United Nations ? Bearing a message from the Russian who invented the world’s most common assault rifle, activists will press governments at a U.N. conference on small arms to ensure such weapons aren’t used to trample human rights.

The groups and some officials attending the conference that begins today advocate a fundamentally new approach for trade in the light arms that are said to kill 1,000 people a day: Governments must take responsibility for all weapons they sell, even after the deal is done.

Such a philosophy applies to weapons of mass destruction, but not to small arms, and it will be the focus of much debate at the two-week conference.

“It’s a bit of a challenge for governments, because they haven’t been previously thinking about it in that way,” said Rebecca Peters, director of the International Action Network on Small Arms, which joins Oxfam and Amnesty International in proposing the so-called “Global Principles” for small arms sales.

Britain’s government has made a similar proposal and 11 African nations signed on in a meeting in Nairobi, Kenya, in April. The United States, China, Russia, Egypt, India and others have not explicitly endorsed it.

The U.S. says it supports the British idea in principle. But U.S. Ambassador John Bolton made clear Washington doesn’t want the conference to go beyond a program adopted in 2001 to curb the illicit sale of pistols, assault rifles, machine guns and other light weapons.

A militant wearing a black mask, military fatigues and carrying a Kalashnikov assault rifle earlier this year patrols the creeks of the Niger Delta area of Nigeria. The designer of the Kalashnikov has joined gun-control advocates concerned that small arms are responsible for most killings in the world.

Many governments agree illicit arms traders have exploited loopholes in the program and delegates need to come up with new ways of reinforcing it.

Global trade in small arms is worth about $4 billion a year, of which a fourth is considered illegal, according to the annual Small Arms Survey, an authoritative report on such weapons. The arms cause 60 percent to 90 percent of all deaths in conflicts every year.

“We are often concerned about weapons of mass destruction, and yet most of the killing taking place today, whether in Darfur or Congo or elsewhere, is done by small arms,” U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Friday.

Gun control advocates got a boost from Mikhail Kalashnikov, designer of the assault rifle that bears his name, who sent a statement to the conference expressing dismay that the weapon he invented is the weapon of choice in conflicts around the globe.

In a report released today, the advocacy group Control Arms said the Kalashnikov assault rifle is the most widespread weapon in the world, with 50 million to 70 million in circulation.