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Countries under embargo have imported over $2 billion worth of weapons

Arms embargoCountries that are subject to an international embargo on arming managed to import arms worth $2.2 billion since 2000, according to a report by the humanitarian organization OXFAM International, reports AFP. Despite the 26 existing international embargoes at this time, decreed by the UN or regional organizations, several countries have managed to assemble a considerable arsenal. The report gives the example of Myanmar (with an estimated $600 million spent between 2000 and 2010), Iran ($574 million between 2007 and 2010) and Congo ($124 million between 2000 and 2002).

For OXFAM, these figures indicate the need to resort to a binding treaty to regulate trade of conventional weapons worldwide. An international treaty on conventional arms trade – Arms Trade Treaty – (ATT) will be negotiated under the auspices of the United Nations between July 2 and 27 in New York. The organization gives the example of Syria, whose main supplier is Russia that has accumulated in 2010, for $167 million, air defense equipment, and for one million dollars, small arms and ammunition. Some of these weapons “played the main role in government repression against Syrian opposition movement,” according to OXFAM.

Syria is subject to an European Union embargo since May 2011, for the sale “of weapons and materials that could be used for repression.” “Existing embargoes are easily avoided,” said Anna MacDonald, campaign director for arms control in the OXFAM. “It will be the goal of the new treaty to be really strict.” “How to explain that a banana trade is more strictly regulated than a machine-gun trade?”, she added.

In order to be effective, the treaty should include legally compelling criteria to prevent arms transfers when there is significant risk that these weapons would be used to violate international human rights. “A relaxed agreement could be worse than no treaty because it would give legitimacy to a faulty system,” said MacDonald.

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