LONDON, March 15 (Xinhuanet) -- British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw on Tuesday has once again called for a legally-binding international treaty on the trade in conventional weapons.

    Repeating the call he first made last September, Straw said at an arms control seminar here that the treaty should cover all conventional arms and be based on core principles covering abuse of human rights and whether such exports would fuel international conflict..

    "We have global, legally-binding treaties covering chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, and global mechanisms to implement them. Yet we still have no such legally-binding international treaty on conventional arms exports... That is a gap which I want the international community to fill," Straw said.

    "We should be clear that our goal is a not a voluntary agreement or a talking shop, but a treaty which is legally-binding on all its signatories, putting on a firm statutory footing the principle of responsibility in arms exports. It should be negotiated in the United Nations and backed by the UN's authority," Straw said.

    "The treaty's provisions should be based on certain core principles which make clear when exports would be unacceptable," said the foreign secretary.

    He also stressed that the new treaty needs an effective mechanism for enforcement and monitoring and should include a wide range or signatories, including the world's major arms exporters.

    "The spread of conventional weapons has a profound effect on international security and prosperity and on our own well-being at home.

    Controlling that spread therefore requires action by the whole international community," Straw told the seminar, adding that a new arms control treaty will need to include as many of the world's nations as possible, especially those with strong defense industries of their own.

    Straw, whose country currently holds the one-year rotating G8 presidency, said he would be putting the subject of an arms trade treaty on the agenda for the G8 meeting of foreign ministers in June.

    The G8 is a group of industrialized countries comprising Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Italy, Russia and the United States. Enditem