Introduction: Future directions in small arms control

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Notes

1. These calls have come most recently from the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation (HFG) and its associated Research Initiative on Small Arms (RISA) and also from the Consortium for Small Arms Research (CSAR) based at the University of Oklahoma. The HFG Review entitled ‘Small Arms and Light Weapons: A Call for Research’ is available at <http://www.hfg.org/hfg_review/main.htm>. The CSAR website is <http://csar.ou.edu/>.

2. The UN Panel of Governmental Experts on Small Arms in its 1997 report included ‘clubs, knives and machetes’ in its definition. Landmines are often treated as a separate and individual category of ‘light weapons’, especially in the context of international agreements. Other definitions of light weapons include weapons that can be carried by an infantry soldier or perhaps a small vehicle or pack animal and weapons that do not need elaborate logistical and maintenance capability and can therefore be employed by insurgent groups and paramilitary formations. The best categorization of ‘heavy weapons’ is the UN Register of Conventional Weapons, which lists seven categories of heavy weapons as battle tanks; armored combat vehicles; large caliber artillery; combat aircraft; attack helicopters; warships; and missiles/launchers. See Andrew Latham, ‘Taking the Lead? Light Weapons and International Conflict’, International Journal, Vol.2, No.2 (1997), p.318 and Edward. J. Laurance, ‘Surplus Weapons and the Micro-Disarmament Process’, Disarmament: A Periodic Review by the United Nations, Vol.19, No.2 (1996), p.59 and Small Arms, Study Series 28 (New York: United Nations, 1999), p.11.

3. Significantly, however, this marginalization was not only the cause, but also an effect, of the relative lack of academic interest they had hitherto attracted.

4. E.J. Laurance, ‘Small Arms Research: Where We Are and Where We Need to Go’, The HFG Review (Spring 2005), p.4.

5. Colum Lynch, ‘Report Finds Combat Deaths, Armed Conflicts on the Decline’, Washington Post, 18 October 2005 and Small Arms Survey 2005 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), p.3. Keith Krause has acknowledged that even the estimates produced by the meticulous Small Arms Survey suffer from a lack of systematic quantitative data and an over-reliance by analysts on government and media accounts. Small Arms Survey Press Release, 11 July 2005.

6. These so-called indirect or ‘excess’ deaths are believed to compose up to 80 per cent of those who die in conflicts in places like the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sudan, with figures running into the hundreds of thousands, if not millions in such cases. Small Arms Survey 2005, p.2.

7. Laurance, ‘Small Arms Research’, p.4.

8. Aaron Karp, ‘Negotiating Small Arms Restraint: The Boldest Frontier for Disarmament, Disarmament Forum, Vol.2 (2000), p.5.

9. The UN was also forced to confront the ease with which combatants could continue to access weapons despite the existence of UN embargoes.

10. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, ‘Global Leadership After the Cold War’, Foreign Affairs, Vol.75, No.2 (1996), p.93.

11. The full document is available at <http://disarmament2.un.org/cab/poa.html>.

12. Keith Krause, ‘The Challenge of Small Arms and Light Weapons’, Paper presented at the 3rd International Security Forum, Kongresshaus Zurich, Switzerland, 19–21 October 1998, p.2. See also Laura Lumpe, ‘Curbing the Proliferation of Small Arms and Light Weapons’, Security Dialogue, Vol.30, No.2 (1999), pp.152–153.

13. The Mine Ban Treaty is the fastest multilateral arms control convention to come into force, taking only 15 months. Charli Wyatt, ‘Light and Lethal’, The World Today, Vol.57, No.7 (2001), p.14. See also Karp, ‘Negotiating Small Arms Restraint’, pp.9–10.

14. Neil Cooper also discusses the differences between WMD and SALW control regimes in his essay in this volume.

15. For an explanation of the role of SALW in identity construction see Andrew Latham, ‘Light Weapons and Human Security – A Conceptual Overview’, in Lora Lumpe (ed.), Small Arms Control: Old Weapons, New Issues (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, 1999), pp.13–15.

16. The Impact of Guns on Women's Lives, Control Arms Coalition of Amnesty International, IANSA and Oxfam (Oxford: The Alden Press, 2005), p.2. Cited in Vanessa Farr's essay in this collection.

17. Others include International Alert, Saferworld and the Centre for International Cooperation and Security at Bradford University.

