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"The Arms Control Association’s work is an important resource to legislators and policymakers when contemplating a new policy direction or decision."

– General John Shalikashvili
former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Jeff Abramson

Countries Grapple With 2025 Landmine Goal


December 2021

Aware of the continued threat from anti-personnel landmines in many parts of the world, states-parties to the Mine Ban Treaty again granted extensions to countries that still need to clear contaminated land. The action was taken at the treaty’s annual conference on Nov. 15–19, held virtually from The Hague.

Delegates to the Mine Ban Treaty annual conference watch video of athletes wounded by landmines. The meeting was held Nov. 15-19 at The Hague. (Photo by Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands)At the treaty’s 2019 review conference, members set the global goal of completing landmine clearance by 2025. Despite that aspiration, the Mine Action Review found that the majority of contaminated countries are not on track to meet their national deadlines, some of which already extend beyond 2025. Under the treaty, countries have 10 years to clear areas contaminated by landmines, but may seek extensions that set new deadlines.

States-parties granted treaty-compliant extension requests to Cyprus, Congo, Guinea-Bissau, Mauritania, Nigeria, Somalia, and Turkey. They “expressed serious concern” that Eritrea remained in noncompliance by not requesting an extension to its 2020 deadline.

On the positive side, the Mine Action Review found that more than 159 square kilometers of land was cleared of landmines in 2020, the highest worldwide total since 2015. The Landmine Monitor noted that financial contributions to support clearance and other mine action activities was 6 percent higher in 2016–2020 than during the previous five-year period, and international support in 2020 totaled $565 million, a small increase over 2019.

The Landmine Monitor also reported more than 7,000 casualties from landmines and other explosive remnants of war in 2020, a sixth year of high annual totals. Nearly 1,500 of those casualties were in Afghanistan, where the Taliban takeover is disrupting internationally supported clearance efforts.

The United States, the world’s largest financial contributor to mine clearance, attended the annual meeting as an observer, as it has done since 2009. In 2020, President Donald Trump renounced the Obama-era policy to someday accede to the treaty. In April, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield said President Joe Biden “intends to roll back this [Trump] policy, and our administration has begun a policy review to do just that." A State Department official confirmed to Arms Control Today via email on Nov. 18 that the review is ongoing.—JEFF ABRAMSON

Countries Grapple With 2025 Landmine Goal

U.S. Continues Controversial Arms Assistance


November 2021
By William Ostermeyer and Jeff Abramson

Claims by President Joe Biden and administration officials that human rights are at the heart of U.S. foreign policy are drawing scrutiny as Washington continues arms sales and other security assistance to certain countries in the Middle East.

During a speech at the State Department on Feb. 4, President Joe Biden said that "we are ending all American support for offensive operations in the war in Yemen, including relevant arms sales.” (Photo by Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images) In his national address in August marking the end of the U.S. war in Afghanistan, Biden said, “I’ve been clear that human rights will be the center of our foreign policy.” In September, when the administration withheld $130 million in security assistance to Egypt, State Department spokesman Ned Price stated that the United States would release the funds “only if the government of Egypt affirmatively addresses specific human rights related conditions.”

But that decision quickly drew criticism. Nineteen human rights organizations issued a letter on Sept. 14 calling it a “betrayal” of Biden's commitment to human rights that “sidesteps the intent of Congress.” Instead, they argued, the administration should have withheld the full $300 million “to incentivize [President Abdel Fattah] al-Sisi to change course.”

In 2019, Congress made $300 million of the $1.3 billion in annual foreign military financing to Cairo conditional on the secretary of state’s certification that Egypt was taking steps such as investigating and prosecuting extrajudicial killings, and releasing political prisoners.

The decision to send $170 million of that $300 million in security aid was not accompanied by such a certification. Instead, the administration argued that the entire $300 million fell into a funding category of border security, nonproliferation, and counterterrorism programs to which the law did not apply. The Senate Appropriations Committee has removed the provision that allowed for that interpretation in its recently introduced annual bill.

