Abstract
1992: A young couple–members of the FMLN–celebrate the end of El Salvadors civil war.
Enlightened politicians and officials are awakening to the fact that hundreds of millions of small arms and light weapons are in circulation, accumulated through decades of irresponsible trade and Cold War giveaways.
A new climate of opinion is emerging in the West, as pictures of child soldiers and dead and wounded civilians are beamed onto television screens and as foreign holiday destinations are declared no-go zones.
Organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have raised awareness, too, by exposing the use of weapons against civilians. Developmental, humanitarian, and other agencies, including the International Committee of the Red Cross, are calling for much stricter limits to the trade.
Rhetorically at least, human rights arguments have achieved greater prominence in the foreign policy making of some governments. Britain's Foreign Secretary Robin Cook, for example, has declared that human rights should be at the center of foreign policy–and this idea is now being explicitly incorporated into the arms control rules of the European Union.
As Western military priorities change, decision-makers have seen how uncontrolled flows of small arms and light weapons compromise peacekeeping and peace-support operations. In Angola, for instance, where an estimated two million light weapons remain in circulation, the unrestricted flow of weapons to the warring factions has greatly increased the risks to peacekeepers, rendered weapons collection a near-futile exercise, and threatened the prospects for lasting peace.
Similarly, at the onset of the civil war in Somalia, the United Nations estimated that half a million small arms and light weapons were circulating in Mogadishu alone. This made Somalia so volatile and the demilitarization task so dangerous that, at one stage, peacekeeping troops were instructed to abandon the collection of weapons, a situation that virtually paralyzed the operation. The very public humiliation of the U.S. peacekeepers in Somalia added to international frustration.
Other pressures
Research on the political economy of small arms and light weapons proliferation is not well developed. But analysts have begun to see that the real cost to Western economies can be measured in lost export markets, in lost opportunities for new productive investment abroad by civilian companies, and in squandered developmental and relief assistance.
The overall loss of potential production and income is massive compared to the income from sales of low-value arms. Somewhat belatedly, Western-based investors and traders have come to realize that regions of strategic importance require rapid and concerted measures to restrict access to small arms and light weapons.
Similarly, large international companies, especially those that already have fixed assets in countries plagued by violent crime and by armed conflict, are quietly trying to find solutions to protect staff and property so they can continue operations. Traditional methods have included the hiring of armed guards and the use of economic leverage with local authorities to acquire the protection of seconded police and soldiers. Where these forces have not been adequate, mining and other companies have resorted to contracting with international security firms.
But these protection measures have often been ineffective–or have sometimes backfired amid negative publicity alleging human rights abuses–as was the case with Shell Oil in Nigeria and British Petroleum in Colombia. Increasingly, local managers of international enterprises have come to believe that limiting the proliferation of small arms should be part of the solution.
As multinationals that operate in some of the world's trouble spots bring pressure on Western governments to control the small arms-light weapons trade, they have found allies in an unexpected quarter. Some large manufacturers of military and dual-use equipment in Western Europe complain that indiscriminate trafficking in small arms and light weapons turns public opinion against what they see as legitimate sales of defense equipment, and they are urging governments to take tougher action.
This is hardly surprising. For most large arms manufacturers in NATO countries, small arms and light weapons sales are just a minor fraction of their total revenue.
Limited vision
By 1996 it was evident in the report of the United Nations Panel of Governmental Experts on Small Arms that Western governments would tackle the small arms-light weapons problem chiefly by combating illicit trafficking. More effective arms export regulations would be devised, and states with the worst problems would be helped to build the “capacity” to remove surplus arms from circulation.
However, the panel was unable to define illicit trafficking or to provide an explicit framework for either regulation or capacity building. Indeed the non-aligned members of the panel refused to allow any explicit reference in the report to standards based upon international human rights or humanitarian law. As a result, the U.N. panel simply and vaguely defined illicit arms trafficking as “that international trade in conventional arms which is contrary to the laws of States and/or international law.”
Many Western governments have since ignored–or have only paid lip service–to the latter part of the definition. In practice, officials who shape arms export policy have assumed that “illegal transfers” are shipments of arms carried out without the express approval of the governmental authorities where the arms originate–even if the transfers will contravene or help flout international law.
The U.S. government was quick to realize that tackling the “evils” of illicit trafficking was an approach that could win widespread support among suppliers and recipients alike. Thus the United States threw its weight behind a Mexican-led initiative for a hemisphere-wide convention on illicit weapons trafficking. The “Inter-American Convention Against the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, Ammunition, Explosives, and Other Related Materials,” signed by the Organization of American States (OAS) in November 1997, marked a new and important development in efforts to combat trafficking.
