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Yesterday the UN General Assembly First Committee voted overwhelmingly to start negotiations on the Arms Trade Treaty next year leading up to a UN Conference in two years time to finalise the text.
So four weeks of 15 hour plus days comes to an end. Where has the time gone? Sometimes life as a multilateral ambassador seems like a journey on a high speed train the country side of meetings, statements, working diners, flashes by as we rush down the track. Now that we have arrived at our destination the world seems oddly calm.
Launching the ATT negotiations has been a three year project starting just before I took over this job by the then Foreign Secretary Jack Straw.
The ATT represents a new approach to the strategic agenda. Beyond the importnat Humanitarian and Human Rights dimension, effective regulation of the global arms trade is needed to make progress on the Millennium Development Goals, enhance our ability to tackle threats to international security ranging from piracy to insurgency, and provide the basis for industrial cooperation where both existing and emerging arms manufacturers are working in a responsible way applying the same standards.
After a decade of deadlock in the multilateral arms control and disarmament institutions, it was always going to be a challenge to pursue this agenda within the UN. By driving this initiative forward under a mandate from the UN General Assembly, we also sought to demonstrate that UNGA could take the lead on an issue of global governance.
In all an ambitious and challenging agenda and so it has proved to be. But after two years discussion 153 nations agreed to start the negotiations. Only Zimbabwe voted against, alone amongst the African nations. 19 countries abstained, most of these explained their decision in objecting to the "forcing of the pace"; almost all were at pains to say they would engage constructively in the next phase that begins in the summer of next year when we will start working up the text of the new treaty.
Back to Geneva now where in in a few weeks time I will turn my attention to meetings on the Biological Weapons Convention and the Ottawa Landmines Treaty. Before we know it the work of 2008 will be over, but this week's decision will undoubedly be one of it's highlights.
