Articles by: Frida Berrigan

April 11, 2008

In 1997, President Bill Clinton, standing beside Mexican president Ernesto Zedillo in the Organization of American States’ flag-bedecked Hall of the Americas, declared: “Gun trafficking is an issue of national security for our governments, and a matter of neighborhood security for all of us in the Americas.” The presidents had joined together to sign an OAS treaty known as the Firearms Convention, or by its Spanish initials as CIFTA, designed to end the illicit manufacture and trafficking of guns, ammunition, explosives, and related materials. It requires that ratifying nations create laws (if they do not already exist) that establish procedures for importing, exporting, and tracing small arms, light weapons, and ammunition, and as well as mechanisms for enforcement.