It"s time for Global Control of Small Arms by IHT / Control Arms Campaign / CS Monitor 4:09pm 26th Jun, 2006   26 June 2006    Proliferation of illicit small arms leads to culture of violence and impunity – Annan    Describing the world as being “awash with small arms,” United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said today that every year an estimated $1 billion worth of these weapons are traded illicitly worldwide, exacerbating conflict, sparking refugee flows, undermining the rule of law and spawning a “culture of violence and impunity.”    In his opening address to the UN Small Arms Review Conference, which runs from today until 7 July, Mr. Annan said that “significant progress” had been made in dealing with the problem of illegal guns since a Programme of Action was endorsed by all Member States in 2001 – but important challenges remain.    “The problem remains grave. In a world awash with small arms, a quarter of the estimated $4 billion annual global gun trade is believed to be illicit. Small arms are easy to buy, easy to use, easy to transport and easy to conceal. Their continued proliferation exacerbates conflict, sparks refugee flows, undermines the rule of law and spawns a culture of violence and impunity,” he said.    “The majority of people who die directly from conflicts worldwide – tens of thousands of lives lost each year – and hundreds of daily crime-related deaths can be traced to illicit small arms and light weapons. These weapons may be small, but they cause mass destruction.”    Since the Programme of Action to Prevent, Combat and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons was adopted five years ago, nearly 140 countries have reported on its implementation, while a third of all States have made efforts to collect weapons from those not legally entitled to hold them, Mr. Annan said. Other progress included increased cooperation among and within regions to stem the flow of illicit weapons across national borders.    “Clearly, much has been accomplished, and much is currently being done. Yet important challenges remain,” he said, highlighting in particular the urgent need for Member States to introduce or update legislation meeting the standards outlined in the Programme of Action.    “Countries also require better stockpile management and security procedures to reduce weapons pilferage. And we must reach agreement on a realistic and effective approach to end-user certification. Without such certification, any effort to regulate the trade and brokering in small arms and light weapons will be found lacking.”    General Assembly President Jan Eliasson, who also spoke at the opening of the Conference, echoed the Secretary-General’s remarks, calling for “much more” to be done to curb the illicit trade that also “hinders efforts to promote reconciliation in post-conflict areas.”    “The importance of this Review Conference cannot be overstated. We must maintain the momentum generated by the 2001 Conference. We must ensure that the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons remains high on the agenda of the United Nations.”    He voiced hope that participants would agree on measures to strengthen the implementation of the Programme of Action. “It is only through our joint, tangible and effective efforts on the ground, that we will be able to combat the scourge of illicit trafficking of small arms,” he said.    Published: June 25, 2006    It"s time for Global Control of Small Arms, by Amartya Sen. (IHT)    Informed by the harrowing lessons of World War II, the United Nations Charter was signed in San Francisco on June 26, 1945. Exactly 61 years later, the UN review conference on small arms will open on Monday in New York. This will be the first major conference on the UN program of action on the global menace of small and light weapons of combat.    In recent years, discussions on terror and safety have tended to concentrate on weapons of mass destruction. And yet there are other problems that are already causing havoc, which also demand urgent attention. It is important to appreciate why an effective system of the control of trade in small arms is so badly needed right now.    First, the use of small arms is constantly fed and heavily promoted in the world by the sellers, for there is much profit to be made there. While it is true that arms trading needs willing buyers in addition to eager sellers, the pushing of arms is no less a phenomenon today than the pushing of drugs.    Given the fact that arms buying tends to be concentrated in relatively few hands, typically governmental administrators or the military or paramilitary (including insurgents), swaying the purchasers is often relatively easy and well within the profitable reach of the merchants of death. The French economist Jean-Baptiste Say might have enunciated a rather doubtful general principle when he argued, 200 years ago, that "supply creates its own demand," but his maxim fits the arms trade alarmingly well.    Second, arms trading would not be hard to control if the international community were resolved to do so. Arms production tends to be concentrated regionally, and so is the export of arms. As it happens, the leaders of the world, in the shape of the Group of 8 countries, have been persistently responsible for more than 80 percent of global arms exports.    Furthermore, the states of the world seem to have already agreed in previous meetings that they would restrict arms transactions to what international law allows. Yet there is no current agreement between the states on standards for arms transfers. At the UN conference that starts Monday, states need to agree on global principles restraining arms transfers if there were a likelihood they would be used to commit genocide or identifiable crimes.    A comprehensive approach would have to address direct transactions, indirect transfers, brokering, transit and transshipment. The UN General Assembly can then move toward agreeing on an international Arms Trade Treaty.    