CURRENT AFFAIRS

Detailed explanation-1: -In June 2020, Beijing announced its plan to join the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), designed to prevent the flow of arms to conflict zones across the globe.

Detailed explanation-2: -Signatories and parties As of December 2022, 113 states have ratified or acceded to the ATT, including six of the world’s top 10 arms producers (France, Germany, Spain, China, the United Kingdom and Italy). Twenty-one ratifying states provisionally applied articles 6 and 7 of the treaty, pending its entry into force.

Detailed explanation-3: -India has not signed the treaty as it believes the ATT does not sufficiently provide for the rights of a state to import arms for national security. The objective of this treaty is to establish common international standards for regulating international trade in conventional arms.

Detailed explanation-4: -After years of effort, the UN General Assembly adopted a historic Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) on 2 April 2013. This is the first-ever global treaty to establish international norms aiming to prevent conventional weapons from being used for war crimes and human rights abuses, or being diverted for illegal use by criminals.

Detailed explanation-5: -It should be no surprise then that 111 countries have ratified the ATT, including nearly all U.S. allies and partners. The United States signed the treaty in 2013 but the Senate had not yet ratified it when President Trump took the symbolic step of declaring the United States had “unsigned” the treaty.