In short, there is no basis for believing that the PoA is making any meaningful contribution to its supposed aim of eliminating the illicit trafficking of small arms. member states even bother to report under the PoA-and with reports from 2020 coming in from nations such as war-torn South Sudan, it is doubtful that these reports shed any useful light on what is actually happening on the ground. At best, therefore, only 62 percent of U.N. reporting template is available online, but in spite of this easy access, the number of nations that have fulfilled this most basic of commitments is not impressive.Įven in the relatively successful reporting cycle ending in 2020, only 120 nations submitted a report: In the previous biennial cycles from 2010, the number of reports submitted ranged from 76 to 108. The failure of the PoA is also evidenced by the lack of interest that nations show in fulfilling their commitment to report biennially on their implementation of it. In 2018, at RevCon3, the International Committee of the Red Cross drew attention to the “gap between political commitments and actions,” which was a polite way of saying that many governments at the PoA talk a good game but do nothing. The “Chair’s Summary” of the Second Meeting of Governmental Experts (MGE2) under the PoA in 2015 noted that “many” nations are not implementing the PoA. Small Arms Process,” condemns it for focusing on “peripheral issues.” REF acknowledged that “it is almost impossible to acquire an accurate picture of Programme of Action implementation and effectiveness” and that “the results of those more limited assessments that have been undertaken have not been encouraging.” REF A 2014 assessment by PoA supporters, titled “Firing Blanks: The Growing Irrelevance of the U.N. Secretary-General stated that the PoA’s results were not “substantive.” A 2012 survey by New Zealand’s permanent representative to the U.N. There is widespread acceptance that the PoA has few, if any, achievements. should not participate in the 2021 meeting of the PoA unless the PoA is reoriented to focus on specific, realistic, and relevant goals. Now that the PoA has broken one of the U.S.’s red lines-and violated the rule of unanimous consent that allowed the U.S. to participate in it was to prevent bad outcomes. If it continues to work as it has previously, it will continue to fail. The PoA is lacking in substantive achievements. must therefore decide if it will continue to participate in the PoA. Instead, RevCon3 voted through an outcome document that broke the red line on the inclusion of ammunition that the U.S. The BMS7 is primarily important to the United States because RevCon3 did not work by unanimous consent. The BMS7 will likely focus in part on issues raised at the Third Review Conference (RevCon3) of the PoA, which was held from June 18 to June 29, 2018. BMS7 was supposed to have been held in June 2020, but was delayed for a year by the COVID-19 pandemic. REFįrom July 26 to July 30, 2021, the Seventh Biennial Meeting of States on the Programme of Action (BMS7) will be held in New York City. PoA meetings are held jointly with meetings of the International Tracing Instrument (ITI), created in 2005, which provides a framework for cooperation on small arms tracing. The PoA meetings result in an outcome document containing conclusions that, if unanimously agreed, are politically (though not legally) binding for all participants in the PoA. The PoA is not a treaty it is a political mechanism-intended to work by unanimous consent-for encouraging voluntary cooperation on suppressing the illicit arms trade. In 2001, the United Nations created the Programme of Action to Prevent, Combat, and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects (PoA), commonly called the Programme of Action.

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