A UN General Assembly panel on Thursday overwhelmingly approved a landmark resolution aimed at controlling international arms sales.
Some 139 countries supported the text, which had been endorsed by 15 Nobel Peace Prize Laureates, during a vote in the UN General Assembly's first committee, which deals with disarmament. Only the United States voted against it.
The vote marks the first concrete step toward a global treaty to block trade in conventional weapons that fuels conflicts and human rights violations and undermines development. The treaty would aim to close loopholes in existing legislation on arms trade.
Passage means work on the treaty can start early next year when the incoming UN Secretary General, South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-Moon,
sounds out UN member states on establishing the foundations of the pact.
The resolution sets up a group of governmental experts to look at the feasibility, scope and parameters of an arms trade treaty and report back to the assembly's first committee in 2008.
"This massive vote to develop a global arms trade treaty is a historic opportunity for governments to tackle the scourge of irresponsible and immoral arms transfers," said Kate Gilmore, Amnesty International's executive deputy secretary general. "Any credible treaty must outlaw those transfers, which fuel the systematic murder, rape, torture and expulsion of thousands of people," she added.
In a letter released here Tuesday, the Nobel Peace Prize laureates, including the Dalai Lama, South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Costa Rican President Oscar Arias and Amnesty International, had pressed governments to support the treaty.
Early this month, a report backed by Amnesty International and the British charity Oxfam warned that the globalization of the arms industry has shed light on the shortcomings of existing legislation to control it.
The report, also supported by the International Action Network on Small Arms -- an umbrella organization of 600 private organizations -- outlines how US, European and Canadian companies bypass laws regulating weapons trade by selling arms in detached pieces or by subcontracting their activities to local businesses.