Speaking at the seminar entitled “The Conventional Arms Trading Treaty (ATT): National and International Viewpoints” organized by the Department of International Organizations under the Foreign Ministry in co-ordination with the Hanoi-based Embassy of the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland on November 22-23, 2011, Mr. Nguyễn Văn Thảo, Foreign Minister’s Assistant, stressed that Vietnam will participate and seriously implement the obligations and responsibilities in the mechanism relating to conventional arms, including the UN Mechanism of Conventional Arms Registration and the Action Program on the Combat against illegal trading of small arms, light weapons.

Illustrative image (Source: Internet)

The seminar is an opportunity for Vietnam’s related agencies to exchange and discuss the issues attracting great attention within the UN framework, particularly in the background that all the countries are heading towards the UN Conference to negotiate the ATT, which is expected to happen in mid-2012.
At present, the process of negotiating the ATT is in an important point of time. If passed, the Treaty will be of important significance for the relations among nations, for the regional mechanisms and activities of each nation. The ATT will deal with a lot of legal and political issues, the organizational structure of an apparatus in relation to nations as well as the new standards of the international community.

When it is approved, the ATT will be a binding document, adjusting the activities of all the countries in the conventional weapons field. This is worth being paid attention to when all the international, multilateral efforts aimed at the disarmament and the control of conventional arms in the modern international relations for over 100 years have stopped only at the mechanism of voluntary character.

The role of conventional arms is reflected in the economic and trade areas, in security, national defense and in international law because it is viewed by different parties that this is one of the main instruments to exercise the legitimate right to self-defense recognized in the important international treaties, including the UN Charter.

Since its start in 2006, the realities in the process of discussing it at the Governmental Experts Group, the Open Working Group and the Preparatory Committee have shown that there are still different viewpoints concerning the specific contents such as the scope of adjustment, the criteria for application, the measures for implementation, the requirements of the reports, the international cooperation and support and so on. This has demanded the concerned parties to make greater efforts to look for the common denominator and guarantee the principle of consensus in the process of negotiation on the ATT document.

Ms Kate Harrison, Charge d’Affaires ad Interim of the Hanoi-based Embassy of the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland, reaffirmed that the ATT was one of the leading priorities of the British Government. When the ATT is approved, it will make a contribution to binding the member states to implement seriously the commitments beneficial to the world’s security in order to control the weapons market and reduce the state of illegal weapon trading.

The seminar is to be held in 5 sessions. The representatives of Vietnamese agencies and the experts will exchange and share information to make it clearer the contents to which Vietnam could contribute in the ATT process. It is necessary to make it clearer such issues as the kinds of ATT weapons that need adjustment, the objective, balanced and suitable criteria to be included in the ATT, the reasonable mechanism of implementation, the measures that nations need to take to fulfill their responsibilities in accordance with the ATT.

The representatives of the UN Research Institute of Disarmament, the British working group in the ATT will present the issues relating to the UN mechanism on control and transfer of weapons./.