Submitted by crinadmin on
Summary: This conference-to be held in New York
in July 2001-will be the first
gathering of the world's governments to
address this critical humanitarian,
development and human rights issue.
Civil society of all types has a
dramatic stake in this issue, and the
conference should be to armed violence
what Beijing was to women's issues or
Rio was to the environment. The 2001 UN Conference on the Illicit Trade of Small Arms and Light
Weapons in All its Aspects
IANSA has working groups on media, campaigning, lobbying - if you
want to get involved please write to the New York IANSA Campaign
Organiser on [email protected]
Over 30 participants attended the First Preparatory Committee of the
UN 2001 Conference in February 2000. At the Second Preparatory
Committee for the Conference in New York in January this year, IANSA
achieved recognition amongst government delegations as a network of
diverse non-government organisations with valuable expertise and
experience to contribute. Just over 40 NGOs were listed for
accreditation and resulted in over 60 participants, including at
least 10 from countries in the South. Participants again listened to
the debate, met with delegations and organised briefings.
IANSA UN 2001 Conference Position Paper
The network launched its own position paper for the Conference -
“Focusing Attention on Small Arms – Opportunities for the UN 2001
Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in
All its Aspects”. During the first week IANSA participants also wrote
an initial response to the Draft Programme of Action and lobbied on
specific issues. A number of delegates commented on the timely
response of this paper and how it complimented lobbying activities.
Both these papers and the re-drafted UN Document - Programme of
Action, which will be discussed again at the Third PrepCom in March
are to be found in the UN Conference on Illicit Arms Information
Section on the IANSA website [email protected] .
IANSA is committed to high-level, participatory action by NGOs at the
UN 2001 Conference on Illicit Arms. It is our belief that non-
governmental organisations and individuals are needed at these
meetings to provide governments with evidence of the negative effects
associated with small arms proliferation, the global nature of the
supply and the work already being done to prevent and reduce the
damage from these weapons. With a great number of civil society
groups in IANSA experiencing the devastating impact of small arms
first hand, the network is in a strong position to bring that local
experience to international debates.