Despite these clarifications, the U.S. pro-gun groups’ fears were not assuaged, and they pressed Bolton to take his hard line at the United Nations. Not that Bolton needed any persuading. He was widely known as a strict constitutionalist and someone who had shown great disdain and disrespect in the past for the United Nations. “If the UN secretary [secretariat] building in New York lost ten stories, it wouldn’t make a bit of difference,” he had told a conference seven years earlier. “There is no such thing as the United Nations. There is an international body that occasionally can be led by the only real power left in the world, and that is the United States when it suits our interest and we can get others to go along.”
At a press conference during the UN meeting, Bolton refuted the constant din of allegations that his delegation’s position was scripted by pro-gun groups. “I am not a member of the NRA. I have never been a member. Let me start over,” he said firmly. “I am not now and never have been a member of the NRA, and I have no idea who on the delegation is a member of the NRA. The NRA did not write our position and that’s that.”
Tensions were rising among delegates. Just as the pro-gun groups could not be convinced that the UN had no designs on their weapons, anti-gun groups believed that the NRA wrote the U.S. stance.
NGOs played a more pronounced role in this conference than in most other UN proceedings, and their participation was a major factor in how the two-week confab worked. A coalition wanting to stem the proliferation of small arms was the largest group present, representing about three hundred groups. The second largest was represented by the World Forum on the Future of Sport Shooting Activities, with the NRA as its most outspoken member. One of the more interesting facets was how some countries, China and Algeria for example, sought to restrict participation by NGOs, because they feared these groups would bring up human rights issues. Other countries, like Canada, Ireland, and the United Kingdom, included NGO representatives in the delegations because they were a source of data and information. One thing that most anti-gun delegates believed was that the pro-gun NGOs exerted a large influence on the U.S. position. For the NRA, the UN conference represented an opportunity to raise funds and enter the international arena in a way never before possible. Although the NRA had been active internationally, the UN conference propelled it to a higher level.
The U.S. hard-line posture seemed out of place considering that the United States was a world leader in transparency of arms sales and accountability. Compared to many countries, U.S. domestic gun laws were solid and workable, and the country was in the forefront of monitoring weapons transfers, maintaining security of weapons caches, licensing of brokers, and setting standards for weapons markings. The U.S. delegation did not push for international standards even in cases where U.S. laws exceeded worldwide proposals. To some people, it seemed as though the U.S. delegation was being confrontational for no apparent reason.
Perhaps this should not have been a surprise to astute observers, however. The Bush administration regularly took pains to dismiss any UN initiative that it felt would limit its future options. For example, the United States has not signed the Kyoto Protocol on limiting greenhouse gases despite the fact that the nation’s air was actually getting cleaner and many U.S. environmental laws are tougher than those elsewhere. And the United States has repeatedly refused to sign agreements that ban the use of land mines although it has not used antipersonnel mines since 1991. (President Clinton failed to sign the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty, but he did create a policy that would put the United States on track to join the treaty by 2006. The Bush administration has rejected the treaty outright.)
Although the United States appeared to go it alone with its stonewalling stance, other nations such as Russia and China tacitly agreed. For example, China, which supplied more AKs to the world than any other country, fought UN standards to mark weapons so they could be traced. Behind the scenes, Russia opposed restrictions on sales to nongovernmental entities, but was content to let the U.S. delegation take the heat. These three nations were not necessarily aligned on all issues, but the U.S. delegates were publicly vocal, distracting attention from the other two, who kept a low profile.
As the conference progressed it was becoming clear that the entire exercise might come to nothing over two main sticking points: supplying nongovernmental entities with weapons, and restrictions on civilian ownership of military-type weapons, issues on which Bolton would not compromise. The African bloc of nations, which had suffered the most from small-arms proliferation, held fast, insisting that these two provisions remain.
At 6 a.m. on the conference’s last day, the African states capitulated to the U.S. position rather than have the conference go up in flames. Some positive changes had come from the meeting, and they did not want to lose any momentum, albeit small. They knew that the U.S. position was absolutely intractable, because Bolton would be content if the conference did not produce any agreement whatsoever. In return, however, the African bloc insisted that conference president Camilo Reyes of Colombia publicly describe why they gave in and who was to blame. Reyes agreed and noted in part, “I must… express my disappointment over the conference’s inability to agree, due to the concerns of one State [the United States]…. The States most afflicted by this global crisis, Africa, had agreed only with the greatest of reluctance to the deletion of… these vital issues. They did so strictly in the interests of reaching a compromise that would permit the world community as a whole to proceed together with some first steps at the global level to alleviate this common threat.”
Although the conference’s final document, the Programme of Action, did little to stop the illegal trade in arms, some considered it a success anyway, because it raised awareness of the issue on a global level. This consciousness-raising may have been the conference’s most important legacy, according to many delegates who were optimistic that the meetings put in motion a long-term commitment to address the issue.
ONE TOPIC THAT DREW MUCH attention was that of universal standards for weapons marking to make tracing possible. At the time of the conference, the issue was thwarted because it could not get buy-in from countries like China, which sold many arms that ended up in the wrong hands. In fact, UN experts suggest that because more than 60 percent of illegal small arms started out as legal transfers, a marking and tracing system could go a long way to stop human rights abuses perpetrated at the end of a gun. Because no state was willing to institute worldwide restrictions at the national level on civilian possession of arms, this too was left out of the final document, but there was some movement at subsequent biennial meetings.
Unlike during the original conference, the United States became supportive in this area, mainly because U.S. gun makers already adhered to strict marking and record-keeping of firearms. Publicly, countries like Egypt, Syria, and China opposed marking and record-keeping because of increased scrutiny of their legal gun sales. Weapons from these countries often find their way into illegal channels.
For a worldwide marking system to be useful, each weapon must have a unique serial number that designates the country of origin, the manufacturer, and the year of production. As arms are transferred, a marking upon importation is also helpful. It offers investigators a starting point for any search by telling them the last country of import and also acts as a backup to the original markings if they become obliterated or if registry data become faulty or missing. Even if a trafficker were to imprint a false import marking, it could still be traced to the original country.