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	Arms Trade Treaty – UN human rights experts urge all States to ratify it and consider disarmament by OHCHR, ICRC, Oxfam, Amnesty, agencies   Geneva (23 December 2014)   A group of leading United Nations human rights experts urged all Governments around the world to ratify the landmark United Nations Arms Trade Treaty that will enter into force tomorrow. So far, only 60 out of the 130 Treaty signatories have ratified it.   The UN Arms Trade Treaty is the first legally-binding multilateral agreement that prohibits states from exporting conventional weapons to countries when they know those weapons will be used for genocide, crimes against humanity or war crimes.   “The entry into force of this Arms Trade Treaty is a very important step to peace and security,” the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights and countering terrorism, Ben Emmerson, said. “However, further consideration on the issue of prohibiting the sale of weapons to non-state entities is needed and a subsequent agreement should address outstanding issues that were left out in the final compromise.”   “Terrorist attacks have become more and more atrocious by the kind of weapons they acquire. This needs to end,” the expert added, noting that numerous ambiguities remain in the text of the treaty which could end up supporting the arms industry.   “Nothing in the treaty forbids selling weapons to non-state entities. States must intensify their efforts for disarmament in protecting the right to life and physical security.”   Human rights expert Elzbieta Karska, who currently heads the UN Working Group on the use of mercenaries, noted that the prohibited activities of mercenaries, which have threatened peace and security in various regions, have also relied heavily on the proliferation of arms and weapons. “This treaty is a welcome avenue to curbing the provision of arms to illicit actors such as mercenaries,” she said.   “Ratifying this treaty will also assist States in regulating non-state entities such as private military and security companies –which often carry and use arms in their line of work– and ensuring compliance with international law,” Ms. Karska added.   “The Arms Trade Treaty is a significant first step with the potential to reduce the atrocious human cost of the trade in conventional weapons and the conflicts such weapons exacerbate, the Independent Expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order, Alfred de Zayas, stated.   “Undoubtedly, this treaty constitutes an historic moment toward the goal of meaningful disarmament and the reduction of hostilities,” Mr. de Zayas said. “More important than this treaty on regulation of the arms trade are efforts at reduction of weapon stockpiles worldwide and ongoing disarmament negotiations that must be pursued in good faith, especially in the field of nuclear disarmament.”   The Independent Expert noted that progress on the implementation of this convention would give momentum to the movement to draft and adopt a convention banning nuclear weapons, as proposed by several Delegations at the Third Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons held early December in Vienna.   “Such weapons violate the principles of distinction and proportionality – two pillars of international humanitarian law – and pose the greatest danger to the survival of the human species,” Mr. de Zayas stressed.   “The world needs to stop not only the trade in, but also the profit-driven production of, all arms since once weapons have been produced, there is a strong incentive to make sure they are put to use somewhere in the world, so as to continue producing them,” the human rights experts underscored.   The experts proposed conversion strategies so as to gradually recycle resources and manpower to peacetime enterprises that create jobs and contribute to social justice. “Efforts, as well as resources, ought to be moved from the rational of armed conflict and instead be shifted toward the advancement of peace and the promotion all human rights,” they added.   The widespread availability of small arms and light weapons, and their ammunition, is the common factor in over 250 conflicts witnessed across the globe in the last decade, the United Nations Secretary-General told the Security Council today.   “The recent entry into force of the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) has laid the foundations for a global framework of arms transfer controls, including for small arms and light weapons and ammunition,” said Ban Ki-moon. “A universal ATT, adequately implemented, is critical to removing the tools for armed conflict.”   The Treaty, he said, could stem the misuse and illicit circulation of the many thousands of weapons that are often part of the roots of conflict and thereby advance international peace and security, reduce human suffering.   “I encourage all Member States to accede to the Treaty and to faithfully implement it,” he said, noting that States Parties were required to ensure that their arms exports would not be used to violate arms embargoes, fuel conflict, facilitate terrorism or engage in serious violation of international human rights or humanitarian law.   He underlined his concerns about poor weapons management by States lacking thorough planning and consistent attention to safe storage, handling, transportation and disposal of their arsenals and described how diversion of weaponry, including from government stockpiles, served to fuel conflict, allowing rebels, gangs, criminal organizations, pirates, terrorist groups and insurgents to bolster their firepower.   In his report on the subject, two key elements vital to tackling the worldwide challenge were given particular prominence.   “First, we need to ensure that the use of weapons and ammunition by national security forces conforms with commitments under global treaties and instruments,” Mr. Ban said. “Second, we need further measures to combat the proliferation of illicit weapons.”   States had to enforce arms embargoes and strengthen UN missions tasked with policing small arms, he said, encouraging greater efforts to accelerate exchange of information on arms trafficking and calling for “far more attention” on the issue of ammunition.   “Monitoring ammunition flows can help identify sources, trafficking patterns and diversion points,” said Mr. Ban. “It can remove source material for improvised explosive devices and stem the re-supply of ammunition into crime and conflict areas. Cutting ammunition flows has an immediate impact on the intensity of armed activity. In situations where there is high risk to civilian populations, this should be a priority.”   Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, High Commissioner for Human Rights:   The bloodshed and devastation caused by these weapons never fails to elicit unanimous declarations of dismay. But when the international community is called upon to control more effectively the production and trade of small arms and light weaponry, States push for loose definitions, as well as numerous exclusions and loopholes, and enforcement remains weak. The reason is clear: the trade in small arms is a multi-billion-dollar business.   And yet the human and economic cost of armed violence also runs into the hundreds of billions of dollars. These are the weapons of the easy kill: the most portable, most easily accessible, most casual instruments of death – even a small child can, with its tiny muscles, vanquish a life. In war, however, appallingly, it is often the child that receives the bullet.   The vast majority of victims are not the live version of the silhouetted man on a white sheet of paper holding a gun, what law enforcement and militaries the world over use for target practice. The live version is very different. The majority of bullet-ridden and mortar-blasted humans are ordinary people, not combatants in armed conflict. They tend to be among the poorest or most vulnerable members of society: older people, women, children, people with disabilities. Frequently, they are the "left-behinds", people who cannot flee when danger looms, because they have nowhere to go or because they are not physically able to move. Many are killed; countless others are maimed, and may be permanently disabled.   If they were to reflect reality more closely, the silhouettes used for target practice would not then be menacing gunmen, but terrified people hiding under tables, or cowering in the corners of dark rooms with their families, or lying face down in a ditch. And why? Because war is not just the clinical fulfilment of some military or strategic objective, war, in the killing zone, often means a gruesome showcasing of human cruelty, and for reasons we still do not yet properly understand. Why does it have to be so violent to civilians and non-combatants? The pathologies of human behaviour have yet to determine why, but we do know: if the oldest companion of war is war crime; its bride is the profiteer.   There are simply too many who will indulge in the commerce of death, in the illicit business of arms transfers which is undeniably damaging to human life, and yet we rarely see those responsible for facilitating and abetting serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law held accountable in any way. We must place the protection of human life and human rights at the centre of this discussion.   The contrast is also breathtakingly stark between the comfortable profits of the brokers of these weapons -- not to speak the accompanying lifestyles of the more successful of them -- and the victims of their use, who in the majority of cases are likely to find no recourse or remedy for the torment and disabilities these arms and weapons have caused them.   We are all aware small arms do not only make easy the taking of lives, and the maiming of lives – they also kill economies, and the social bonds on which every kind of collective institution and progress rely. Their ubiquitous availability can contribute to the sustained denial of human rights, including to education and health, the lethality of criminal behaviour; the breakdown of social structures; illicit plundering of natural resources; decreasing trade and investment; rising violence against women and girls; gang violence; the collapse of rule of law; and a generalised sense of impunity, opening up in many parts of the world completely lawless landscapes.   http://disarmament.un.org/treaties/t/att. http://www.icrc.org/en/war-and-law/weapons/small-arms-availability http://www.oxfamamerica.org/press/arms-trade-treaty-enters-into-force-offering-fresh-hope-for-the-protection-of-civilians-in-2015/ http://www.amnesty.ie/news/arms-trade-treaty-marks-historic-breakthrough-human-rights-after-20-year-campaign http://controlarms.org/en/ http://50celebrating50.tumblr.com/ http://oxfamblogs.org/fp2p/how-did-a-global-campaign-bring-about-a-un-arms-trade-treaty/ http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=50845#.VVQtmVKpWzl Visit the related web page
