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Rep. Kelly Criticizes Obama Administration for Endorsing U.N. Rules Change to Pass Arms Trade Treaty

April 2, 2013

WASHINGTON, DC — Rep. Kelly issued the following statement on April 1, 2013, regarding the anticipated vote in the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, April 2, 2013, to approve a resolution adopting the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), which has been co-sponsored by the United States delegation. The ATT conference concluded last week with a failure to reach a consensus agreement on the treaty. Rep. Kelly is the original sponsor of H. Con. Res. 23, a bipartisan concurrent resolution to oppose the treaty, which currently has 129 co-sponsors in the House and 34 co-sponsors in the Senate. In his private capacity, Rep. Kelly also created an online petition to stop the ATT which attracted the support of thousands of Americans and was submitted to the White House on Wednesday, March 27, 2013.

“Having failed to broker a consensus on the UN Arms Trade Treaty, the Obama administration and other supporters of the ATT are now voicing support for forcing the treaty through the UN General Assembly, which does not require 100 percent consensus agreement. The Obama administration has abandoned a promise that the State Department made to the American people, the ‘key U.S. redline,’ that the ‘ATT negotiations must have consensus decision making to allow us to protect U.S. equities’ and to ‘ensure that all countries can be held to standards that will actually improve the global situation.’ In addition to the concerns I have with the substance of the ATT and its threat to our Second Amendment rights and national sovereignty, I also have serious process concerns with the Obama administration’s support for changing the rules in the middle of the game. This hasty, short-sighted move will erode trust and undermine our efforts to protect U.S. interests in treaty negotiations in the future.”


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