Light Weapons - Heavy Burden Of Problems

Pyotr LITAVRIN

The UN Conference on Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects had been looked forward to with impatience. Since the mid-1990s the international commu­nity has attached growing attention to the prob­lem of illicit trade in small arms and light weapons (SALW). Lately the problem of the spread and leakage of particular types of SALW, such as man portable air defense sys­tems (MANPADS) and ammunition has become even more acute given the growing threat of ter­rorist attacks. It calls for considering regi­onal and global steps to control and limit the spread of SALW.

Background

It is common knowl­edge that in the past few dec­ades, especially after the end of the cold war mil­lions of people have died in so-called low intensity conflicts, 3 million¹ of them in the 1990s, mainly civilians, not to mention the hundreds of thousands who have died at the hands of crimi­nals using firearms.  On January 2001 the world had about 226 million pieces of SALW in the possession of governments and agencies subordi­nate to them, and 305 million in the possession of private individuals.²

The uncontrollable spread of SALW and their use in various conflicts have become an espe­cially grave problem in Africa to the south of Sahara, in Afghanistan, South Asia, the Bal­kans, several South American countries and in the Caucasus.

The fact that the overwhelming majority of countries have recognized the acuteness of the problem by no means signifies the ability of all UN members to resolve it fast or agree on spe­cific steps. Arms production and trade are a profitable business, and the rhetoric about the need to uproot illicit arms trade often goes hand in hand with reluctance or inability to settle ethnic, religious or territorial conflicts.

The serious differences between countries over the tasks of the conference, the expediency of discussing legal arms trade at it, the nature of decisions to be made (legally binding or a po­litical declaration)³  prompted advance talk that the forum is doomed to failure. However, long before the beginning of the conference several governments and NGOs launched a pow­erful propaganda campaign to mobilize pub­lic opinion to pressure the participants to pass radical decisions.

U.N. Conference

In its organization and essence the conference may be divided into two stages. During the first week delegates from countries and international or­ganizations made speeches expressing the attitudes of their governments or leaderships to key aspects of the SALW problem. During the second week the conference coordinated the draft of its final document.

The speeches reflected the concern of the world community about the illicit spread of SALW, especially in conflict zones, the negative hu­manitarian and socioeconomic consequences of the spread. The speakers were virtually unani­mous in their opinion that individual countries or groups of countries are unable resolve the problem of the uncontrollable spread of such arms and prevent their unbalancing accumula­tion. Almost everyone agreed that the United Nations should play a leading role in resolving the problem of SALW. The unanimity more or less ended there.

Diversity of approach

As could have been expected even at the early stage of the conference it became clear that dif­ferent countries see resistance to illicit trade in SALW and consequently the tasks of the con­ference differently.

EU countries as well as several African nations singled out the humanitarian aspect of the SALW problem, stressing the need to regulate legal arms trade from which arms tickle to the black market. However, the radicalism of these countries varied greatly from the calls of Canada and Switzerland to work out legally binding documents on control over legal trade in SALW to the rhetoric of some African repre­sentatives who that blamed industrialized coun­tries for "imposing" arms on developing nations. Such approaches did not find broad support from participants in the conference. Even though there are many instances when SALW spread to illegal markets from legal, most ex­perts believe that illegal trade in SALW consti­tutes 10-20% of legal.⁴ The mandate of the conference clearly named the priority - cases of leaks - as one of the many aspects of the SALW issue.

Some Western countries, for instance, the United States, Austria and Australia, assumed a moderate attitude. They recognized the danger of the uncontrolled spread of SALW and empha­sized the need for stronger national control, the transparency of transfers and international co­operation in resisting illegal deliveries of such arms. The American representative from the very start made it understood that it would be unacceptable for the United States to include in the final document any provisions restricting the private possession of SALW or regulating the legal turnover of such weapons.

South American countries, primarily Mexico, Brazil and Colombia, assumed a generally con­structive stance at the conference. They sug­gested concentrating on the illegal spread of SALW calling to establish broad international cooperation on all its aspects. They broadly publicized the Inter-American Convention Against the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Ammunition, Explosives and Other Related Materials approved by the Organization of American States but did not try to impose it as a model to be followed, understanding that each region has its own specific features. It is indicative, however, that there were differences inside the group. Costa Rica, a country not having an army of its own, spoke for the maximum restriction of, if not ban on trade in SALW.

ASEAN countries like South America took a pragmatic and realistic stance. For them the main questions were resistance to illegal trade in SALW and the unacceptability of suprana­tional mechanisms of controlling and regulating legal arms transfers.

Naturally, individual countries often looked at the general problem from the angle of their spe­cific national concerns. For instance, India, Sri Lanka and Israel closely linked illegal trade in SALW with terrorism and crime, and Colombia with drug trafficking.