	One million people have been wounded during Syria"s civil war by Alertnet, ICRC, Handicap International, agencies   10 March 2015   Four years of armed conflict, economic disintegration and social fragmentation in Syria have hollowed out its population by 15 percent, forced some 10 million people to flee their homes and reduced life expectancy by two decades – from nearly 76 years of age to 56 – according to a United Nations-backed report released today on the “catastrophic” impact of the conflict.   “While crushing the aspirations of the Syrian people and their ability to build and form institutions that can restore human security and respect human dignity and rights, the armed conflict has depleted the capital and wealth of the country,” according to the Syria: Alienation and Violence, Impact of the Syria Crisis Report, produced by the Syrian Centre for Policy Research with the support of the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).   “Measured in terms of human development capacity and choices, the [Human Development Index] HDI value of Syria degraded by 32.6 per cent since 2010, falling from just below a middle ranking position to 173rd position of 187 countries,” it said.   Syria has become a country of poor people, with an estimated 4 in every 5 Syrians now living in poverty – 30 percent of the population having descended into abject poverty, according to the report.   The report details the tragic context facing all people in Syria, including the lives of Palestine refugees that have not been spared the trauma, UNRWA says, noting that the agency delivers humanitarian aid to 460,000 refugees who are wholly dependent on it to help them meet minimum daily needs.   During the last four years, more than 10 million Syrians have been forced to flee their homes and neighbourhoods because of violence, fear, intimidation and homelessness.   “The population of Syria was hollowed out by 15 percent as 3.33 million Syrians fled as refugees to other countries, together with a 1.55 million persons who migrated to find work and a safer life elsewhere,” the report explained. “Within the remaining population of Syria, some 6.80 million people had been internally displaced.”   The report drew attention to “the appalling loss of life,” as the death toll increased in the past year reached 210,000 persons. And together with the 840,000 people who were wounded, 6 per cent of the population were killed, maimed or wounded during the conflict, it said.   “Equally horrendous is the silent disaster that has reduced life expectancy at birth from 75.9 years in 2010 to an estimated 55.7 years at the end of 2014, reducing longevity and life expectancy by 27 per cent,” the report noted.   In the midst of this social disintegration and economic degradation, the education, health and social welfare systems are in a state of collapse..   http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=50291#.VP-j8o6pX-Z   26 February 2015   Syria’s war continues ‘unabated and with total impunity,’ Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator, Kyung-Wha Kang tells UN Security Council.   In a briefing to the Security Council on the humanitarian situation in Syria, two senior United Nations relief officials warned today that as the conflict enters its fifth year, the violence and brutality continue unabated and with total impunity.   Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator, Kyung-Wha Kang told the 15-member body that parties to the conflict continue to kill civilians and target critical infrastructure which condemn people to unnecessary suffering.   “Every month we report on the same violations. The numbers change, but the pattern remains the same. The parties to the conflict continue to act with impunity: killing and abducting civilians; denying access; removing vital supplies from convoys. This pattern must be broken,” Ms. Kang stressed.   Over 2 million people in Aleppo and Dar’a Governorates have been affected by wilful denial of water and electricity by parties to the conflict this month. Of the 212,000 people who are besieged, in conditions that deteriorate every day, only 304 were reached with food in January.   In other areas where conditions deteriorate every day, parties to the conflict severely restrict access to those in need. In Raqqa and Deir ez Zor, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) has closed down the offices of several aid organisations, including the Syrian Arab Red Crescent.   “Some 600,000 people have not received food assistance in these governorates since last December. The sick or wounded often have nowhere safe to get treatment,” said Ms. Kang.   The World Health Organisation (WHO) has succeeded in sending life-saving medicine and medical supplies from Damascus to rural Aleppo for some 65,000 treatments but many of the surgical items including midwifery and reproductive kits were removed by Government security personnel at one of the checkpoints.   The Council must do everything in its power to hold parties accountable and ensure that aid is delivered to people in need. Humanitarian organizations operating in besieged Syria and in neighbouring countries continue to reach millions of people every month. In January, some 3.4 million people were reached with food assistance while hundreds of thousands were also reached with medicines, household items and other supplies.   “But it is not enough. More effort must be made to de-escalate the violence, protect and enable humanitarian organisations to give more support,” the Special Coordinator said, emphasising the need to secure the freeze in fighting in some parties of Aleppo so that humanitarian agencies can deliver food, remove debris and get children back into school.   OCHA’s response cannot keep up with the needs of Syria’s people because there is simply not enough funding. By the end of last year, the Syria Humanitarian Assistance Response Plan for 2014 was just 48 per cent funded.   Lack of funding has already forced the World Food Programme (WFP) to reduce rations by 30 per cent. And for every million dollars that WHO cannot raise in Syria, some 227,000 people lose vital health services. And unless urgent funding is received before May 2015, a million children will not be able to access education.   Ms. Kang said she looked forward to the next pledging conference to be held on 31 March in Kuwait, expressing hope that the funds acquired there will make a difference on the ground.   