Examination of Witness (Questions 80-91)
MR OLIVER
SPRAGUE, MS
MARILYN CROSER
AND MR
ROY ISBISTER
11 MARCH 2009
Q80 Mr Hamilton: Is there enough
pressure, enough impetus by the Government, to push forward these
discussions or it is simply being left to you and the defence
industry to work it out for yourselves?
Mr Isbister: The Government has
let us work, I suppose, at our own pace to a large extent, though
they do inquire how we are getting on. I would not say they are
putting pressure on us, but then I think it would be unfair to
say that industry and NGOs have been pushing this forward just
as fast as we can and that the Government have been slowing us
down.
Q81 Mr Hamilton: There is some urgency
here though, is there not?
Mr Isbister: There is urgency.
As I say, we have made, we think, some progress. We are now at
that point of going back to government. That next meeting could
be very, very soon.
Mr Sprague: I think it is worth
stating here that, within the three-tier system, Category B remains
equipment of heightened concern. There is a debate about what
goes in Category B and we NGOs would like to see, for example,
anti-vehicle mines in Category B as a matter of urgency, but discussions
are about other items on the military list and whether extra territorial
controls can be applied to what is currently Category C. Category
B is ring-fenced as full controls on transporting, the other full
detailed controls on extraterritorial activities, et cetera.
Chairman: We want to ask you a question
about transit and transhipment. Because Adam is out of the room—our
peculiar system—Mick, you can pursue this as far as you
wish. I will provide a briefing on that later.
Q82 Mr Clapham: Transit and transhipment
controls have recently been improved. Presumably they have been
improved so that the Government is able to stop transit into areas
that are embargoed, but still you have some concerns. Could you
tell us what those concerns are?
Mr Isbister: First of all, I should
acknowledge that the controls on transit and transhipment have
been improved and that is all to the good. One of the problems
is not completely within the Government's control and that is
that transit and transhipment controls are quite complicated and
confused across different jurisdictions, so even when the UK gets
its own house in order, if you have agents who are operating from
different jurisdictions and are transiting goods through a number
of different jurisdictions, it can very quickly get very complicated
for them as to how they are supposed to operate. Bernadette, who
is going to be here from the industry group after us, can say
more on this than I can, but there needs to be some outreach by
government about trying to simplify transit across different jurisdictions
so that this can be more effectively regulated internationally.
We also have concerns about the use or the extent of the lists
that are in place. These are lists of countries where tighter
transit controls apply but there are examples where we think these
restrictive lists should be more tightly drawn. It is not clear
to us how often they can be changed. When circumstances change,
will the list change? It is not clear how that might work. There
is also the issue, with the restricted destinations, of whether
are we talking about simply the final destination of these goods
or all intermediate destinations along the way. If we are dealing
with transit, every destination becomes an issue, so we would
like some clarity on that. One more slight area of confusion which
I have noticed as I have been going back over this, is that the
law on transit now ranks sensitivity in part based on whether
the goods are classed as Category A, Category B or Category C.
However, the licence, the open general transhipment licence, seems
to use a different system of judging the sensitivity of equipment,
so some Category C goods (for example, military vehicles and components
for military vehicles) seem to be regarded as more sensitive and
to get lumped into the small arms/light weapons category. I am
a bit confused about what the Government's thinking is. It would
be good to have clarity that the same system is used from the
law right down to the level of the licence.
Q83 Mr Clapham: Presumably you have
not been able to discuss this issue with government to examine
their rationale for different listings.
Mr Isbister: On that last point,
no. It is something that I have only picked up on as I have been
preparing for this session. I think it is something that we would
be interested to go back to government on and find out. They may
have a very good explanation. I would like to know what it is.
Q84 Mr Clapham: Could you say whether
there is any evidence of inappropriate transit licensing that
has caused concern?
Mr Isbister: It is kind of a negative
question in a way, because up until now there has been very little
control of transit.[5]
5 The means for more effective control are now only just being
put in place. Basically this has been an unregulated area, but
the UK is a significant transport hub for all kinds of equipment.