A relatively big group of countries - Arab na­tions, China, Iran and Pakistan - formed an op­position to the EU delegates. The Arabs and Chi­nese quite strongly advocated the stance that the mandate of the conference had to be strictly observed and only illicit arms trade matters dis­cussed. They disagreed with the idea of working out international legally binding rules regulat­ing SALW turnover and spoke against any in­terference in national practices and against the transparency of any SALW transfers. Many delegations rejecting the idea of developing an international mechanism to control and monitor SALW deliveries stressed that at first all gov­ernments should pay attention to the state of af­fairs in national control over SALW and take concrete steps to strengthen and improve appro­priate national laws and regulatory acts. It is an open secret that such laws are absent or ineffec­tive in a number of countries, consequently in­ternational cooperation will not be effective enough until countries themselves take adequate steps to stop illegal trade in SALW. Such ef­forts should be encouraged and supported pri­marily on a regional scale. There, where coun­tries manage to agree on common understand­ings on SALW, for instance in OSCE or in America, such understandings should be reached.

The Russian position

Russia's stance seemed quite convincing and rea­sonable in this general context. Several years ago the Russian approach to SALW was criti­cized as rigid and unconstructive (for instance, in the framework of OSCE). However, time showed that Russia does not block the adoption of important decisions, but on the contrary pro­poses realistic solutions.

In his speech head of the Russian government delegation Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ordzhonikidze stressed the importance of strengthening international cooperation in re­sisting illegal trade in SALW and drew the at­tention of the participants in the conference to the need to immediately discuss illicit trade in these weapons.

Russia's opinion that it is necessary to take practicable steps to combat illicit trade in SALW won support from many delegations. Russia spoke for taking into account to the ut­most all aspects of the illegal turnover of such arms. At the same time Russian representatives noted that now it is more important to concen­trate on concrete steps to rid crisis areas and the world as a whole from illegal flows of such arms, to establish the cooperation of interested agencies in all countries than on radical meas­ures of limiting and reducing lawful deliveries of SALW or establishing corresponding monitoring.

In his speech, the head of the Russian delegation also noted that Russia as a key manufacturer and exporter of SALW pursues an appropriate policy of their deliveries to the international market, takes steps to tighten control over their production, turnover and transfers, destroys their surpluses on a planned and regular basis.

For instance, in 1998 through 2001 Russian De­fense Ministry arsenals and bases disposed 421,021 pieces small arms and close combat weapons, 44,000 of them in 2000. Besides, in 2000-2001 the Russian Interior Ministry with­drew from illegal turnover 2,482 pieces of small arms and light weapons and disposed 1,142 of them. The rest are being disposed as criminal cases are being solved.

The approach was shared by the delegations of Belarus and Ukraine that spoke against making ambitious plans at this stage and stressed the need to expand regional cooperation to stop il­licit trade in SALW, in particular, in the framework of OSCE.

Struggle over final document

The second part of the conference was marked by a stubborn struggle over the draft of the fi­nal document - the Programme of Action to Prevent, Combat and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects. The document was drafted on the basis of three sessions of the preparatory committee of the conference and manifested a fragile balance of interests.

The second stage followed the scenario of the first. EU countries with the support of several African nations tried to pack the document with their proposals on regulating legal trade, on the transparency of SALW deliveries etc, mainly clearly unacceptable for a significant group of participants. Arab and ASEAN countries and China meticulously tried to eradicate from the draft any mention of possible control over legal deliveries of SALW or the mandatory disposal of their surpluses.

Several occurrences give an idea of the con­flicting approaches of the participants to a number of matters. For instance, an Arab coun­try representative suggested dropping the men­tion of the need to mark SALW in the process of production altogether while the Swiss dele­gate energetically lobbied the proposal on the development of an international mechanism of monitoring SALW flows relying on marking and exchange of information, and the following ap­proval of a convention on SALW marking.

The Pakistani delegate found unfair even the seemingly indisputable provision on the need to observe the UN Security Council embargo on arms deliveries because it discriminated against the Taliban in Afghanistan.

The clause that the sanction of the initial ex­porter country is mandatory for the re-exporta­tion of SALW was not fully mani­fested either. Strange as it may seem, EU countries that took pride in their most advanced attitude to resist­ing the spread of SALW spoke for exempting it altogether.

