Key Issues at the Third and Fourth Conferences of States Parties to the Arms Trade Treaty

Abstract

Since the 1990s, there has been a proliferation of initiatives to create regional and ‘global’ instruments that establish common criteria for the assessment of arms transfer licenses; this culminated in 2013 with the adoption of the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT). Since 2015, a Conference of States Parties (CSP) to the ATT has been held annually, and the Fifth Conference of States Parties (CSP5) will be held in Switzerland in August 2019. While research abounds on the negotiation processes since the 1990s of conventional arms control agreements and the roles of governmental and nongovernmental actors in these negotiations, there is a striking absence of research on the implications of post-adoption processes and the roles of a wide range of actors involved in these processes. This article seeks to analyse the key issues of the Third and Fourth CSPs, including possible violations of the treaty by state parties, reporting mechanisms and sponsorship programmes for participation in a CSPs and related meetings. As a participant of the CSP process, the author hopes to record these historic moments and provide a basis for policy debates and future research on and evaluation of this process.