International Code of Conduct
on
ArmsTransfers
Susan Waltz, Amnesty International
New York, 29 May 1997Amnesty International, as a Nobel Peace Laureate, supports the initiative of a number of Nobel Peace Laureates led by Dr Oscar Arias to jointly promote an International Code of Conduct on Arms Transfers. Indeed, Amnesty International has participated in drafting the Code and is urging its members in over 100 countries to bring the Code to the attention of governments, politicians and the general public.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights--adopted as one of the early acts of the United Nations, in 1948--states that every human being has the inalienable right to life, liberty and security of person. Likewise, the Geneva Conventions--setting forth priniciples of humanitarian law--prohibit indiscriminate killings, mutilation, torture, cruelty and hostage-taking.
Yet today mass violations of these basic rights are carried out in many armed conflicts around the world by government and armed opposition forces who are given virtually unrestricted access to arms and associated military equipment. Many powerful governments that deny asylum to refugees fleeing armed conflict nevertheless supply arms to perpetrators of the very abuses that refugees seek to escape.
The same easy availability of arms and para-military equipment encourages many governments to detain arbitrarily, to torture, and to murder unarmed civilians identified as political opponents. Sadly, in today's world those violating governments can be confident that supplies will continue to flow.
Since 1961, when Amnesty International was founded, we have campaigned for the respect of human rights, and for that work we are proud to have been awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace. Today we must speak out against a trade in terror that amplifies human rights risks to citizens and civilians. In numerous sites around the world, human rights are gravely threatened by a flow of arms destined for use by authorities against their own people.
In 1996, for example, Indonesian security forces used military vehicles against demonstrators. The US imposed a ban on light arms exports to Indonesia, but the German and British governments have been quick to offer new contracts to supply light tanks, armoured vehicles and water cannon. There is no assurance that Indonesian officials will refrain from using such equipment against their own people.
Elsewhere in the world, in late 1996, in eastern Zaire, the discovery of military procurement documents gave us more sickening evidence that in the midst of the Rwandan genocide of 1994, Rwandese armed forces responsible for mass killings were supplied weapons and ammunition from Albania and Israel, secretly flown in by traders from the United Kingdom and Nigeria. These traders contributed to the carnage that was the Rwandan genocide, but none of them face prosecution.
Amnesty International obtained US government documents in November 1995 which showed that US weapons exported to Colombia to fight drug trafficking actually went to Colombian army units responsible for deliberate and arbitrary killings of civilians and other grave human rights violations.
Amnesty International sections in Europe and North America are pressing their governments to stop transfers of military helicopters and military transport vehicles which were known to have been used to facilitate political killings, "disappearances" and torture by the Turkish armed forces. In November 1996, the Turkish Government announced that it would no longer seek to purchase a number of military attack helicopters from the USA because the US government was "stalling" the order to clarify their possible use in human rights violations. The Turkish Government said it wanted to lease the helicopters from France or Russia instead. The French and Russian authorities have nevertheless allowed their helicopter manufacturing companies to launch a vigorous sales drive in Turkey.
Amnesty International sections in Europe and the USA are also questioning the transfer of attack helicopters, fighter jets and artillery by the US government to the Israel armed forces following atrocities committed by the Israeli armed forces in the Lebanon using such equipment. Significantly, the US government has taken the unusual step of refusing to even reply to Amnesty's six questions.
In September 1996 it was revealed that US army manuals written in Spanish which were used to train military officers at the School of the Americas from the 1960s until at least 1991 contained instructions recommending the use of bribery, blackmail, threats, extortion and torture.
In the closing years of the 20th Century it is scandalous that those who supply such military and security equipment, technology, or training are not subject to proper control. There is virtually no public oversight of their activities. There is scant evidence from governments that the human rights record of intended customers is fully taken into account before export licences are granted and arms are shipped. And there is almost no monitoring or accountability of the end-use of such arms in terms of international human rights and humanitarian law criteria. Arms brokers and arms traffickers circumvent and evade what few controls exist.
Some will call the Nobel Laureates' Code "idealistic." We are convinced, however, that the international community must agree on basic principles for governments to establish fair and effective systems of arms control if we are to have even a chance of ending an effective trade in terror. The Nobel Laureates' Code is a first step, making clear the need to respect fundamental human rights and setting standards of transparency and independent monitoring. If international standards governing the trade of small arms and light weapons were already in place, we might instead be calling for their implementation. But we have no such standards in this critical area, and we are asking the world's governments to hear and heed this call.
The Nobel Laureates' Code is relevant to all serious attempts to set up better arms control. Since 1989 there have been repeated appeals in the United Nations from less powerful states to control the "destabilizing" flows of illicit small arms. A number of government representatives and officials from powerful states have likewise expressed their interest in supporting the concept of such a Code. The European Council, for example, has adopted a set of "Common Criteria for Arms Exports," though they are not yet binding. Amnesty International hopes that a campaign in support of the Nobel Laureate's Code will have a positive impact on these and other inter-governmental fora.
There are, of course, powerful governments that have historically been opposed to any control measures on conventional arms. Nevertheless, we will continue our efforts to convince all governments that it is in everyone's interest to regulate arms more strictly in terms of international human rights criteria. A global campaign for an International Code on Arms Transfers can be built involving thousands of non-governmental organizations, religious bodies, and professional and civic associations, as well as sympathetic governments. We will step up our campaigning for the introduction of measures contained in the Nobel Laureate's Code - measures which must be included in binding national and international laws.
In conclusion, let me reaffirm that Amnesty International is in principle opposed to military, security and police transfers which can reasonably be assumed to contribute to human rights violations such as torture and ill treatment, "disappearances", or deliberate and indiscriminate killings. That is why we urge people of conscience everywhere to work diligently for the implementation of the principles in this Code.
(Speech by Susan Waltz, chairperson of Amnesty International's International Secretariat, at the public signing of the Nobel Peace laureates' International Code of Conduct on Arms Transfers.
New York, Cathedral of Saint John the Divine)
For more information on the International Code of Conduct,
contact Carlos Walker at code@arias.or.cr