In September, the State Department also notified Congress of a potential $500 million foreign military sale to Saudi Arabia to maintain various Saudi helicopters, including AH-64 Apache attack helicopters. Some experts said this was at odds with Biden’s promise to end "all American support for offensive operations in the war in Yemen, including relevant arms sales." As an example, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told a news conference on Feb. 4 that the policy applied to precision-guided munitions approved by the Trump administration. On Oct. 27, a State Department spokesperson told Arms Control Today in an email that the helicopter maintenance was consistent with the administration’s human rights approach. The spokesperson said it “helps Saudi Arabia maintain self-defense capabilities…particularly on their border,” and that the administration had found “the overwhelming majority of [civilian harm] incidents were caused
by air to ground munitions from fixed wing aircraft.”

The administration has been criticized, however, for supporting Saudi Arabia through preexisting supply and maintenance contracts. In September, the House approved an amendment, sponsored by Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), to the National Defense Authorization Act that would prohibit maintenance support for warplanes used in Yemen against the Houthis. “It’s time to do what is morally right, hold Saudi Arabia accountable, and fully end U.S. complicity in the Saudi-led coalition’s bombing of Yemeni civilians,” Khanna said.

On Oct. 13, Secretary of State Antony Blinken met the foreign ministers of Israel and the United Arab Emirates, two U.S. weapons recipients that have been criticized for their human rights records, and spoke positively of the 2020 Abraham Accords, which helped normalize relations between them. At their joint press conference, Blinken made no mention of whether the administration might rethink the controversial arms sales to the UAE that have been linked to the accords, including F-35s worth $10 billion. The administration has said it wants to complete the F-35 deal, but in a way that respects human rights. (See ACT, May 2021.) The UAE has been criticized for misusing weapons in Yemen and its own human rights record.

Although Biden sometimes has spoken candidly about Washington’s Arab allies, his rhetoric on Israel has been less critical. Efforts to curtail or criticize U.S. material support for Israel over human rights issues have come instead from Congress.

In May, as hostilities escalated in Gaza, members of Congress introduced resolutions of disapproval to block a direct commercial sale of precision-guided munitions to Israel worth $735 million. (See ACT, June 2021.) Ultimately, no votes were taken, and the administration moved the sale forward. In July, the State Department notified Congress of another Israeli-related sale totaling $3.4 billion for 18 cargo helicopters and related equipment.

On Sept. 21, House Democrats, responding to progressive members, removed a provision from a funding bill that would have provided $1 billion for Israel's Iron Dome air defense system. Democrats on the House Appropriations Committee then introduced a separate bill to fund the system, which passed the House on a 420–9 vote on Sept. 23. The bill hit a roadblock in the Senate on Oct. 4, when Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) objected to a call by Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) for unanimous consent to proceed. The funding is expected to be approved, and Paul supports the system, but he wanted the money to come from a different account.

Although there are precedents for Congress expressing concern about arms sales to Israel and other Middle Eastern countries, there is growing scrutiny over the relationship between weapons transfers and human rights. An expected revised conventional arms transfer policy could make more explicit how the administration weighs human rights in arms sales decisions. (See ACT, October 2021.)

Claims that human rights are at the heart of U.S. foreign policy are drawing scrutiny as Washington continues selling arms to Middle Eastern countries with dubious records.

ATT Members Highlight Small Arms, Light Weapons


October 2021
By Jeff Abramson

Small arms and light weapons and stockpile management were focuses of the recent annual conference of states-parties to the Arms Trade Treaty as organizers tried to draw attention to the human harm caused by the trade and misuse of conventional weapons.

Although the formal program largely avoided discussing specific arms transfers, side events at the conference, often led by nongovernmental groups, called attention to controversial weapons deliveries to warring parties in Yemen and other conflicts that contributed to human suffering.

The conference, held Aug. 30–Sept. 3, adopted a hybrid format, with some delegates in Geneva and others joining the meeting remotely. Ambassador Lansana Gberie of Sierra Leone was the conference president.

