Costa Rica and 111 other countries are supporting the latest version of the Geneva Declaration on Armed Violence and Development. The Review Conference for the Declaration is taking place in Switzerland this week.
The aim of the summit is to generate reductions in armed violence and improvements in global security by 2015. Central America, in particular El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, has been identified as one of the deadliest regions in the world, according to the United Nations Global Study on Homicide 2011.
“If the international community does not support the fight against narco-activity and organized crime that has armed an important section of the population of Central America, we run the risk of a destabilization of our democratic regime,” said Carlos Roverssi, Costa Rica’s vice minister of foreign relations.
The Declaration calls for international agreements to combat the trafficking of small arms and ammunition such as the Arms Trade Treaty, which Costa Rica has supported for years.
