Abstract
This article seeks to understand the aims of the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) and identify the difficulties with regard to its implementation. It first overviews the post-Cold War history of arms transfer control. It then analyzes the main articles of the ATT, focusing in particular on reporting obligations—one of the most controversial issues of the First Conference of States Parties to the ATT. The article goes on to consider the aims claimed (or presumably claimed) throughout history by human groups that have attempted to control arms transfers either unilaterally or multilaterally. The aims are classified into three types: security, moral-ethical, and economic. The aims propagated by the supporters of the ATT are categorized into these types, and their distinctive features are explained vis-à-vis the aims of past transfer control initiatives.
In making sense of the claimed aims of the ATT, the article draws attention to the nature of boundary-making between lawfulness and unlawfulness with respect to the nature, use, and transfer of arms. Agreements to control and regulate arms naturally create simultaneously an unlawful as well as a lawful realm. By highlighting three cases of multilateral arms transfer control—the Catholic ban of arms transfers to the Saracens in the 12th–13th century, the Brussels Convention of the late 19th century, and “global” arms transfer control in the post-Cold War era—this article asserts that the claimed aims of arms transfer control should be understood within the overall logic of boundary-making between the lawful and unlawful nature, use, and transfer of arms. It also suggests that, in these three cases, this overall logic seems to have been in consonance with the dominant ideas of order during the same period.
Finally, the article identifies the difficulties facing the implementation of the ATT and argues that these difficulties signify the key challenges to the ideas of order that have fostered the development of the treaty.
https://ror.org/02rqvrp93 
