Press release

Tweeter

A United Nation’s General Assembly conference on the arms trade will take place in New York from March 18 to 28, 2013. In this context the University of Liège and the Belgian Red Cross is joining forces for a conference on the theme of the trade in conventional weapons and its regulation.

Liège (Belgium), March 2013 – the United Nation’s General Assembly has convened a conference, in New York from next March 18 to 28, on a treaty regulating the arms trade. At stake: developing an international instrument aiming States called upon to intervene in the transfer of arms and ammunition to make aware of their responsibilities. The question of the arms trade was written into the United Nation’s agenda in 2006, following the mobilisation of numerous actors within civil society. In July 2012 the General Assembly convened the States in order to adopt an agreement. After four weeks of intense negotiations a draft treaty was tabled, without nonetheless being able to be adopted. But the mobilisation has not stopped.

Striking figures

The figures are striking: eight million light weapons and over twelve billion pieces of ammunition are produced each year. Around 700 million light weapons are circulating around the world. Each year, 747,000 people are killed by conventional weapons, in other words over 2,000 victims each year – a reality which is not restricted to countries at war: two out of three people who are killed are done so in countries at peace.

A rise in instability, criminality, violations of human rights, an increase in conflicts and terrorism, a brake on economic development, encouragements to arms child soldiers: the uncontrolled spread and the excessive accumulation of weapons brings about catastrophic and destabilising situations.

Within the United Nations Belgium is campaigning for the rapid setting up of an international treaty on the arms trade. And in 2003 forbid the export of weapons to countries in which the regular army enrols child soldiers.

In this context the University of Liège and the Belgian Red Cross is joining forces for a conference during which different speakers will be called upon to address this question: Regulating the arms trade: Utopia or necessity?

In practice

REGULATING THE ARMS TRADE: UTOPIA OR NECESSITY?

Conference

Thursday March 14, 2013, 17.30   
Amphithéâtre de l’Europe, Sart Tilman (Liège)

17h30 – Welcome
18h – Screening of clips from Dealing and Wheeling in Small Arms, a documentary directed by Sander Francken
18h30 – Panel discussion
Moderator: Vincent Guerra (ULg)
Speakers: Quentin Michel (ULg), Frédéric Casier (Croix-Rouge de Belgique), Filip De Clercq (SPF Affaires étrangères), Romain Leloup (Amnesty International Belgique), Jihan Seniora (GRIP)
19h30 – Questions - replies
20h – Conclusions

Registration: fleur.collienne@ulg.ac.be

La Croix-Rouge et l'ULg

La Croix-Rouge de Belgique soutient l’Université de Liège dans son effort de diffusion du droit international humanitaire depuis 2007, date de création du cours de droit international humanitaire au sein de la faculté de Droit et Science politique. Ce cours a la particularité d’être accessible en master et est suivi par une cinquantaine d’étudiants chaque année. 

Par ailleurs, l’Université de Liège participe depuis plus de 10 ans au concours de procès simulé organisé annuellement par la Croix-Rouge. La finale, cette année, aura lieu à Bruxelles le 27 mars, avec la participation de deux étudiantes en Droit de l’ULg : Salima Rabhiou et Florence Fassin qui, pour un soir, joueront les avocates de la défense de Victoria Korinstka, accusée devant la Cour pénale internationale d’avoir commis des crimes de guerre.