Today, September 15, the National Council debated the corrective initiative. To the great delight of the Alliance against Arms Exports to Civil War Countries, the National Council and the Council of States have adopted and implemented all of its core concerns. The initiative championed by terre des hommes schweiz will therefore be withdrawn. A great day for a credible peace policy. Now it is important to keep a close eye on the implementation of the proposed legislation.
In its press release dated September 15, 2021, the Alliance Against Arms Exports to Civil War Countries writes that the corrective initiative calls for something that goes without saying: from now on, arms exports should no longer be regulated by the Federal Council itself, but democratically at the legislative level.
Instead of arbitrary decisions, we need clear red lines and moral standards that must not be breached. Specifically, deliveries to civil war countries and states that seriously or systematically violate human rights should be banned.
A good compromise
In its counter-proposal, which the Federal Council presented at the beginning of March, it largely complied with the concerns of the initiative. In order to keep a loophole open, it wanted to introduce an exemption clause, which the Council of States deleted and thus corrected, to the pleasant surprise of the initiative committee.
Today, the National Council followed the proposal of the Council of States. As the counter-proposal represents a good compromise, the Alliance against Arms Exports to Civil War Countries is refraining from a referendum and withdrawing the corrective initiative.
Great success for the alliance of NGOs and the civilian population
Since the launch of the Corrective Action Initiative in 2018, numerous volunteers from NGOs, including terre des hommes schweiz, and the civilian population have been actively involved and have thus been able to achieve this great success. The effective implementation of the corrective initiative by Parliament was more than necessary to finally ban arms exports to countries at civil war once and for all.
“Now we need to keep a close eye on the implementation of this legislative proposal,” says Andrea Zellhuber from the development policy team at terre des hommes schweiz. “What exactly does this mean for approval practice?”
Stop arms exports to Brazil
From the perspective of the youth development organization, Brazil is a country to which no more weapons should be exported in future. “Because human rights violations are systematically taking place in the most populous country in Latin America,” says Andrea Zellhuber, referring to the study by terre des hommes schweiz “Stop killing us!” on police violence against children and young people in Brazil and the arms trade.
Photo © Bruno Itan (detail), terre des hommes schweiz