I think it is reasonable to assume that there are controlled goods
moving through UK territory, but we do not have the evidence on
exactly what that might be.
Q85 Mr Clapham: What is required then,
because the Government has tried to improve the system of controls
and you have some concerns, is to sit down with government and
see if you can iron some of the concerns out. Is that what you
intend to do?
Mr Isbister: Yes. Just an explanation
of how these things are going to work in practice, and it also
might be a case of a review a little further down the line once
we see how the things are working in practice. In certain respects
it might be too early to have that discussion.
Q86 Sir John Stanley: There is another
broad question where I am looking for a precise answer from each
of the three of you if you could, and this is in relation to the
Arms Trade Treaty. As we know, the dilemma here is that the British
Government can hang out for what it wants in an ideal world, and
it ends up with support of a relatively small handful of nation
states who are prepared to sign up and ratify and the treaty is
basically a minority participatory treaty as far as the world
community is concerned, or you go for greater and greater participation,
signing up, greater and greater consensus, and in the process
you water down, a lot of the things you want have to be discarded,
and you end up with a treaty which then may be called a treaty
but is probably not much more than a bit of rhetoric and does
not really have any credibility or substance. The question I would
like to put to you is this: Given that is the dilemma, what do
each of your organisations consider should really be the minimum
bottom line position that the British Government should be holding
out for incorporation into this international Arms Trade Treaty?
What do you think are the minimum parameters, the minimum provisions,
the minimum areas that you would want to see covered within it?
Ms Croser: Our position is that
if it is not a strong treaty then it will not be effective, and
we think that it would be very dangerous to enshrine at international
level low standards. Effectively, for some states that would be
a step back from where they currently are, and you would have
enshrined in international law these low standards that were then
very difficult to build on at a later stage. We really want to
see the highest possible standards, and that is what we want to
see the UK Government aim for. We have just come back from the
first meeting of the open-ended working group on the ATT this
week, where there were discussions around scope and parameters
of the treaty. The discussions have moved on from feasibility
now, which is very positive. On parameters, for us it has to be
based on international human rights law, on international humanitarian
law, and on sustainable development. On scope, the discussions
at the moment are focusing around what is described as "7+1"
(the UN Register of Conventional Weapons plus small arms and light
weapons). For us that should not even be a basis for the start
of discussions, because it is just not appropriate. The UN Conventional
Register is a transparency mechanism, it is not a control mechanism,
and it misses out whole categories of items that really need to
be included if there is going to be an effective treaty. We want
to see the UK Government sticking to its line, which it articulated
in its submission in 2007 to the UN Secretary General's consultation
exercise on the ATT, of a treaty that covers all conventional
weapons. They also talked about the need for the experts' group
which met in 2008 to consider dual-use items as well. We feel
very strongly that the Government needs to be out there arguing
for broad scope, high standards, because otherwise they are going
to end up with something that is not effective. If you go into
a negotiation position with a kind of fairly low bar, then what
tends to happen is the bar goes down as negotiations go on, and
that is why it is very important going into a negotiation to have
the bar high.
Mr Isbister: You mentioned each
of our organisations.
Q87 Sir John Stanley: Yes, please.
I would like to know what you all think would be the minimum requirements
that makes it worthwhile signing up.
Mr Isbister: There is a lot of
similarity among us. It must be fully comprehensive, so applied
to all conventional arms, applied to their components, applied
to their ammunition, et cetera. It has to include these fundamental
principles: international humanitarian law, human rights law,
address issues of sustainable development. I think we are all
very similar minded in the NGO community on that.
Mr Sprague: From Amnesty I can
only echo what my colleagues at Oxfam and Saferworld have said.
We do not support a weak treaty that sets a low standard. It has
to be comprehensive. It has to cover more than UN Register 7+1.
