No I'm not talking about Peter Andre's latest musical offering - today I am inside the United Nations headquarters in New York City. It's big, it's secure and I'm still waiting for someone to tell me and my shiny red dell netbook that we really don't belong here and to kindly move along....









Photographs by Fox Fotography.

I am here as part of ConflictVoice, an Oxfam initiative that is taking discussions out from behind the closed doors and into a more accessible realm. ConflictVoice is about encouraging conversation between mates and colleagues as well as between diplomats and officials. We all know that change can only happen when the masses shout loud enough - and to be impassioned we need to be educated and aware - so let's get across it and be part of the progress towards an international, legally binding Arms Trade Treaty (ATT).


"Every day 2000 people die from armed conflict. Since the UN's process towards and arms trade treaty started in 2006, 2,1 million people have died. Unnecessarily. In October, diplomats are meeting again (the UN's first committee on Security and Disarmament) to discuss the next steps. Oxfam, with its partners Amnesty, IANSA and others, are calling for negotiations to start in 2010 with an end date in 2012. We demand a treaty that will stop irresponsible arms transfers fueling conflict, poverty and serious human rights abuses."


It can be really difficult to start conversation like this as it's something that seems so far from home. When we don't see direct consequences in our day to day lives, understanding the scale of impact can be a difficult task. Essentially, an Arms Trade Treaty would prevent the illegal movement of weapons from country to country. The reason an Arms Trade Treaty is necessary is because arms are currently being flowed into countries where they are being used in a way that abuse human rights. This is a nice way of saying that guns are being sold between countries and used to kill and maim people. This is happening every single day.

To break it down even further, this means that American guns could potentially be being used to kill and injure American peacekeepers. By not supporting an international Arms Trade Treaty we are placing our military peacekeepers in harms way - the threat is coming from within and we need to start regulating the arms trade to prevent this.



You can learn more about the unregulated arms trade and what Oxfam is doing here.

Tomorrow Oxfam are launching a report called 'Dying for Action'. This event will be live streamed from Conflict Voice website and will be interactive so if you have a comment or better yet, a question to be put to international diplomats or Oxfam, please tweet it to @conflictvoice and use the hashtag #conflictvoice.