The United Nations Regional Centre for Peace, Disarmament and Development in Latin America and the Caribbean (UNLIREC) continues to support State efforts to achieve effective implementation of the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT). Against this backdrop, UNLIREC and the Dominican Republic’s Ministry of Interior and Police organized two workshops. The first aimed at sensitizing public officials on different ATT provisions and models of National Control Authorities (NCA) (30 April-01 May), while the second, focused on deepening the dialogue and discussion on NCA implementation opportunities (25-26 June). Both workshops targeted national authorities from sectors in charge of controlling conventional arms transfers or from other areas responsible for ATT implementation.
In addition, UNLIREC presented the Treaty obligations regarding the establishment of a national control system. Such a system must include not only a national control authority responsible for evaluating arms transfers, but also a national control list.
The Dominican Republic’s current situation was analyzed alongside the ATT obligations at both events. Similar examples of other NCAs were then presented and served as the basis for identifying a series of models that could be implemented to best suit the country’s needs and resources.
The second workshop constitutes the fourth and final activity undertaken under this year ATT-VTF project, however, conversations are being held with the Dominican government in order to continue exploring cooperation opportunities and deepen ATT implementation.
Participants in both activities included the Ministry of Interior and Police; Ministry of Defense; Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Customs; the Army, Navy, Air Force, Attorney General’s Office and the Judiciary.
All project-related activities were funded by the ATT Voluntary Trust Fund (ATT-VTF), of which the Dominican Republic is a beneficiary and in which UNLIREC, at the request of the Dominican authorities, is an implementing partner.