Wanted: Lawyers for legal advice during Arms Trade Treaty negotiations

The International Senior Lawyers Project (ISLP), Oxfam and our partners from the Control Arms alliance are establishing an innovative network of pro-bono lawyers to boost the capacity of lobbyists and affected States that want to ensure a robust Arms Trade Treaty is negotiated by 2012.

Currently, a patchwork system of differing national and regional regulation means that there are no comprehensive global regulations on the international trade in conventional arms (all other weapons types such as nuclear, biological and chemical are already subject to global treaties). This allows unscrupulous arms dealers or governments to easily supply weapons, even where they know they may be used for violations of human rights and international humanitarian law, or fuel conflict and undermine development.

In 2006, after years of campaigning by NGOs, the UN agreed to start discussing an Arms Trade Treaty (ATT). Negotiations are ongoing with the final negotiating conference taking place in July 2012. It is vital that affected states and the Control Arms civil society alliance have access to high quality legal advice so they can participate effectively in treaty negotiations and ensure that the Treaty prevents irresponsible arms deals that fuel conflict, poverty and serious human rights abuses.

To achieve this, Oxfam, the International Senior Lawyers Project (ISLP) and Control Arms alliance partners, are establishing the ATT Legal Response Network consisting of expert lawyers from around the world. The Network will support the negotiations by providing free, real time legal advice during negotiating sessions, as well as longer-term advice and support to State parties and NGOs.

We need lawyers to sign up to help block the loopholes.

If you are interested in joining the ATT Legal Response Network, please take a moment to fill out this form.