CIFTA

When a drug cartel offers to make a “truce” with a national government, there is good cause for concern. When the citizens of that country are disappointed when the government fails to take them up on the offer, there is cause for outright alarm.

A truce is, of course, just what the now-notorious La Familia cartel in Mexico’s Michoacán state recently offered to the Mexican government. And this after the cartel responded to the arrest of one of their top men by murdering twelve off-duty Federal agents and going on a shooting rampage through multiple cities. The disappointment has not come to pass, yet. President Calderón’s war on the cartels remains popular among Mexicans. But, following recent midterm election losses by the President’s party, there is concern that the ongoing war on the cartels, which has led to the loss of almost 13,000 lives, is starting to wear.

Faced with this scenario, and a very public acknowledgment by President Obama of the negative international effects of the United States’ drug problem, the U.S. has struggled for an effective way to assist countries combating the drug trade. One answer is the three year, $1.5 billion dollar Mérida Initiative, which was passed by Congress last year. Another is the Inter-American Convention Against Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms (known as CIFTA for its Spanish initials) that President Obama recently urged the Senate to gives its advice and consent to.

But what exactly is CIFTA? As its title indicates, it is a treaty meant to address the manufacturing and trafficking of firearms through greater collaboration among the 34 members of the Organization of American States, which is comprised of the nations of North and South America. The heart of the treaty calls for increases in the exchange of information, experiences and training methods, and technical and legal assistance, and also provides an independent basis for extradition. The treaty specifically contemplates “controlled delivery” operations, where a country knowingly allows illegal items to pass through it in order to identify as many people involved in the transfer as possible, including, ultimately, the end buyers.

All well so far. But the treaty does suffer from some conceptual and practical problems. For instance, it calls for the marking of each legally manufactured weapon in order to facilitate the tracking of illegal arm flow, which is something the U.S. already does. But, a much-cited statistic of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms estimates that 90% of the illegal firearms in Mexico originate in the United States. And logic dictates that most of those weapons are coming from states bordering Mexico. While there is certainly information to be gained from finding out the exact routes the weapons take and where they ultimately end up, the basic trajectory is not in question: the guns flow South.

Another provision of CIFTA calls for “Strengthening of Controls at Export Points.” CIFTA is silent on the best way to bring this about, which is unfortunate because how best to strengthen border controls is a topic of constant debate within the U.S. and between the U.S. and Mexico. Creating a legal obligation will not make it any easier to improve border security without impeding trade, causing offense, or creating environmental disruption and it seems curious to undertake an obligation without a clear idea of how it will be achieved.


Finally, while increased cooperation among states on technical and legal matters is generally to be lauded, it’s worth asking how much assistance the U.S. will be receiving versus contributing, and what the ultimate costs of the treaty will be to the U.S. taxpayer. How has the treaty operated up to this point? If it hasn’t operated well, or hasn’t operated period, the case for the U.S. joining seems weakened.

None of this is to say that the U.S. should not ultimately join CIFTA. The ongoing violence in Mexico is shocking and has created something approaching a moral imperative regarding increased U.S. involvement. CIFTA’s advocates argue that ratifying the treaty would be a strong sign of solidarity with neighboring nations in the fight against the cartels. But there are ways to signal support without creating binding international obligations.

Why a treaty, and specifically CIFTA, is the tool for the job is the question at hand. And, it is a question that needs answering sooner rather than later.