Representatives of 86 of the treaty’s 110 states-parties were among those participating in the meeting, which took place shortly after the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan and its capture of billions of dollars in weapons provided to the Afghan government in the years after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Whether concern about instability from the loss of control of so many weapons would move more countries to join the treaty is not clear. No new country has deposited legal instruments to become a state-party since 2020, before the sixth conference.

China, which acceded to the ATT in July 2020, was active at the meeting and again reiterated that Beijing does not permit arms exports to nonstate actors.

 

Reports on Arms Trades Decline

As this graph shows, states-parties to the Arms Trade Treaty are becoming less transparent, with fewer of them filing mandated annual reports about their authorized or actual conventional arms transfers. In 2015, 84 percent of member states filed the required annual reports; five years later, the number had dropped to 56 percent. (Source: Arms Trade Treaty Secretariat)

 

 

Among the outcomes, the conference called on the states-parties to “better utilise existing guidance and tools developed under relevant international and regional instruments on preventing the illicit trade in [small arms and light weapons] and strengthening stockpile management and security in order to prevent diversion” of weapons.

The treaty requires that countries file an initial report on national implementation practices , as well as annual reports describing authorized or actual conventional arms transfers. This reporting remains a concern for the ATT. The submission rate of annual reports has continued to decline, eroding the improvements in transparency for which treaty advocates hoped.

In 2015, 84 percent of the countries required to report on their transfers filed an annual report with the ATT Secretariat, compared to just 56 percent in 2020. Of those reports that were submitted, a growing number are being restricted for use by treaty members exclusively, rather than being made publicly available. Only 4 percent of states-parties chose private reporting for 2015, but 29 percent have done so for 2020 transfers.

As a new member, China promised to submit its initial report on time, by Oct. 3. Its first annual report is due in May 2022.

The United States, the world largest arms supplier, did not indicate whether it would again recognize its signature to the ATT or move to join the treaty. In a statement at the conference, the U.S. delegation said that a new conventional arms transfer policy “should be finalized shortly and released,” which will be used to review “the proper relationship of the United States” to the ATT. In 2019, in an effort to “unsign” the treaty, the United States informed the United Nations that it did not intend to join the ATT and had no legal obligations under its 2013 signature. Although U.S. officials have remained engaged in other treaty meetings, this was the first year it spoke formally to the annual conference since that decision. (See ACT, September 2020.)

The eighth conference will be held in Geneva on Aug. 22–26, 2022, and be led by Thomas Göbel, Germany’s representative to the Conference on Disarmament.

The annual ATT conference tried to draw attention to the human harm caused by the trade and misuse of conventional weapons.

New Action Plan Adopted on Cluster Munitions


October 2021
By William Ostermeyer and Jeff Abramson

States-parties to the pandemic-delayed review conference for the Convention on Cluster Munitions have agreed to a new five-year plan intended to “move forward towards a world free of cluster munitions.”

These unexploded cluster bomb submunitions hit a remote area of Azerbaijan near the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan crude oil pipeline in October 2020 during the military conflict over the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh. (Photo by Aziz Karimov/Getty Images)During Sept. 20–21, the second five-year review conference came together in a hybrid format, with some delegates meeting in person in Geneva while the rest participated remotely.

Originally scheduled to take place in Lausanne, Switzerland, in 2020 to mark 10 years since the treaty entered into force, the conference met virtually for three days in November 2020 and postponed adoption of documents in hopes that in-person meetings would be possible in 2021.

The Lausanne Action Plan adopted last month includes 50 specific measures, covering topics such as treaty universalization, stockpile destruction, clearance of contaminated lands, risk education, and victim assistance.

