Projet de loi modifiant la loi du 5 août 1991 relative à l'importation, à l'exportation et au transit d'armes, de munitions et de matériel devant servir spécialement à un usage militaire et de la technologie y afférente.
General information ¶
- Authors
-
Ecolo
Martine
Dardenne
Groen Lode Vanoost
PS | SP Patrick Moriau
Vooruit Marc Van Peel, Dirk Van der Maelen - Submission date
- Feb. 9, 2000
- Official page
- Visit
- Status
- Adopted
- Requirement
- Simple
- Subjects
- criminal procedure arms trade
Voting ¶
- Voted to adopt
- Groen CD&V Vooruit Ecolo LE PS | SP Open Vld N-VA MR
- Abstained from voting
- FN VB
Contact form ¶
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Discussion ¶
July 10, 2001 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)
Full source
Dirk Van der Maelen Vooruit ⚙
Mr. Speaker, Mr. Ministers, Colleagues, at this time in New York, the United Nations Conference on Light Weapons is taking place.
It might be good to summarize some figures from the preparation of that conference; figures that make it clear that those light weapons are very deadly. Over the past decade, 90% of all deaths in conflict have been caused by bullets from the course of light weapons. In total, there are 3 million deaths, two-thirds of which are civilians.
Belgium has a bad reputation in this area. I refer you to the book “The Arms Fixers”, or even the rumored work of Human Rights Watch “Stoking the Fires”. These books point toward Belgium as a turntable in the illegal arms trade.
It is also sufficient to take the last report on the arms trade, which was submitted to this Chamber a few days ago, to establish that the relevant competent ministers themselves indicate in their report that there is a problem in this area in Belgium, I quote: "The inclusion of the principle of extraterritoriality in the legislation could fill this gap and allow for better control of the arms traffic".
That is precisely the purpose of this bill. Through this bill, we intend to introduce a new chapter on illegal arms trade in the Arms Trade Act of 1991. This chapter contains two parts. The first element is the introduction of the principle of extraterritoriality in order to curb illegal arms trade. This means that Belgians, Belgian companies, foreigners and foreign companies – provided they have a link with Belgium – will also be criminalized under Belgian weapons law if they trade weapons in countries for which an embargo has been declared by Belgium or international organisations whose Belgium is a member.
The second part of the new chapter in the legislation concerns our willingness to expand the Belgian arsenal of means to fight against arms trade by allowing us to also prosecute intermediaries, lobbyists, carriers and so on — in short, anyone who is co-responsible for carrying out this kind of deadly, illegal arms trafficking.
We hope that we will be able to pass this bill on Thursday. In this way, we can make it clear to the rest of the world that in our country, which has not the very best reputation in this area, there is a willingness to work on the reputation of our country in the fight against the illegal arms trade.
President Herman De Croo ⚙
General discussion is closed. The general discussion is closed.