Pace University New York City students John Ciccarelli ’15 (left), Amanda Orcutt ’13 (second from left) and Gillian Ashdown ’15 with Djimon Hounsou (second from right), two-time Academy Award-nominated actor and Oxfam Ambassador. They were attending a meeting, organized by Control Arms at the Japan Society, of campaigners and diplomats working on the Arms Trade Treaty negotiations at the UN headquarters New York.
Students involved in Pace University New York City’s Model United Nations program have played an important role as interns and volunteers in the global campaign to develop stricter controls on the international arms trade, currently less regulated than the market in bananas.
This week and next, five Pace University students — Katie James ’14, Shant Alexander, John Ciccarelli ’15, Amanda Orcutt ’13, and Gillian Ashdown ’15 (four of them current or former Model UN participants, including a head delegate) — are assisting the civil society coalition Control Arms during the Final Diplomatic Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty at the United Nations building in New York.
“I feel an obligation as a human being and an African” to call for a “strong Arms Trade Treaty,” Beninese-born American actor and Oxfam ambassador Djimon Hounsou told a gathering of civil society activists and diplomats working on the treaty negotiations Monday night, attended by the Pace students.
“It doesn’t solve every problem, but a strong Arms Trade Treaty on weapons and ammunition is not something we can question,” said Hounsou. “It is something we must act upon; today.”