18. Laurance, ‘Small Arms Research’, pp.4–5.

19. Small Arms Survey 2004 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), p.7.

20. Michael T. Klare, ‘An Overview of the Global Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons’, in Lumpe, Small Arms Control, pp.4–5. For example, nearly ten years after it was persuaded to relinquish the WMD it inherited from the former Soviet Union, Ukraine still stores more than 7 million SALW, 2 million tons of ammunition and 1000 MANPADS in 80 depots dispersed across its territory. A NATO sponsored three year program to destroy 133,000 tons of munitions, 1.5 million guns and all 1000 MANPADs will begin this autumn. However, at this pace the full disposal of Ukraine's surplus inventory will take 50 to 100 years. The UN also documented the sale of 68 tons of munitions from Ukraine to Burkina Faso in 1999, all of which eventually ended up in the hands of the infamous Revolutionary United Front of Sierra Leone. See ‘Lugar, Obama Urge Destruction of Conventional Weapons Stockpiles’, Nunn–Lugar Report, August 2005, available at <http://lugar.senate.gov>, and C.J. Chivers, ‘Post-Soviet Danger: Vulnerable Munitions Depots’, International Herald Tribune, 16 July 2005.

21. The Treaty will codify the responsibility of arms exporters to ensure that the weapons they supply are not used in serious violations of international law. For an overview of the Treaty and its objectives see Michael Crowley and Greg Puley, ‘The Framework Convention on International Arms Transfers’, in Tamar Gabelnick and Rachel Stohl (eds.), Challenging Conventional Wisdom: Debunking Myths and Exposing the Risks of Arms Export Reform (Washington, DC: Federation of American Scientists and Center for Defense Information, June 2003).

22. In late 2003 the UN General Assembly decided to include MANPADS in the UN Register of Conventional Weapons, along with artillery systems of 75 mm caliber and above. The G8 leaders also agreed to ‘[w]ork towards expedited adoption of the updated Wassenaar “Elements for Export Controls on MANPADS”’. Small Arms Survey 2005, pp.128–129. For an analysis of the success of the UN Register in controlling the transfer of major weapons systems see Edward J. Laurance, Hendrik Wagenmakers and Herbert Wulf, ‘Managing the Global Problems Created by the Conventional Arms Trade: An Assessment of the United Nations Register of Conventional Arms’, Global Governance, Vol.11 (2005).

23. The states most responsible for preventing the adoption of a legally binding treaty were the US, Iran and Egypt. In addition, the agreement allows states to refuse to disclose information on arms sales on the grounds of ‘national security’. Ammunition, shells and explosives will also be excluded from its provisions. In the words of Oxfam's Campaign Director, Anne MacDonald, ‘there is [still] more likelihood of being able to trace a missing suitcase than machine gun bullets’. Richard Norton-Taylor, ‘UN Arms Trade Deal Toothless, Say Critics’, The Guardian, 14 July 2005.

24. R.T. Naylor, Wages of Crime: Black Markets, Illegal Finance and the Underworld Economy (Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press, 2002), p.11.

25. This is an actual description of the state of affairs in the DRC. See Wairagala Wakabi, ‘The Arms Smugglers’, New Internationalist, Vol.367 (May 2004), p.20.

26. Reports by Oxfam, Amnesty and IANSA have all documented the sale and transfer of arms from G8 members to countries like Burma, China, Sudan, Colombia, Algeria and others, despite the existence of arms embargoes and continuing human rights abuses. Richard Norton-Taylor, ‘G8 Countries Defying Arms Embargoes, Says Report’, The Guardian, 22 June 2005.

27. Michael T. Klare also argues that ‘diffusion’ rather than ‘proliferation’ is a more appropriate term, given their pervasive spread of SALW across and within national boundaries. See Michael T. Klare, ‘The International Trade in Light Weapons: What We Have Learned’, in John Boutwell and Michael T. Klare (eds.), Light Weapons and Civil Conflict: Controlling the Tools of Violence (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1999), p.21.

28. See Barbara F. Walter, Committing to Peace (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002) and Barbara F. Walter, ‘Designing Transitions from Civil War’, International Security, Vol. 24, No. 1 (1999). Also see Caroline Hartzell and Matthew Hoddie's article in this issue.

29. See David Keen, ‘The Economic Functions of Violence in Civil Wars, Adelphi Paper 320 (London: Brassey's for the IISS, 1998), p.11, and Mats Berdal and David M. Malone, ‘Introduction’, in Mats Berdal and David M. Malone (eds.), Greed and Governance: Economic Agendas in Civil Wars (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2000), p.4.

30. Significantly, implementing demobilization and reintegration before disarmament, as Spear suggests, is compatible with both neorealist and neoliberal approaches.