The U.S. and Canadian governments have since led efforts to “globalize” the OAS Convention. There is now an emerging consensus to use the convention as the basis for a legally binding Firearms Protocol to the U.N. Transnational Organized Crime Convention expected by the year 2000.
While the OAS Convention could have some positive effect if implemented, it is still a limited measure because it only covers commercial sales and not government-to-government transfers. Also, because of its current narrow “illicit” focus, it would not outlaw small arms transfers where they would be used to facilitate serious crimes by state armed forces.
The idea that the abuse–and therefore the control–of small arms has to do only with weapons in the hands of nongovernment individuals or groups has led the Canadian government to present rough proposals for an international convention to ban transfers, including those by governments, of military-specification small arms to all non-state actors.
There is obviously some merit in having a treaty that would, for example, stop the U.S. government from arming the notorious UNITA rebels in Angola. However, the Canadian proposals do not yet incorporate respect for existing international law so that civilian populations subjected to war crimes and crimes against humanity (and who lack effective protection by the international community) would be prohibited from receiving or using minimum armed force in their self-defense.
The Canadian government proposal, for instance, would have made it an international crime to give handguns to a resistance movement suffering Nazi occupation. Clearly, some more thought is needed on this proposal, as indeed some Canadian officials have acknowledged.
Preventing arms transfers to governments that are guilty of human rights violations against their own people is on the European Union agenda. Since 1996, EU governments have come under increasing pressure from public opinion to restrain or ban arms exports to states supporting internal repression or external aggression. Nongovernmental organizations within the European Union have campaigned for a binding Code of Conduct based upon international law that would compel such restraint. The Council of Ministers of the European Union agreed last June to adopt a much watered-down version of the Code of Conduct that was only “politically binding” instead of legally binding.
Some of the criteria in the code, such as the obligation not to export arms to serious human rights abusers, were forward steps. Nonetheless, the code contains many loopholes through which small arms could be transferred. For example, it contains no provisions to stop or regulate brokers in the European Union from using non-EU sources of supply, nor does it address the huge problem of exports of licensed production of arms.
However, the European Union also agreed to a program designed to tackle illicit arms trafficking, acknowledging that “peace and security are inextricably interlinked with economic development and reconstruction.” This holistic approach is an important departure from previous policy, which made clear distinctions between developmental aid and security assistance. However, there are still very few resources committed by EU states for this program.
No cheerleading
There is a growing understanding and even acknowledgment among Western governments that law enforcement agencies in many countries are incapable of investigating and prosecuting human-rights offenders, or of collecting and guarding illegal arms. Indeed, law enforcement officers may themselves be guilty of serious abuses against civilians.
The upsurge of research and campaigning by NGOs on the proliferation and misuse of small arms is a much-needed development, but the range of responses by major Western governments is inconsistent and far too limited to deal with the gravity of the problem.
In particular, there is a lack of governmental measures to deal with abuses by armed forces and law-enforcement agents who attack citizens of their own country–attacks that help drive and sustain demand by non-state actors for weapons to be used in self-defense. Without understanding current governmental strategies, NGOs may unwittingly act as cheerleaders for government initiatives instead of fulfilling their role as independent and impartial monitors.
There is an urgent need to build campaigns that will widen the current government initiatives on illicit transfers–ensuring that the concept of “illicit” is rooted in existing international law–while pressing governments to significantly tighten up control systems on all authorized arms exports.
These systems must include prior scrutiny of sensitive license applications by legislatures, strict regulation of international arms brokers and licensed production agreements, and active monitoring of the end uses of exported arms.
The fundamental starting point should be that all small arms and light weapons, larger military items, and security equipment and services need to be subjected to strict control by governments according to the highest possible international standards.
Further, nongovernmental organizations and their allies have to persuade as many governments as possible that little will be achieved to stem the proliferation and misuse of small arms unless much greater practical effort and resources to establish effective systems of accountability and training are forthcoming.
The conduct of soldiers, police, and others authorized to use armed force under certain circumstances must be made to conform to international human rights standards and international humanitarian law.
Meanwhile, if a population is subjected to tyranny in the form of systematic crimes against humanity and war crimes, it should retain the right to defend itself with minimum force, especially where the international community fails to offer effective protection.
Only in this context, and where civil society has an obvious interest in supporting the efforts of properly conducted law enforcement agencies, can the battle against the terror of small arms be won.