Arms Trade Treaty: The world needs you!

Update, 28 July: Despite a fantastic response from all of you and the UK government pulling out the stops in strengthening the treaty, the US showed stunning cowardice last night to stop the negotiations, opening the door for others to do the same. Needless to say, we're angry that political self-interest won over moral leadership.

But this is just a delay - we'll pick ourselves up ready for October when the Treaty will go to the UN General Assembly, and where we can still get a strong Arms Trade Treaty. Your hard work has got us this far, and we're not done yet.

Fancy making a bit of history?

24 hours to go in negotiations for the first ever Arms Trade Treaty.

It's amazing how quickly things change here at the UN.

The draft treaty we got three days ago was full of holes. We got straight to work lobbying governments at the UN and within 24 hours over 11,000 of you wrote to the UK government telling them to fight for human rights on the negotiating floor. Guess what? They did. 

At 4pm this evening a new draft treaty text was issued. And it was a big improvement

But it’s not over yet. Countries opposed to a strong treaty will try every trick in the book to block progress in the final 24 hours. And two main loopholes remain. Read our full breakdown

We need those loopholes closed without losing any of the great progress made in this draft treaty text. We have hours left – but the threats are real it’s time to get yourselves heard again. Fast.

This is it. Stop anything else you’re doing and take just four minutes to change the world for the better. 

• Tell the UK government to continue to close the loopholes
• Send Obama a strong message – the world needs a strong treaty
• Tweet the French government, tell them to keep fighting to close the loopholes

Together, we have the power to secure a Treaty that saves lives. And that power is literally at your fingertips. If you only ever do one thing for us, please do this. And tell everyone you know to do the same

All of these governments need to know that these last few hours are crucial. They’ve helped secure serious improvements but there is still time for sceptical governments to throw away this chance. If they sign a worthless Treaty, their legacy will be one of a having missed the chance to prevent many more millions of deaths, countless numbers raped and thousands of children given a gun and told to fight.

We need to show them that right now they have the power to change the world. Tomorrow? Not so much. It will be over.

Tell everyone

World governments will fail us all if they don’t secure a Treaty that protects human rights. We cannot stop fighting until it’s all over. You are now our only chance of keeping the good bits we have worked so hard to get, and deny those who are trying to weaken the treaty. Tell your friends to drop everything for just four minutes and in these final hours show the people on the negotiating floor that the world is watching.