I was thinking on my way here this morning that implementation
is absolutely key in these kinds of issues. I am struggling to
see how many of the world's export control systems would implement
a UN Register plus small arms and light weapons classification,
because that is not reflected in their own control lists. Just
in the UK context, the UN Register does not appear in the control
lists, whether it is ML10 for aircraft or ML6 for vehicles, so
that by the time you add components and technology for those categories
it becomes almost impossible to cherry pick the control lists,
and that would cut across an entire range of different countries.
All the EU countries, all the Wassenaar countries, all the countries
that subscribe to that kind of control list, so that is a clear
warning sign of how difficult these discussions would be and why
we think it must be comprehensive.
Q88 Sir John Stanley: Just so we
have this quite clear, as I have understood your three responses,
you are saying to the Committee that if the British Government,
with the rest of the international community, came up with an
enforceable treaty but one that was limited only to the 7+1 categories,
your view is that the British Government should walk away from
that rather than take the half a loaf on offer. Have I summarised
that correctly?
Mr Isbister: Yes. I would not
support any government supporting that treaty.
Mr Sprague: Amnesty would not
support that because our evidence suggests that a whole lot of
military equipment that is not included in those categories is
used in the commission of violations, and a treaty based on that
scope is not good enough.
Ms Croser: Our position is the
same. We would very much hope that international support is there
for a stronger treaty. We have seen that in a number of votes
at the UN. The detail was not there but our belief is that there
is widespread support for something that goes much further.
Q89 Malcolm Bruce: In your submission
you give a number of examples where weapons have been sold on
after the export to undesirable destinations. On which is quite
well focused is Indian equipment to Burma, and there are others.
The minister is almost throwing up his hands and saying, "It
was always going to be difficult. It will be over bureaucratic,
it does not really work, and we should not really put a contractual
obligation because we could not enforce it and we could not police
it." Do you agree?
Mr Sprague: I do not think I do
agree. I do not see why you cannot place a contractual obligation
not to re-export without permission. A lot of other countries
do that. A lot of EU countries do that; the Americans do it. If
the violation happens at a company level, then take legal action
against that company because it is in violation of its contract.
If it is a government, yes, it is more difficult, but the same
rule should apply. You still should be able to apply considerable
diplomatic and political pressure on that government for abusing
its obligations. The Indian example is very interesting because
the previous Foreign Secretary in evidence to this Committee acknowledged
that with the benefit of hindsight it would have been better in
that particular example to have a re-export provision. I do not
want to put words into the Government's mouth but I think they
have said that they would look at this in future in cases such
as these. The Indian response to that example was quite interesting.
They basically said to the UK, "We will do what we like"
and because there was no re-export provision there seemed to be
very little they could do to stop it. A similar example happened
with the parts that were given to India to help develop the Advance
Light Helicopter that was then subsequently reported to be sold
to Burma. It would appear that the deal was stopped because a
number of European governments who also supplied parts and components,
the French, the Germans and the Italians, for example, did have
contractual obligations on re-export.
Mr Isbister: I think it goes slightly
further than that, in that, if I recall correctly, the Indian
response to the UK request on the Maritime Surveillance Aircraft
was, "There is nothing to say we can't sell these on."
Q90 Malcolm Bruce: First of all,
your argument is that even if you do not have enforceability you
should still have a contract because it has leverage. Do you have
some practical suggestions? You talk about developing "a
forgery-proof internationally standardised end-user and delivery
verification certification process" and you talk about "end-user
checks ... . each year". Do you think that is a reasonably
affordable and achievable cover to make contracts, not just an
obligation but—
Mr Isbister: The Swedish nationally
have an export certification system which is using bank-note quality
paper which is designed to prevent this kind of fraud, so if they
can do it I do not see why the UK—
Q91 Malcolm Bruce: We should ask
the Government to look at what the Swedes are doing?
Mr Isbister: Yes.
Malcolm Bruce: That is very helpful.
Chairman: Thank you very much indeed.
We are sorry to have rushed towards the end. Thank you for agreeing
to provide further information in response to one or two questions
that were raised. Thank you very much.
5 5 Note from witness: As there has been very
little control of transit there is very little information about
transit available. Back
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