The conference issued a declaration expressing concern about new cluster munitions use since the 2015 action plan, specifically in Syria, Yemen, and the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

In the declaration, the states-parties wrote: “We underscore our obligation never under any circumstances to use cluster munitions and, in accordance with the object and provisions of the Convention, we condemn any use of cluster munitions by any actor, remaining steadfast in our determination to achieve a world entirely free of any use of these weapons.” Whether to name specific instances of cluster munitions use and how to express condemnation have been a contentious issues in recent convention meetings. (See ACT, October 2019.)

The Cluster Munition Monitor, published by the Cluster Munition Coalition, identified 360 cluster munitions-related casualties globally in 2020. One hundred and forty-two casualties occurred at the time of attacks associated with the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, which was a fresh cluster munitions hot spot in 2020, and from the fighting in Syria. Another 218 casualties resulted from remnants that exploded in eight countries and territories.

Some of these incidents, like those in Laos and Cambodia, occurred decades after the original attacks.

Under the treaty, countries commit to clear within 10 years cluster munitions contamination from territory they control. At the review conference, states-parties recognized Croatia, Montenegro, and the United Kingdom (for the Falkland Islands) for fulfilling this requirement, adding to eight other countries that had already done so since 2010. Afghanistan, Chile, and Mauritania received approval for extensions to this deadline.

Twenty-six states and three areas are confirmed or suspected to still have contaminated land, including 10 of the 110 states-parties to the convention. Laos, Iraq, Vietnam, and Cambodia are among the most heavily contaminated countries in the world and accounted for 95 percent of the 135 square kilometers of land cleared of cluster submunitions in 2020, according to the Mine Action Review.

The United States is not party to the convention and continued its practice of not attending formal treaty meetings.

Aidan Liddle of the UK will be president of next year’s meeting of states-parties, the 10th overall. Treaty members agreed to resume intersessional meetings, which had been discontinued, between annual formal meetings, with Liddle to set a date for one in 2022. In the future, each annual meeting will decide whether to hold intersessional meetings in the upcoming year. Iraq will hold the presidency for the 11th annual meeting, in 2023.

The review conference for the Convention on Cluster Munitions aims for progress on expanding convention membership, stockpile destruction, and clearance of contaminated lands.

Lawsuit Targets Arms Flows to Mexico


September 2021
By Jeff Abramson

The Mexican government took a novel approach to curtailing illegal gun trafficking into its country by filing suit against U.S. gun manufacturers and distributors in a Massachusetts federal district court.

In the unusual lawsuit filed in August, Mexico alleged that a number of major firearms manufacturers and wholesalers “design, market, distribute, and sell guns in ways they know routinely arm the drug cartels in Mexico.” It said the named companies sell about 340,000 of an estimated half million guns that illegally flow each year from “Massachusetts and other U.S. states to criminals south of the border.”

The suit draws particular attention to semiautomatic firearms, also known as assault weapons, that can easily be converted to fully automatic versions and are “weapons of choice” for drug cartels. Mexico calls for a range of measures to force the companies to curtail illegal arms flows and is reportedly seeking at least $10 billion in damages, although that amount is not explicitly enumerated in the lawsuit.

The case relies to a large degree on U.S. law, with Mexico arguing that it “does not challenge or question the law, policy, or actions of the United States” but instead “seeks to hold accountable and stop the reckless actions of private companies that foreseeably send their guns into Mexico.” Efforts to hold U.S. firearms manufacturers liable for the misuse of their products are made difficult by the U.S. Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA), which provides U.S. manufacturers with special immunity from certain liability. Mexico contends that the PLCAA only extends to harm within the United States and does not shield the U.S. manufacturers in this case.

How the Biden administration reacts to this case could be significant. Although the U.S. government is not named in the suit, the administration has called for Congress to repeal the PLCAA and championed a domestic assault weapons ban.

The case also may draw fresh attention to a Trump-era rule change that removed export oversight of semiautomatic assault weapons from the State Department, which administers the U.S. Munitions List, and transferred it to the Commerce Department, which oversees the Commerce Control List. The switch means the process is less transparent because Congress does not receive notifications of potential sales. (See ACT, March 2020.) President Joe Biden promised during his campaign to reverse this change, but his administration has not yet acted.

