The world’s nations must urgently agree an international treaty regulating the trade in arms if they are to prevent more than 300,000 people being shot dead each year and millions more ­suffering humanitarian abuses, Amnesty International said on Wednesday.

In a report published ahead of a debate on the issue at the United Nations in a few weeks’ time, Amnesty says the signing of an arms trade treaty is critical if the UN is to counter human rights abuses perpetrated in places such as Burma, the Darfur region of Sudan, Iraq and Colombia.