Posted by David Kopel:
Arms Trade Treaty's Purpose: Block Arms Sales to Israel:
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2009_01_25-2009_01_31.shtml#1233368908
A recent [1]statement by the International Action Network on Small
Arms, the world's leading gun prohibition lobby, states that the Arms
Trade Treaty, currently being drafted in the United Nations, would
prohibit arms sales to Israel and to Hamas. Rebecca Peters, the head
of IANSA, accuses both Hamas and Israel of violating international
law, and explained that the ATT would outlaw weapons sales to both
parties. According to the press release:
[Peters said:] "Yet some states continue to supply weapons to the
protagonists. Some of these transfers are 'legal', meaning approved
by the exporting and importing governments. The most obvious case
here is the continuing US supply of arms to Israel."
Last week IANSA reported that the US tried to ship 989 containers
of ammunition, explosives and other munitions to Israel, through
European ports.
A strong and effective global Arms Trade Treaty would have
prevented these transfers, and more importantly would have
prevented transfers in the past few years, reducing the
protagonists' capacity to wage their deadly war.
Under the rules of war, attacks should not be indiscriminate, and
precautions must be taken to minimise civilian casualties. Around
1300 Palestinians were killed in the recent attacks by Israel on
Gaza. Most of these victims were non-combatants, including nearly
500 children. Israel claimed these attacks were militarily
necessary, because the military targets were located within
civilian settlements. But the massive number of casualties resulted
in part because Israel failed to give sufficient warning to
civilians.
References
1. http://www.iansa.org/regions/nafrica/gaza_att09.htm
_______________________________________________
Volokh mailing list
Volokh@lists.powerblogs.com
http://lists.powerblogs.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/volokh
