From poverty to power - Oxfam-Québec

FROM POVERTY TO POWERWest African States (ECOWAS) signed the world’s first regional armstrade treaty. The treaty, in large part the result of a public campaign ledby a number of NGOs (including Oxfam), included controls on internationalarms transfers and a ban on arms sales to non-state actors – afirst. 208 With the support of ECOWAS members, that same year theUN General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to launch talks on aglobal Arms Trade Treaty. Based on the principles of internationalhuman rights and humanitarian law, such a treaty would create minimumglobal standards for arms transfers, preventing those likely to beused to violate human rights or hinder development. The success ofsimilar moves on landmines (see page 403) shows what can beachieved through co-ordinated international action. It may takeanother 20 years before such a treaty comes to fruition and is thenrigorously enforced, but it will be essential for the international systemfor peace and security to function effectively.NATURAL RESOURCESGlobal action is also essential to prevent the export of naturalresources from financing wars, as occurred with rough diamonds,known more evocatively as ‘blood diamonds’, in the devastatingconflicts in Angola, Côte d’Ivoire, the DRC, and Sierra Leone. Thejoint efforts of government, civil society, and the internationaldiamond industry to certify ‘clean diamonds’ successfully stemmedthe flow of blood diamonds. By 2007, the Kimberley Process, as it isknown, covered 99.8 per cent of the global production of roughdiamonds. 209 In the DRC, legitimate diamond revenues have morethan doubled since the country began to implement the Kimberleyrecommendations. At the same time, it appears that the illegal tradingroutes across the DRC’s eastern borders have indeed been closed.The success of the Kimberley Process points to the need for furtherefforts by other industries to close down the market for those exploitingresources to fund conflict, whether by growing opium in Afghanistanor mining coltan, a raw material for the cell phone industry, in theDRC. 210 In parallel with curbing such trade, alternative livelihoodsmust be found for the poor people who rely on it, or conflict is likelyto flare up again. Ending the black market in exports from conflictzones is only a start towards transparency across all industries that400