Many Weapons, Few Global Rules

19 Nov 2008

While the global weapons trade remains largely unregulated, a recent push for enhanced international arms transfer controls has gained momentum.

On 5 November 2001, a ship called the Otterloo slid into Colombian waters carrying 3,000 AK-47 assault rifles and five million rounds of ammunition destined for local paramilitary forces. Originally legally authorized surplus weapons from Nicaragua for use by the Panamanian National Police Force, two Panama-based brokers engineered this in-transit diversion through false documents. The Otterloo’s captain bi-passed Panama and delivered the AK-47’s and ammunition to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), a group widely known for human rights abuses.

This external pageillicit weapons transfer fanned the decades-long flames of conflict in Colombia between the government, right-wing paramilitaries and left-wing insurgents. In fact, homicides in this region were one of the highest in the world during the late 1990s and early 2000s, the majority of which were caused by firearms.

Overview

As the above example illustrates, it is increasingly external pageunderstood that irresponsible and illicit arms transfers perpetuate conflicts and poverty, contribute to human rights and humanitarian law violations and negatively impact development, economic stability and tourism.

Over 740,000 people die directly or indirectly from external pagearmed violence, either from conflict or from criminal violence each year, while millions more are injured, displaced and suffer other external pageserious impacts.

And while the number of countries that produce and sell arms is growing, the trade in weapons still lacks the international regulatory criteria to guide it.

Although United Nations (UN) member states agreed to establish “a system for the regulation of armaments” in the external pageUN Charter (Art. 26), it has only been since the late 1990s that various regional and multilateral instruments on the trade in weapons have been agreed. These now provide a framework from which to feed into debates on weapon controls in the international fora.

With a strong push for transfer controls by civil society and a growing number of governments, the issue has gained momentum in the policy arena and decidedly become an agenda item in the 2008 UN General Assembly, as the possibility of an international Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) is negotiated.

The path to arms controls has often been muddled as states and civil society have attempted to guide the defining dialogue through different initiatives and changing strategies. This article attempts to chart the arms transfer control path to date, specifically the ATT initiative, and identifies key issues and challenges related to arms controls.

A long and winding path to the ATT

Last century was marked by two unsuccessful attempts at international arms transfer controls. Failure was borne of external pagestates’ aversion to banning weapon sales to non-signatory states, resentment of perceived infringements of their national sovereignty and military bloc rivalries.

It was not until the end of the Cold War that an interest in the issue of international arms controls was reborn. In the 1990s, a group of non-governmental organizations and activists renewed the call for a responsible arms trade.

In response, the 2000 draft Framework Convention on International Arms Transfers drew on relevant strains of international law, in particular, human rights (HR) and international humanitarian law (IHL). It was designed as a comprehensive, binding and universal agreement to ensure that controls imposed by one state or region were not undermined by others. The principal objective was to require parties to authorize all arms transfers of weapons through licensing procedures and to identify core, minimum criteria for use in this process, based on states’ existing obligations under international law.

Conceived as a framework agreement, the Convention allowed for complex aspects of the arms trade to be treated in separate protocols. Although the original draft emphasized all conventional weapons, it was refined to focus on small arms and light weapons upon the adoption of the 2001 UN external pageProgramme of Action to Prevent, Combat and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects.

By 2003 the draft Convention became commonly known as the Arms Trade Treaty and support for the initiative gained momentum between 2003 and 2006 through an international popular campaign.

In March 2005, the UK publicly stated support for an ATT on all conventional weapons. It was the first G8 state, as well as a major arms producer, to do so. The UK has continued to lead this effort with Australia, Argentina, Costa Rica, Kenya and Finland.

The ATT initiative has widely defined the framework for discussions of arms transfer criteria based on existing state obligations including HR and IHL. To date, this initiative has been endorsed by 20 Nobel Peace Prize laureates and has gained the public support of governments worldwide.

Arms controls today

The 1990s and early 2000s saw a number of regional and multilateral, politically and legally binding agreements reached on arms controls, some of which incorporated similar language as that of the ATT initiative. These have provided important guidelines and principles for arms exports and imports, transfers and trafficking of weapons.

Strengthened national laws have also emerged in many states. Further, the UN established the 1991 Register of Conventional Arms, which invites states to provide data on their exports and imports of conventional and small arms.

The ATT initiative has seen ongoing movement in recent years. In December 2006, the UN General Assembly approved the initiative, calling for the “Secretary-General to seek views of Member States on the feasibility, scope, and draft parameters for a comprehensive, legally binding instrument establishing common international standards for the import, export, and transfer of conventional arms.” An unprecedented 101 states and two regional organizations external pagesubmitted their views on the feasibility, scope and parameters of an ATT to the Secretary-General in 2007, with at least 90 of these implying that an ATT is feasible, possible and even desirable. Since then, a UN-mandated group of governmental experts has undergone research on this issue, and on October 31, 2008, at the First Committee of the UN General Assembly, 147 out of 192 UN member states voted in favor of developing an ATT.

Challenges ahead

A complex issue to regulate, challenges loom large when discussing the issue of arms controls, and in particular, an international legally binding ATT. These obstacles may not be mutually exclusive, but capture some of the intricacies of the problems encountered in the promotion of arms controls.

To start, arms controls may be seen as a hindrance to the UN member states’ right to obtain armaments for protection of their territory. From this point of view, other issues, such as those involving state sovereignty arise by both importing and exporting states. For example, an ATT stipulates that transfers of weapons should not be permitted if the transaction provokes violations of HR or IHL or further exacerbates conflict. This will interfere with state decisions to authorize arms transfers.

States have also expressed concerns that one obligatory international instrument would undermine customary, regional and national existing laws and guidelines that currently regulate HR, IHL and the trade in weapons. If only minimal international obligations are agreed, the few states with strong existing national regulations will find the new controls less stringent than their own, although more rigorous requirements on the global level are often met with opposition. It has been argued further that only codifying existing obligations appears a meaningless and costly task.

Another stumbling block is the difficulty in obtaining approval by all states, in particular, larger arms producers that may see curbs in profits or closed loopholes due to international arms controls. Blocking states that are not party to an ATT or other arms control efforts will undermine the process and discourage other states from approval. Also, concern about whether an ATT will have impact on arms acquisitions by corrupt governments and non-state actors make decision-makers cautious about arms transfer control criteria.

Further, the process and implementation of arms transfer controls are inherently complex and sensitive due to the involvement of and links with a string of supply and demand chain actors and trade tactics, from government exporters and importers, to customs officials and intermediaries. Diversion of weapons from the legal to the illicit markets, for example, proves a serious oversight in the transfer process with critical consequences. Any arms transfer control agreement and its consequent implementation processes must be well-defined and adequately enforced in all its aspects.

The muddled focus of more than one arms control initiative has caused confusion about the original intent of a potential ATT. However, the General Assembly’s 2006 approval to look into the feasibility, scope and parameters of a comprehensive instrument of conventional weapons control through the ATT initiative has made the separation of proposals clearer and less competitive.

It will be necessary for states and civil society to clearly determine the objectives and efforts of control, implementation and enforcement processes. Arms controls, and in particular a potential ATT, may simply boil down to political will.

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