This treaty’s aim is to prevent missuse of arms by State armed and security forces, non-State armed groups and organized criminal groups as they are often final recievers. The Arms Trade Treaty was approved by the UN General Assembly on 2nd April 2013 and came into force 24 December 2014. The Czech Republic signed ATT on the 25 September 2014. As of July 2016 there are 82 member States and 130 signatory States to ATT.

The ATT obliges member states to monitor arms imports, exports and ensure that weapons do not cross existing arms embargoes or end up being used for human-rights abuses, including terrorism. Member states, with the help of the UN, will put into place enforceable, standardized arms import and export regulations. Ideally, this will ensure limiting inflow of deadly weapons into places like Syria, Yemen and Afghanistan.

priorities

The Czech Republic has been a traditional producer of defense and security equipment. At the same time, the Czech Republic supports arms trade becoming a more responsible business, which takes into consideration inter alia, maintaining international peace and security, preventing serious violations of international humanitarian law and human rights law. For this reason, the Czech national rules for arms export control are even stricter than those demanded by the ATT. The main goal of the Czech Republic is to make ATT universal in the shortest time possible.

The Czech Republic is also a member of Management and Evaluation Committees for the selection of the director of the ATT secreteriat.