Sierra Leone

A long week at the United Nations is over. The morning was spent in the back of the conference room listening to the diplomats adjusting typos and commas and unsuccessfully seeking substantive changes to the chair’s final report of the meeting.

Again, the representative from Nigeria described the feeling in the room the best when he said that the report was being adopted by all with “even distribution of dissatisfaction”. A new negotiation model, he said he wanted to chair with his former International Relations professor.

So what does it all mean?

The “Open Minded Working Group” was a slip of the tongue one country delegate made
in his opening statement at this week’s talks on the Arms Trade Treaty (formally known as the Open Ended Working Group.) If only, was the feeling of my NGO colleagues and I listening from the back of the room.

The talks began slowly, and we heard a number of negative interventions from States not yet convinced global arms regulation is really needed.