International Arms Trade within the Rules of the World Trade Organization and Its Security Exceptions

International arms transfers and transactions has come under international rules as a strategic trade from 2013 when the United Nations treaty on arms trade was enacted. Due to the fact that arms are a kind of goods, so the rules concerning international trade should also be determined according to the rules of the World Trade Organization, and in particular those of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) 1994. On the other hand, the arms trade treaty has taken into account limitations and regulations in order to control and track the transacted weapons, which is against the principle of Free Trade in the World Trade Organization. Therefore, it is either the case that the standards contained in the weapons trade treaty should be construed in a way that they have no conflict with the regulations of the World Trade Organization, or they should be interpreted in favor of the rules contained in the treaty. Considering the fact that the principle of Free Trade face exceptions in the regulations of the World Trade Organization, so any limitation threatening free trade should come under the exceptions specified in the organization's agreements. The most important of such exceptions are introduced under general and security exceptions in articles 20 and 21 of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade 1994. Since the objective of the arms trade treaty is to guarantee and improve the international peace and security through the control exerted on the conventional weapons trade, where it directly addresses the issue of weapons, the regulations and limitations contained in it are open to interpretation within the article 21 of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade 1994 (security exceptions), without being in conflict with the rules of the World Trade Organization, and also the commitments of the member parties to the treaty.