kidd, Alison Johnstone, Jim Eadie and Mark McDonald have spoken eloquently today on the issue. Fortunately, it is an issue on which the Scottish Government sees eye to eye with the UK Government. We fully support the efforts that the UK has been making to negotiate an effective arms trade treaty. That initiative has been eight years in the making and has gathered momentum and widespread support.
Next month’s negotiations in New York have the capacity to deliver real change and to provide the kind of international framework of controls that are desperately needed. Roderick Campbell and others discussed some of what is required. However, the negotiations will succeed only if they can proceed with the support of a wide coalition of nations. As has been said, we need an obligation to be placed on UN members to refuse to allow arms shipments where the risk exists that the weapons will be used to violate human rights and international humanitarian law. There is, of course, no more fundamental human right than the right to life.
This is, of course, a sector in which Scotland has a direct stake, particularly with regard to the naval and aerospace sectors. Governments and non-governmental organisations recognise that states have a right and sometimes a pressing need to acquire armaments for defence and security purposes, but legitimate trade should be transparent and it must be properly monitored.
In line with other UN treaties and conventions, every state should be accountable for its record and for the credibility of its arms control measures. The hope must be that objections can now be overcome and that a substantial arms trade treaty will be concluded this year.
In closing, I note Jamie Hepburn’s proposals that the Scottish Government write to the UK Government to express its support for the current initiative and to relay the views of members of this Parliament. David Grimason and Amnesty International will meet the First Minister next week to talk about the current campaign. That campaign, and David’s story, serve to remind us all of the reality of the arms trade.
This is a debate not about abstract claims and faceless statistics but about the rights and hopes of real people. It concerns the right to a life free from fear and heartbreak and from threats, poverty and injustice. That is the ultimate reality of the current situation, and it is long past time for the international community to take a stand.
Meeting closed at 17:48.