However, the coordination of reexportation - which the Russian representative stressed - is an important generally accepted procedure, a kind of alpha and omega of civilized arms trade. The EU stance on the matter did not find sup­port - ASEAN countries, Russia, the United States and South American nations spoke against it. As a result Europeans had to make concessions, especially as it was difficult for them to be too insistent on the matter because the OSCE document on SALW contains a pro­vision on the need to coordinate reexprotation deals or at least to conduct consultations on the issue with the country - initial exporter. The in­stance is indicative. Even though the EU has adopted a broad program of resisting illicit trade in SALW, evidently when it comes to commercial interests (the reexportation of for­mer Soviet arms primarily from several Central and East European countries without the ap­proval of Russia and CIS countries) the tempta­tion is too great to resist.

Neither does the fact that NATO countries let Albanian rebels captured carrying arms enter territories controlled by the rebels quite con­form to the proclaimed EU approach.

It is noteworthy that during the debate on the draft document many developing countries started proposing numerous amendments and addenda that threatened to foil the work on the document. However, thanks to the skilful chairmanship of the conference president, Co­lombian ambassador Camilo Reyes Rodriguez the discussion was returned to a constructive vein.

The conference was also threatened from an­other side. As provisions were gradually coordi­nated, solutions and compromises found it ap­peared that the U.S. delegation still categori­cally resisted two of its clauses. Firstly, the re­striction of the private possession of SALW be­cause that contradicted the American constitu­tion, and secondly, which was more significant, that SALW may be transferred only to govern­ments or their authorized representatives. While on the private possession of SALW all partici­pants could have meet the United States half way though with great difficulty, the second caused a stalemate. If the clause were dropped, it would actually mean that the UN document said nothing about the possible deliveries of SALW to various antigovernment groups, indi­viduals or terrorists. This badly enfeebled the draft document. Even though the U.S. delegate found himself in complete isolation, the Ameri­can delegation refused to drop its reservations. At the end the conference had little choice: ei­ther not to have any document at all or to com­promise and adopt a declaration taking Wash­ington's stance into account. All countries par­ticipating in the conference made their choice and the final document was approved by consensus.

Significance of Conference

Though many countries expected more of the fi­nal document, nevertheless given the conflicting approaches of the participating countries the program of action represents the maximum pos­sible for the moment. It contains a detailed re­view of the state of affairs in the sphere of SALW turnover, names the reasons for their un­controlled spread, and contains advisory measures to combat illicit arms trade. To a smaller or greater extent the document will serve as a guiding line for many countries that are only beginning an effective struggle against illegal trade in SALW.

It should be borne in mind that the document is quite balanced. It takes into account the inter­ests of SALW manufacturers, the right of coun­tries to self-defense and also the interests of na­tions suffering from excessive unbalancing ac­cumulation of the arms. The program of action also gives an important impetus to efforts against illegal trade in SALW on the national, regional and international levels.

One may agree that the document could have been more energetic and contained a number of important provisions making struggle against il­legal trade in SALW more effective. However, in this case the unpreparedness of several coun­tries for large-scale resolute actions in the sphere would have made the program of action a mere declaration. It wouldn't be quite just to put all the blame for the shortcomings of the document on the USA. It was mentioned at the Conference that despite the international assis­tance some developing countries are unable or unwilling to work out a basic control measures over SALW import and turnover.

One should separately speak of the contribution of NGOs to the conference. It is common knowledge that they did a great job mobilizing the international community to combat illicit trade in small arms and light weapons. How­ever, NGO activities, and that was quite clearly demonstrated at the conference, are still largely marked by propaganda of a misconception of the state of affairs in the world, for instance, the link between armed conflicts and the spread of SALW. At time facts were deliberately juggled. For in­stance, almost a week before the end of the con­ference an NGO publication reported that per­manent members of the UN Security Council - the United States, Russia, Britain, France and China - were mainly responsible for undermin­ing the conference.

Nevertheless, given the great public response to the problem of SALW, such excesses are under­standable, if not justifiable. Much still depends on the NGOs, primarily the consistency and ef­fectiveness of the implementation of the recom­mendations of the conference. It is also an open secret that in Russia the contribution of civil society to the debate on SALW is still em­bryonic, which is hardly fair given the unfortu­nately high standard of violence and armed con­flicts in the CIS as well as Russia.

Nevertheless, on the whole the conference be­came the first significant step on the road of finding a global solution to the problem of the uncontrolled spread of SALW. Now, much is going to depend on the implementation of its program of action and on how firmly this set of issues enters the agenda of various forums held by the international community.

¹ Small Arms and Light Weapons, The Response of the EU, Luxembourg, 2001, p.5.

² Small Arms Survey, 2001, pp. 72, 85.

³ More on the approaches of different countries to SALW non-proliferation see Pyotr Litavrin, "Small Arms and Light Weapons - Global and Regional As­pects", Eksport Vooruzheniy Journal, #1 (January-February), 2001.

⁴ Small Arms Survey, 2001, p. 85.