Notably, the lawsuit does not address the legal trade in firearms between the United States and Mexico, which is conducted through the Mexican military. Firearms ownership in Mexico is tightly regulated by the government, with just one centralized gun store issuing fewer than 50 licenses per year, according to the suit.

But the Mexican military has been implicated in numerous civilian deaths in Mexico, either directly or through the weapons it transfers to police forces. Despite this, the Biden administration notified Congress in July of a potential sale of nearly $5.5 millionworth of Sig Sauer fully automatic rifles to the Mexican navy and marines.

Sig Sauer is not named in the lawsuit, but is one of a number of German companies that arms trade watchers suggest has established production facilities in the United States in order to legally export weapons to Latin American countries under U.S. contracts that would not be approved if the sales had originated in Germany.

 

Other Lawsuits on U.S. Arms Transfers

Across the globe, there is a growing trend of legal challenges to the arms trade, including a number of cases in U.S. courts. The lawsuit filed by Mexico is unique in that the plaintiff is a foreign country and it seeks to address illicit arms trade rather than that approved by the U.S. government, but two other cases, recently filed in U.S. district court in Washington, are aimed at stopping weapons from being transferred from the United States.

Nigeria. In late July, the Indigenous People of Biafra filed a case against the U.S. Defense and State departments seeking a halt to future transfers of Super Tucano aircraft to Nigeria and the return of those already transferred, citing violations of the so-called Leahy Law, which prohibits transfers to military units that have been credibly accused of gross human rights violations. The sale of 12 aircraft was put on hold at the end of the Obama administration, but moved forward by the Trump administration in 2017 (See ACT, September 2017), with the first six aircraft delivered this summer. The case is in the early stages, and it is unclear whether it will be heard. Media reports say that members of Congress, citing human rights concerns, have quietly put holds on the sales of additional attack helicopters after being informally notified of possible sales by the State Department.

United Arab Emirates. At the end of 2020, the New York Center for Foreign Policy Affairs, now joined by others, including individuals harmed by the conflict in Libya, filed a case against the State Department challenging $23 billion in arms sales to the United Arab Emirates, citing violations of the Arms Export Control Act and the Administrative Procedure Act. Following a motion to dismiss by the State Department, the court has yet to rule whether the case will proceed. The Biden administration has indicated it is working to go ahead with the sales in the coming years. (See ACT, May 2021.)

The Mexican government has sued U.S. gun manufacturers and retailers in a Massachusetts federal district court.

U.S. Arms Sales to Israel Challenged

June 2021

A proposed $735 million sale of precision-guided munitions to Israel drew intense scrutiny from Congress as fighting in that country escalated last month. 

A fire rages at sunrise in Khan Yunish following an Israeli airstrike on targets in the southern Gaza strip, on May 12, 2021. The Israeli retaliatory bombardment in May struck military and civilian targets. (Photo:  Youssef Massoud/AFP via Getty Images)A day before a cease-fire was declared on May 20, Democratic Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.), Mark Pocan (Wis.), and Rashida Tlaib (Mich.) introduced a House joint resolution of disapproval for the sale. “Approving this sale now, while failing to even try to use it as leverage for a ceasefire, sends a clear message to the world—the U.S. is not interested in peace, and does not care about the human rights and lives of Palestinians,” Ocasio-Cortez said in a press statement.

The next day, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) introduced a similar resolution in the Senate. It marked the end of a 15-day review period during which lawmakers could take action to block the administration from issuing licenses for the deals. 

According to news reports, the State Department issued those licenses on May 21. No vote is now expected on these particular resolutions. But at any point until delivery, expected to Israel next year, Congress could pass legislation blocking arms sales. 

When told on May 21 that the sales had already been licensed, Sanders put a hold on all State Department nominees. He lifted the hold after the administration committed to providing humanitarian aid for Gaza. Sanders’ office told Arms Control Today on May 25 that Sanders and his colleagues “would continue to push for greater debate to make sure that U.S. arms sales do not support human rights abuses.”

