Arms trade watchdog slams countries' lack of transparency

Countries are failing in their obligations to report the weapons they are buying and selling, the monitor charged with overseeing the global Arms Trade Treaty said Tuesday.

Adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 2013, the treaty aims to regulate the international flow of conventional weapons to stop their illicit trade.

Its 118 member states must assess, before any transaction, whether the arms sold risk circumventing an international embargo, being diverted to criminals, or violating human rights.

States are supposed to submit annual reports on their imports and exports of conventional weapons, ranging from pistols to missiles, aircraft and warships.

But the body that monitors the treaty condemned a lack of transparency.

Just 46 countries -- less than 40 percent -- submitted their 2025 reports on time, Alexandra Marksteiner, a member of the ATT Monitor team, told a press conference in Geneva.

"The decline in meaningfully transparent reporting and publicly available information highlights larger issues around transparency in the global arms trade," the monitor said in a statement.

This is "particularly distressing in times of increasing military expenditure, escalating conflict and diminishing peace."

The monitor said that in a world of rising conflict and a retreat from multilateralism, "realising the core objectives of the ATT is becoming increasingly difficult".

"The turbulent state of affairs over the past year has put the Arms Trade Treaty under strain," it said.

"Regional peace, security and stability are arguably at their lowest levels since the Treaty's entry into force" in 2014.

The United States, the world's leading arms supplier, signed the treaty under former president Barack Obama, but Congress has never ratified it.

China joined the treaty in 2020.