Echoing that sentiment, UNHCR head António Guterres, said that the Kuwait III conference will play a determining role in stabilizing the situation in the refugee hosting countries because international support has been far from keeping pace with the magnitude of needs.   The Syrian refugee crisis has overwhelmed existing response capacities with 3.8 million registered in neighbouring countries. In Lebanon and Jordan, these populations have grown exponentially and Turkey is now the biggest refugee-hosting country in the world.   “The continued growth in displacement is staggering. And the nature of the refugee crisis is changing. As the level of despair rises, the available protection space shrinks, we are approaching a dangerous turning point,” Mr. Guterres warned.   Refugee resources are depleted and living conditions are drastically deteriorating. Host communities are severely overstretched. And the refugee influx has heavily impacted the economies and societies of Lebanon, Jordan and Northern Iraq in particular, overwhelming resources.   http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=50194#.VO_7ryypX-Y   Jan 2015 (Unicef)   68 attacks on Syrian schools in 2014 have killed and maimed students and threatened conflict-affected children''s chances at study and a normal daily routine.   UNICEF representative in Syria Hanaa Singer said continuing conflict had already forced closure of some Syrian schools, particularly those in the Raqqa and Deir-ez-Zour local government areas and rural parts outside Aleppo, and disrupted education for 670,000 children of primary and lower high school age.   "In addition to lack of school access, attacks on schools, teachers and students are further horrific reminders of the terrible price Syria’s children are paying in a crisis approaching its fifth year," UNICEF representative in Syria Hanaa Singer said.   "Access to education is a right that should be sustained for all children, no matter where they live or how difficult the circumstances in which they live," Ms Singer said.   "Schools are the only means of stability, structure and routine that the Syrian children need more than ever in times of this horrific conflict."   Between January and December 2014 alone there were at least 68 attacks on schools across Syria, according to data available to UNICEF. These attacks reportedly killed and wounded hundreds of children. The real numbers are expected to be higher, and there are indications that some attacks may have been deliberate.   "Schools should be respected as zones of peace and safe havens for children where they can learn without fear of death or injury," said Ms Singer.   "UNICEF has repeatedly called upon all parties to the conflict to uphold their responsibility to protect children, schools, and other civilian infrastructure from the conflict - a call we repeat with even greater urgency as a new year begins with children in Syria still facing the most terrible threats to their safety, wellbeing and their education."   Dec 19, 2014   One million people have been wounded during Syria"s civil war and diseases are spreading as regular supplies of medicine fail to reach patients, the World Health Organisation"s Syria representative said.   A plunge in vaccination rates from 90 percent before the war to 52 percent this year and contaminated water have added to the woes, allowing typhoid and hepatitis to advance, Elizabeth Hoff said in an interview late on Thursday.   More than 200,000 people have been killed in Syria"s conflict, which began in March 2011 with popular protests against President Bashar al-Assad and spiralled into civil war after a crackdown by his security forces.   "In Syria, they have a million people injured as a direct result of the war. You can see it in the country when you travel around. You see a lot of amputees," said Hoff. "This is the biggest problem."   She said a collapsed health system, where over half of public hospitals are out of service, has meant that treatments for diseases and injuries are irregular.   Hoff said that Assad"s government -- which demands to sign off on aid convoys -- is still blocking surgical supplies, such as bandages and syringes, from entering rebel-held areas.   Aid workers say Damascus argues that the equipment would be used to help insurgents.   "What has been a problem is the regularity of supply," she said. "The government approvals are sporadic."   More than 6,500 cases of typhoid were reported this year across Syria and 4,200 cases of measles, the deadliest disease for Syrian children, Hoff said.   There was just one reported case of polio, which can paralyse children within hours, in 2014 following a vaccination drive, but other new diseases appeared, including myiasis, a tropical disease spread by flies which is also known as screw-worm, with 10 cases seen in the outskirts of Damascus.   Syrian activists in the Eastern Ghouta district of Damascus said that tuberculosis was also spreading due to poor sanitary conditions and a government siege on the area, blocking aid.   The United Nations called on Thursday for more than $8.4 billion to help nearly 18 million people in need in Syria and across the region in 2015.   Hoff said that the WHO delivered more than 13.5 million treatments of lifesaving medicines and medical supplies in 2014, up nearly threefold from the year before.   But the problems were growing at an even faster pace, Hoff said, with poor water access and deepening poverty worsening the health crisis: "The needs are not possible to believe." http://www.redforsyria.org/ http://childrenofsyria.info/winter/ http://handicap-international.ca/en/syria-one-million-injured-a-mutilated-future http://www.icrcproject.org/app/syria-women/ http://reachofwar.msf.org/ Visit the related web page
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