The potential sale drew little attention when notified to Congress on May 5, in part because it was not done according to the foreign military sales (FMS) process, which centers on government-to-government agreements and provides for notifications that are publicly available on a website managed by the Defense Department. Instead, the joint direct attack munitions and small diameter bombs were notified as a commercial sale, for which there is less transparency.

News of the potential deal surfaced on May 17, a week after fighting in Israel had intensified and Israeli forces faced international criticism for bombing civilian areas in Gaza.

An informal notification process exists for communicating these sales to the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee before the formal notification occurs, but the lack of public awareness is endemic to the commercial sale process, which is becoming more common and is being used for transfers of more destructive weapons. Some key rules and procedures applicable to FMS sales do not apply or have been unevenly applied to commercial sales, raising the question of whether administrations are using the process to shield themselves from public scrutiny.

For example, these commercial sales are considered proprietary agreements. Under the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, the State Department withholds some information about such licenses unless the secretary of state determines “the release of such information . . . to be in the national interest.”

In recent years, votes on resolutions of disapproval have occurred most frequently in the Senate because the rules allow individual senators to ask the full Senate to consider them even if the Foreign Relations Committee does not act. For all commercial sales, senators must wait 10 days before invoking this privilege. But in the case of an FMS sale to Israel and other close partners, that waiting period is only five days. 

In 2014, Congress passed legislation that would allow for the chair and ranking member of the relevant Senate or House committee to concurrently request a predelivery notification of weapons sold under the FMS program, but did not extend that notification authority to commercial sales.

For sales to most countries, Congress has 30 days from formal notification to pass joint resolutions of disapproval that bar the president from concluding agreements. For Australia, Israel, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, and NATO and its member states, that timeline is 15 days.—JEFF ABRAMSON

A proposed $735 million sale of precision-guided munitions to Israel drew intense scrutiny from Congress as fighting in that country escalated last month.

U.S. Still Seeks Major UAE Arms Sale


May 2021
By Jeff Abramson

Last month, the Biden administration indicated that it will seek to complete more than $20 billion in controversial arms sales to the United Arab Emirates initiated at the end of the Trump administration. A number of Democrats in Congress expressed concern and sought to put restrictions on the potential deals, even though terms remain uncertain and any delivery would be years in the future.

The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter aircraft is among the high performance weapons that the Biden administration plans to sell the United Arab Emirates as part of a controversial package of arms sales totaling $20 billion or more. (Photo: U.S. Navy)The sales include up to 50 F-35 aircraft valued at $10.4 billion, up to 18 MQ-9B armed drones worth $3 billion, and a $10 billion package of air-to-air and air-to-ground munitions, as well as a revision to a 2018 notification for $490 million in additional Sidewinder air-to-air missiles. With votes falling nearly entirely along party lines, the Senate narrowly failed to approve resolutions of disapproval for the F-35 and drone sales in December. (See ACT, January/February 2021.)

Media reported that the Trump administration then signed letters of offer and acceptance on some of the deals the morning of President Joe Biden’s inauguration. Typically, after such letters are executed, additional contract negotiations occur before weapons are built and delivered, often years later, which means it will be left to the Biden administration to implement the deals.

A State Department spokesperson told Arms Control Today in an email on April 16 that it “continue[s] reviewing details and consulting with [UAE] officials to ensure we have developed mutual understandings with respect to [UAE] obligations before, during, and after delivery.” The official wrote that the administration will reinforce with the UAE that “U.S.-origin defense equipment must be adequately secured and used in a manner that respects human rights and fully complies with the laws of armed conflict.”

The spokesperson also indicated that “delivery dates on these sales, if eventually implemented, will be several years in the future.”

