UN tries a backdoor approach

The U.N. General Assembly recently approved a resolution that could lead to an international treaty on controlling the trade in small arms.
With the United States casting the lone vote in dissent, the resolution was approved 153-1 with 24 abstentions. It asks the secretary-general to seek the views of Assembly members on the feasibility of establishing "common international standards for the import, export and transfer of conventional arms." He was also asked to establish a group of governmental experts to start examining draft parameters for consideration by the Assembly in September 2008.
Richard Grenell, spokesman for the U.S. Mission to the U.N., said: "The only way for a global arms trade treaty to work is to have every country agree on a standard. For us, that standard would be so far below what we are already required to do under U.S. law that we had to vote against it in order to maintain our higher standards."