Position Paper

Committee: Disarmament and International Security
Topic: Towards a Global Arms Trade Treaty
Country: Netherlands

The delegation of the Netherlands comes today to acknowledge and solve an urgentproblem in the international agenda: arms trade. It’s well known that, due to a variety of reasons –conflicts, security measures, lack of indigenous technology and others- an increasing arms markethas been developing. Especially during the first part of the XXI century, an active weapon trading has taken place. Consequently, it’s fundamental to introduce some security measures in this kind ofbusiness; as to assure that no human rights violations or legal regulations are violated.

Netherlands is a country that actively engages in this market, and permits weapon trading. Nevertheless, ourcountry has established some principles in order to initiate a trade even when there is no international standard that obliges us to do so; for example: the sell has to be according to internationalstandards, it’s not permitted to sell arms to rebel or dissident groups, there can be no trade in arms which are not for self-defense purposes, there are certain types of arms that are out of tradewhatsoever, among others. This kind of measures have proven to be effective, as there has been no direct or indirect responsibility whatsoever of the Netherlands in armed conflicts. Additionally, mydelegation only sells arms that are no longer needed in our country, thus assuring we avoid problems, and we assure there is no subsequent crime committed. We encourage all the delegations that engage inweapon trading to adopt the same measures as my delegation to have a starting point in a possible global arms treaty.

We believe arms trading can have disastrous consequences when it’s not doneproperly. Even when treaties have been made to halt certain weapons’ trading, such as small arms, nuclear weapons, biological weapons, etc. we have to have a comprehensive treaty that includes general...