UN passes Arm Trade Treaty

From IPS News Agency
"On Thursday, a vast majority of delegates to the U.N. General Assembly's first committee endorsed the resolution calling for the establishment of a treaty to stop weapons transfers that fuel conflict, poverty and serious human rights violations.

As many as 139 countries voted in favour of the resolution while 24 abstained. The United States, the world's largest supplier of small arms, was the only country that opposed the resolution.

Other major arms-manufacturing nations that oppose the treaty but did not participate in the voting include Russia, China, India and Pakistan.
............
Several emerging arms exporters, such as Brazil, Bulgaria and Ukraine, as well as many countries that have been devastated by armed violence, including Colombia, East Timor, Haiti, Liberia and Rwanda, voted in favour of the resolution.

Expressing her support for the resolution, Amnesty International's secretary-general Irene Khan described the vote as "an historic step to stop irresponsible and immoral arms transfers".

"It will prevent the death, rape and displacement of thousands of people," she said in a statement. "

tompaine's comment here

Will Security Council do any thing about this? Seems unlikely.
Greg Mankiv
refers to this article.
Excerpts:
"In this paper, we investigate whether the pattern of aid payments to
rotating members of the council is consistent with vote buying.
....
Using country-level panel data, we find a large positive effect of Security
Council membership on foreign aid receipts. On average, a nonpermanent
member of the council enjoys a 59 percent increase in total
aid from the United States and an 8 percent increase in total development
aid from the United Nations.
....
Accordingly, our results suggest
that the United States attempts to influence rotating members both
with direct foreign aid payments and with funds channeled through a
U.N. agency it influences."