Third, the conference could also bring out the fact that the terrible consequences of the use of small arms go well beyond the outrageous killing and maiming they cause. Small arms are vital ingredients of terrorism, civil war and generalized violence, which in turn lead to the disruption of social services, health care and basic education, and can also reduce the incentives for long-term investment and economic development. Many of the difficulties faced by Africa from the 1970s onward can be traced to this process.    The G-8 countries have not taken an active leadership role in curbing arms trade until recently, but there are some welcome signs of greater resolve right now. It is also important for non-G-8 countries to take more initiative on this.    My own country, India, has good reason to use whatever influence it has, especially with the growing recognition of its importance in the global world. This is not only because reduction of armed conflicts fits well into the global objectives that were championed by India when it struggled for independence and sought a global voice, but also because India itself suffers a great deal from the illicit movement of arms that feed local insurrections and terrorist acts.    Even though China is currently the seventh-largest exporter of arms in the world, it also has a stake in limiting the movement of arms into its own territory. The G-8 countries, too, have reasons of enlightened self-interest to do this (despite the money that these countries make from this terrible trade), given the growing threat of terrorism that affects these countries as well.    Countries across the world, despite their many variations, increasingly have a shared vulnerability. The time has come for the world as a whole to turn a page, through effective controls on the global arms trade.    (Amartya Sen, who was awarded the 1998 Nobel Memorial Prize in economics, is a professor at Harvard University. He is an honorary adviser to Oxfam and author of many books including "Development as Freedom").    Published: 19/6/2006    Almost one in three people affected by gun crime.    New International survey from the Control Arms Campaign: Amnesty International, Oxfam International and International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA)    A survey of people in six countries around the world released today reveals that on average, 30 percent of those surveyed have been the victim of gun crime or knows someone who has been in the last five years. The proportion rises to more than half in Brazil, Guatemala and South Africa.    Surveys in Brazil, Guatemala, Canada, South Africa, Britain and India found that, across the globe, many people are living in daily fear of armed violence. Nearly two in three people (62 percent) across the six countries said they “worried about becoming a victim of armed violence” with the proportion rising to a massive 94 percent of people in Brazil, 88 percent in Guatemala and 72 percent in South Africa. Even in Britain and Canada more than one in three people (39 and 36 percent respectively) worried about becoming an armed violence victim.    The study, conducted last month, also shows that the unregulated proliferation of firearms is the source of most people’s insecurity. An average 62 percent of all those surveyed said it was “too easy to obtain a gun” in their country while 63 percent cited the easy availability of guns as a main reason for fear.    The Control Arms survey demonstrates almost unanimous global public support for stronger international arms controls just one week before governments meet at the UN World conference on small arms that begins Monday 26th June in New York. The Control Arms campaign is calling on governments to introduce global principles to regulate the transfers of weapons and ensure they do not end up in the hands of human rights abusers. Up to 14 billion bullets are produced every year, yet there are currently no comprehensive global standards for governments’ regulations of arms exports.    “Unless governments act to stop the spread of arms, deadly weapons will continue to fuel violent conflict, state repression, crime, and domestic abuse,” said Jeremy Hobbs, Oxfam International Director. “With up to 14 billion bullets produced every year, enough to kill everyone in the world twice, isn’t it about time that governments agreed to regulate arms exports?”    An average of 87 percent of all respondents want “strict international controls on where weapons can be exported to”, with 93 percent of people in Brazil, 91 percent in Guatemala, 90 in both Canada and India, 86 percent of people in Britain and 73 percent of South Africans agreeing.    “Our survey shows that uncontrolled proliferation of weapons has blighted every corner of the globe, with millions of people living in daily fear of becoming a victim of armed violence,” said Irene Khan, Amnesty International’s Secretary General. “Governments meeting in New York next week must recognize the overwhelming popular call for tougher international arms controls and act.”    The survey also showed very strong 89 percent support for “better controls on arms coming into their country”. Country results of those in support were as follows: Brazil, 96; Guatemala, 94; India, 93; Canada, 92; Britain, 85; and South Africa, 73 percent.    Almost one third of Guatemalan and South African respondents said their families had been affected by gun crime (30 percent and 28 percent respectively). In both Britain and Canada, six in every ten people thought it was too easy to obtain a gun in their country and more than five out of ten South Africans also agreed.    “This research provides grassroots evidence that people in both developed and developing countries want much stronger arms controls to protect themselves and those in other countries,” said Rebecca Peters, Director of IANSA. “With nearly two in three people worried about becoming a victim of armed violence, the international community is clearly calling for action. When governments meet next week at the UN, they must agree on tougher arms controls to stop weapons falling into the wrong hands.”    The research showed that 91 percent of people in Brazil thought that obtaining a gun was too easy and the same number that gun proliferation was a main reason for fear in the country. In Guatemala, 77 percent thought getting a gun was too easy and 87 percent said the easy availability of weapons was a main reason for fear.    June 15, 2006    Can UN stem flow of Small Arms, by Susan Waltz. (CS Monitor )    Apparently, no one knows what"s happened to the thousands of AK-47s - and millions of rounds of ammunition - transferred from Bosnian wartime stockpiles to Iraq since 2004: Not the Bosnian government, nor NATO officials, nor the Alabama-based military contractor who transported the weapons, nor the Multi-National Command in Iraq, which was the intended recipient.    The international authorities who control arms shipments from Bosnia admit that they have no tracking system to ensure the weapons don"t fall into the wrong hands, according to Amnesty International.    Like Africa in the past decade, Iraq today is awash in lightweight weapons. An estimated 7 million small arms were "lost" from Saddam Hussein"s stockpiles at the beginning of the 2003 Iraq war.    Add these to the millions already circulating in Africa, Latin America, East Asia, and the Middle East. These weapons have a remarkably long shelf life, and many are recycled from cold-war conflicts of earlier decades. But new arrivals constantly replenish the supply, as lightweight weapons are now produced in at least 95 countries.    In 2001, the United Nations opened a process to address the burgeoning small arms problem, and member states pledged to carry out a program to address "all aspects" of the illicit trade. Later this month, those states will reconvene to consider their progress - and it hasn"t been stellar.    Governments can claim some improvement in their management of weapons stockpiles, but relatively little has been done to reduce the size of the inventories or stem the flow of new provisions.    Last year, the US and a handful of other countries blocked UN efforts to develop legally binding standards for marking and tracing this class of weapons, and since 2001 no progress has been made in efforts to standardize regulations on arms brokering. Meanwhile, UN sanctions are broken with impunity.    Though a good number of arms-smuggling plots have been foiled, neither courts nor cops have been able to bring some of the most notorious arms dealers to justice. Despite an Interpol arrest warrant, for instance, arms trafficker Victor Bout continues to walk free - sometimes on the streets of Moscow.    Even when traffickers have been apprehended, some courts have found their powers limited by national laws that failed to provide adequate jurisdictional authority. In both Italy and Panama, for example, courts have dismissed cases even when the traffickers were in custody, because the weapons in question didn"t actually pass through their territory (en route to Africa in one case, and to Colombia in the other). A few weeks ago, high school students in England demonstrated just how easy it is to get around regulations by setting up a fictitious company and brokering "deals" to sell Pakistani grenade launchers to Syria, Turkish guns to Mali, and South African rifles to Israel.    At this point, the major impediment to controlling the flow of small arms is the lack of a common standard to enforce. Existing international regulations are woefully inadequate, and from a global perspective, the loopholes are abundant.    While most countries have some laws about transfers, they cover different aspects of trade and are highly variable. Fewer than half of all states regulate arms in transit. Only 32 states impose stringent regulations on arms brokering. And there are few international options for prosecuting individuals who break UN arms embargoes.    Over the past five years a coalition of nongovernmental organizations has called for a treaty to establish principles and impose uniform standards on the international trade in small arms. Last April, Britain launched an appeal for legally binding global standards for acceptable arms exports, and to date some 50 states have formally declared their support for a comprehensive arms-trade treaty.    At the UN meeting this summer, states will be asked to endorse global standards for the small-arms trade. It is time for the US to join this effort. The proposed global principles are intended to prevent transfers that will fuel conflict and harm civilians. They are largely parallel to the laws and regulations that govern export of US defense items, and they are in keeping with the commitment the US has asked other governments to make regarding the shoulder-fired missiles known as MANPADS.    Effectively, a uniform and universal set of principles would extend the application of existing regional agreements that the US helped negotiate and to which it already subscribes, including the Wassenaar Arrangement.    Setting standards for acceptable transfers, of course, is only the beginning - and arguably, it is the easy part. The hard part is enforcement. But no agency can implement or enforce a standard until it exists, and efforts to restrain access to these weapons must begin somewhere. This summer"s UN conference offers an important opportunity to bring this lethal trade under control, and it is an opportunity that neither the US nor other responsible suppliers can afford to pass up.    (Susan Waltz is professor of public policy and international relations at the University of Michigan).
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