In January and February, the Biden administration announced a review of Trump-era arms sales. It said it was communicating with the UAE, while also indicating it had suspended certain “offensive” arms sales to Saudi Arabia as part of an effort to address the conflict in Yemen, which Biden called “a war which has created a humanitarian and strategic catastrophe.” (See ACT, March 2021.) The UAE claims it is no longer active in the war there. Timothy Lenderking, the U.S. special envoy for Yemen, told a congressional hearing April 21 that the UAE retains influence in the country and remains a key member of the Saudi-led coalition.

On April 16, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) introduced the Secure F-35 Exports Act, a lightly amended version of a 2020 bill that focused on the advanced fighter jets. The legislation would provide a vehicle for highlighting a range of concerns about the UAE’s use of U.S. military equipment, including the Persian Gulf state’s close relations with China and Russia and how its acquisition of the F-35 could affect Israel’s ability to maintain a qualitative military edge in the region.

For example, if enacted into law, the bill would require certification that any country in the region receiving F-35s, aside from Israel, has not transferred weapons to militias fighting U.S. interests. The provision would only date back to the time of signing the letter of offer and acceptance, but is particularly relevant to the UAE, which has been found to have transferred weapons to Libya in contravention of a UN arms embargo.

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.) said in an April 14 statement that he and others remained concerned and that he still has “many questions” about the UAE deal. On April 21, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Ct.) said: “The Emiratis already have a record of illegally transferring weapons to Salafist militias in Yemen, and Congress, frankly, has not received sufficient assurances that such transfers will not happen again.”

Congress can pass legislation placing new conditions on or blocking weapons sales at any time until they are delivered, although the most visible activity typically occurs in the first 30 days after members are officially notified of potential sales.

Many human rights and civil society groups reacted negatively to the news that the administration was proceeding with the UAE deal. Justin Russell, principal director of the New York Center for Foreign Policy Affairs, whose organization on April 14 filed an amended version of its lawsuit seeking to block the sales, said, “We had hoped that the Biden administration would have put the mitigation of the humanitarian crises in Libya and Yemen above starting what could be an arms race in this sensitive region of the world. We had hoped for better things out of the Biden administration...and now those hopes have been dashed.”

 

But some Democrats in Congress have expressed concern and sought to put restrictions on the potential deals, which could total more than $20 billion.

U.S. to Revise Landmine Policy


May 2021

Just two days after a Defense Department spokesperson said the Trump administration landmine policy remained in place and that landmines were a “vital tool,” U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield said on April 8 that President Joe Biden “intends to roll back this policy, and our administration has begun a policy review to do just that.”

A U.S. Marine with Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force-Crisis Response-Africa 19.2, Marine Forces Europe and Africa, discusses explosive ordnance identification procedures with a member of the Moroccan Royal Armed Forces during training at Unite de Secours et Sauvetage’s Base, Kenitra, Morocco, April 22, 2019. (Photo: U.S. Marine Corps)That intention, was foreshadowed by Biden during the presidential campaign. It was reaffirmed after Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), a long time anti-landmine champion, criticized the Defense Department statement and said on April 7 that he was “confident” that the Biden administration would “do the right thing and renounce these indiscriminate weapons that have no place in the arsenal of civilized nations.”

The Trump policy, announced in January 2020, permitted the use of victim-activated anti-personnel landmines anywhere in the world, citing great-power rivalries and a need to counter near-peer competitors. (See ACT, March 2020.) The Obama administration policy, announced in 2014, had banned production and acquisition of such landmines and halted their use outside the Korean peninsula. It also set a goal of eventually acceding to the Mine Ban Treaty, which today has 164 states-parties, including every NATO member except the United States.

The United States remains the world’s largest contributor of funds to support demining and related efforts to prevent new victims and aid those harmed by the weapons. The multifaceted approach is collectively known as humanitarian mine action. The April 5 release of the State Department’s annual report that details this support, titled “To Walk the Earth in Safety,” combined with the annual International Day for Mine Awareness and Assistance in Mine Action on April 4, drew attention to U.S. landmine policy and prompted the initial Defense Department statement.—JEFF ABRAMSON

U.S. to Revise Landmine Policy

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