Lets Abolish US Arms trade to Israel? Kerry voices conditional US support for UN arms trade treaty.

Lets Abolish US Arms trade to Israel? Kerry voices conditional US support for UN arms trade treaty.(HD).U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry voiced support on March 15 for an international treaty to regulate the $70 billion global arms trade, but restated Washington's "red line," affirming that it would not accept limits on U.S. domestic gun ownership.
The U.N. General Assembly voted in December to hold a final round of negotiations from March 18 to 28 on what could become the first international treaty to regulate international weapons transfers after a drafting conference in July 2012 collapsed because the United States and others wanted more time. Arms control campaigners say one person every minute dies worldwide as a result of armed violence and that a convention is needed to prevent the unregulated and illicit flow of weapons into conflict zones fueling wars and atrocities. "The United States is steadfast in its commitment to achieve a strong and effective Arms Trade Treaty that helps address the adverse effects of the international arms trade on global peace and stability," Kerry said in a statement.
"An effective treaty that recognizes that each nation must tailor and enforce its own national export and import control mechanisms can generate the participation of a broad majority of states, help stem the illicit flow of conventional arms across international borders and have important humanitarian benefits."

But he repeated that the United States - the world's No. 1 arms manufacturer - would not accept any treaty that imposed new limits on U.S. citizens' right to bear arms, a sensitive political issue in the United States.

"We will not support any treaty that would be inconsistent with U.S. law and the rights of American citizens under our Constitution, including the Second Amendment," he said.

"International conventional arms trade is, and will continue to be, a legitimate commercial activity," he said, adding that countries should work to prevent arms from reaching those who commit "the world's worst crimes, including those involving terrorism and serious human rights violations."

The point of the treaty is to set standards for all cross-border transfers of any type of conventional weapon - light and heavy. It would also set binding requirements for nations to review all cross-border arms contracts to ensure the munitions are not used in human rights abuses, do not violate embargoes and are not illegally diverted.

Daryl Kimball, head of the Arms Control Association, said Kerry's remarks were a "long overdue positive statement that makes it clear the administration is dedicated to pursuing a robust treaty."

He added that it was positive Kerry did not raise the issue of ammunition, something the United States had previously demanded be excluded from the treaty. Supporters of a tough treaty in Europe and elsewhere insist on including it.
 Last month, U.S. National Security Council deputy spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said Washington would continue to oppose the inclusion of ammunition in the draft treaty. "Ammunition is a fundamentally different commodity than conventional arms," Hayden said. "It is fungible, consumable, reloadable, and cannot be marked in any practical way that would permit it to be tracked or traced." Hmmmm.....Kerry: I Will Implement 'President Obama's Vision For The World'. Read the full story here.

Related:  If the U.S. approves the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty it could be used to stop arms sales to Israel.

“Myth” #4: “Under the ATT, arm [sic] exports will only be limited where there are human-rights or genocide concerns.” Thus, the ATT will not “harm the U.S.’s relationships with Taiwan and Israel by eliminating foreign aid.”

Fact: This is not a question of “eliminating” aid to Taiwan and Israel. But anyone who follows the news will be aware that Israel is regularly (if spuriously) accused of human rights violations. Under the ATT, these accusations could easily be cited as an excuse for restricting U.S. arms sales to Israel. As for Taiwan, interested readers can refer to the Issue Brief I wrote with my colleague Dean Cheng. The State Department itself has acknowledged that these concerns are legitimate, and again, Congress is right to be concerned about this.
The Dear Colleagues letter concludes with the argument that “[i]f this treaty is ratified, the only groups who will not receive U.S. arms are human-rights abusers and perpetrators of genocide.” The U.S. does not need to ratify the ATT to achieve this aim, and the ATT does not simply ban all defense exports to human rights abusers. More broadly, this claim ignores the fact that the U.S. sometimes has to support poor governments against even worse ones.
For example, the U.S. backed South Korea against North Korea in 1950, even though South Korea was not, at that time, a democracy. An absolute ban on the U.S. supply of arms to all but the pure would prevent the U.S. from making the most elementary and necessary choices and put us in the position of taking, in practice, the side of the most evil and aggressive regimes and terrorist movements in the world. If the ATT did what the letter claims, that would be yet another reason for Congress to be concerned about it.