NEWS FROM SIPRI

SIPRI Update: Global Security & Arms Control
July/August 2008
Feature essay
Combating the illicit trade in small and light weapons
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Paul Holtom
Small arms and light weapons (SALW) inflict death and hamper development throughout the world. International gatherings to combat the illicit trade in SALW are therefore to be welcomed. But the Third Biennial Meeting of States (BMS) on SALW, held in New York in July, had a mixed outcome. While a carefully constructed agenda and pre-drafted outcome document meant that the meeting was a nominal success, few new ideas emerged.
The BMS was the main positive outcome of the 2006 Small Arms Review Conference, which had been convened to assess implementation and possible expansion of the Programme of Action to Prevent, Combat, and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects (POA). China, Cuba, Egypt, Iran, Israel, Pakistan, Russia and the United States had helped to ensure that the Review Conference concluded without agreement on a final report—the 2006 conference thus failed to provide a mandate for a further review in 2011 or guidance on implementation of the POA. It was hoped that the 2008 BMS would signal that states were still committed to the POA process.
In his opening remarks to the BMS, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stated that, by their very presence, UN member states had ‘reaffirmed their confidence in the [POA]’ and he stressed the ‘fight against the illicit arms trade is one of the UN’s top priorities in the field of disarmament’. Unfortunately, the meeting fell short of that rhetoric. Iran tried to scupper the adoption of the final report on procedural grounds and 56 states did not participate in the vote on its adoption. However, the fact that 134 states voted in favour of the outcome document, with only Iran and Zimbabwe abstaining, has led some to claim that the meeting was a success.
This success was virtually guaranteed by the pre-prepared agenda. Most of the sessions at the BMS focused on four priority areas for which member states had already expressed rhetorical support in previous POA meetings: (a) international cooperation, assistance and national capacity building; (b) illicit brokering in SALW; (c) stockpile management and surplus disposal; and (d) the international tracing instrument. The final report presented recommendations for the ‘way forward’ for each priority area. A closer reading shows that the ‘way forward’ consists mainly of rephrased commitments made in 2001.
Despite repeated rhetorical commitments to these non-contentious issues, progress in their implementation has been poor. A recent study by the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR) notes that in only 21 of the 40 states that have national regulations to control brokering was the introduction of brokering legislation explicitly linked to the POA.
For many, the slow progress is explained by the lack of good guidance on how to best implement the POA. As a consequence, the main theme of the third BMS was enhanced international cooperation: more information sharing, better coordination of technical and material assistance, and greater practical cooperation at the regional and sub-regional levels. To this end, the UN Office for Disarmament Affairs contributed to proceedings by launching the POA-Implementation Support System (POA-ISS), a platform for states and civil society to exchange information and match donor and recipient needs.
Unfortunately, the USA—which since 2001 has helped countries around the world to destroy 1 million SALW and strengthen their transfer controls and stockpile management, and which remains committed to spreading best practise in these areas—was only present for the discussions on the international tracing instrument. It thus missed an opportunity to promote its practical assistance to other states and demonstrate its actual contribution to combating the illicit trade in SALW.
However, if the USA had attended, awkward questions could have arisen on its poor controls over the sourcing, supply and post-shipment controls of arms brokered from Bosnia and Herzegovina, and old Chinese ammunition acquired from Albania for the Afghan and Iraqi security forces. In addition, the USA would once again have been forced to confront issues that it strongly opposed at the 2006 Review Conference—prohibitions on supplying SALW to non-state actors, controls on civilian possession of SALW and a proposal to make the Programme of Action legally binding.
Two other ‘ways forward’ were discussed during the BMS. First, in the official public sessions Colombia and Mali called for another review conference to consider the broadening of the POA agenda. Second, on the sidelines of the event frustrations with the slow progress of the POA and scepticism about the chances for expanding the POA agenda led some to consider forming a group of like-minded states to promote action to combat the illicit SALW trade outside the UN POA framework. Analogies with the campaigns for the treaties prohibiting the production and use landmines and cluster munitions were obviously in mind. Of course, even outside the confines of a consensual UN approach, such a grouping is unlikely to call for a treaty banning the production, transfer and use of SALW.
On a more positive note, the Programme of Action has helped raise the salience of SALW proliferation and has strengthened the case for the inclusion of SALW in mechanisms for monitoring the transfer of major conventional weapons. For example, reporting information on SALW transfers to the UN Register of Conventional Arms is now encouraged. It is also likely that SALW will continue to be considered in the current third session of the Group of Governmental Experts convened by the UN Secretary-General to consider an international arms trade treaty. These developments could be counted amongst the ‘successes’ of the POA.
In the two years since the disappointment of the 2006 Review Conference states have continued to develop national and regional measures to combat the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons. Such developments would have continued even if the 2008 BMS had not adopted a final report, and this is one of the more important measures of the Programme of Action’s success. However, ultimate success should be measured in terms of the number of SALW and ammunition shipments prevented from reaching targets of UN arms embargoes and other recipients that will use SALW to commit human rights abuses and violence against civilians.
About the author

Dr Paul Holtom (United Kingdom) is a Researcher with the SIPRI Arms Transfers Project. His recent publications include Small Arms Production in Russia (Saferworld 2007) and Transparency in Transfers of Small Arms and Light Weapons: Reports to the United Nations Register of Conventional Arms, 2003–2006, SIPRI Policy Paper no. 22 (2008). He was also lead author on the report United Nations Arms Embargoes: Their Impact on Arms Flows and Target Behaviour (SIPRI/Uppsala University, 2007). He holds a PhD in Russian and East European Studies from the University of Birmingham.