This House believes that the UN should restrict arms sales to rogue nations.

The international trade in weapons is big business. In fact, it is currently worth in excess of $25 billion per year. The United States is the world's biggest arms exporter (its exports totalled $166.2 billion in the period 2002 – 2009), followed by Russia ($73.9 billion), France ($35.1 billion), the UK ($29.3 billion), Germany ($19.7 billion), and China ($13.6 billion). [1] This trade covers all manner of conventional weapons from small machine guns to tanks, planes and ships. (Note that the trade in nuclear, chemical and biological weapons is already banned under existing treaties.) The majority of arms are sold to the developing world. Although it is true that the overwhelming majority of arms sales are to countries which are not considered rogue states, foreign-made arms have ended up being used by brutal regimes to oppress their own people or attack their neighbours. It is not unknown for these arms to be used against the country that supplied them in the first place. This motion calls for the UN, rather than individual member states, to regulate the arms trade and, in particular, to restrict arms sales to rogue states. From a technical point of view, it is worth noting that this debate is quite different to the standard debate on whether the arms trade should be abolished. That debate typically revolves around jobs, government subsidies and the need to stimulate a national arms industry through foreign sales. Given that arms sales to rogue states are relatively limited at the moment those, issues are not relevant to this debate. Instead, this debate is about the role that the UN should play in regulating the arms sales that do go on at the moment. The proposition has two challenges in setting up this debate. First, they must define the term 'rogue state'. A typical definition (albeit one that would require further elaboration in a debate) is a state that breaks international norms and thus threatens regional or global security, or a state that is guilty of gross human rights violations on its own people. Second, they must clarify what they want the UN to do.