Examining in Parallel Arms Control and T PDF

CRANFIELD UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENCE MANAGEMENT AND SECURITY

ANALYSIS
GLOBAL SECURITY DISSERTATION

ACADEMIC YEAR 2005-2006
LIEUTENANT GEORGIOS CHRYSOCHOU

HELLENIC NAVY
Examining in parallel arms control and the arms trade in the Post-
Cold War era: A guide to the new security challenges, implications and
perspectives of conventional arms control.
Supervisor: Professor Christopher Bellamy
August 2006
This dissertation is submitted in partial fulfilment of requirements for the

degree of Master of Science in Global Security.
(23,573 Words)
 Cranfield University 2006. All rights reserved. No part of this

publication may be reproduced without the written permission of the
copyright owner.
i
ABSTRACT
The end of the Cold War changed the international order and brought about new
security challenges for the conventional arms control field. The field had been shaped
by the ideologically driven political and strategic interests of the two superpowers of
that time and the continuous rivalry between NATO and the Warsaw Pact. In the
Post-Cold War era, arms control expanded into new geographical and political areas.
In an era where peace was established within the western world, many conflicts,
interstate and intrastate ones, started to emerge – or re-emerge - around the globe, and
especially in the developing world, based on ethnic and religious divides. All these
conflicts benefited from a deregulated arms market, where commercial forces,
civilianization and the internationalization of manufacturing and related technology
have made the nature of the conventional arms trade more vigorous than ever before.
These factors created new security challenges and prospects for the agenda of
conventional arms control field.
In addition, the links between disarmament processes and the economic and human
development agenda and the notion of the human security being threatened at a global
level by the circulation and accumulation of Small Arms and Light Weapons
(SALWs) have revealed new tasks for conventional arms control. Therefore, the old-
fashioned arms control agenda must be expanded to include issues like the effective
control of arms exports and arms transfers at a global level and combating illicit arms
trafficking and arms brokering, especially in the category of SALWs. However, the
international community seems too immature, at the moment, to assume a consensual
and comprehensive approach to conventional arms control, while all the relevant
initiatives concerning the arms transfers regulation produce significant shortcomings
and imperfections. Therefore, a holistic approach is necessary and will only be
achieved in concert with a global consensus on an international, legally binding arms
trade treaty, which will act as the cornerstone of a multifaceted and flexible
mechanism for conventional arms control. This must address, in a coherent way, both
pre-conflict and post-conflict situations and the different security cultures of the
world’s regions and moreover, be linked to the sustainable economic and human
development of the developing world.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The dissertation of this length would have been impossible without the proper and
substantive guidelines and supervision of my supervisor Professor Christopher
Bellamy, Security Studies Institute, Defence College of Management and Technology
(DCMT), Cranfield University. Professor Bellamy provided me the most significant
and valuable guidance for the purpose of this dissertation as well as the necessary
outline of writing. I would also like to thank Dr Paul Cornish, Royal Institute of
International Affairs, who gave me the motivation to work on the particular study
discipline by attending his presentation delivered during the 7th Global Security
Course, concerning the arms trade dynamics and its relevant regulatory efforts at the
present.
I am also grateful to all the members of the DCMT and the Joint Service Command
and Staff College (JSCSC) libraries for assisting me in finding all the necessary and
required material for the subject of this thesis. Finally, I thank Stephanie Muir and
Bella Platt, Security Studies Institute, Cranfield University for their administrative
support during the whole course and particularly during the period of dissertation
writing.
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CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE i
ABSTRACT ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii
CONTENTS iv
LIST OF TABLES viii
LIST OF FIGURES AND DIAGRAMS ix
LIST OF MAPS x
GLOSSARY/LIST OF ACRONYMS xi
CHAPTER 1 – INTRODUCTION 1
1.1. Background 1
1.2. Reasons for undertaking the study 4
1.3. Aim 7
1.4. Objectives 7
1.5. Conceptual Framework: Why conventional arms control and arms
trade should be examined in parallel in the Post-Cold War era 8
1.6. Scope and Limitations 9
1.7. Research Methodology 10
1.8. Study Structure 11
1.9. Literature Review 12
References 14
CHAPTER 2 – THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK 19

2.1. Introduction 19
2.2. Useful definitions and caveats 21
2.3. Purposes and objectives of conventional arms control and
the EU – US difference in their approaches 23
2.4. Conceptual principles for arms trade 24
iv
2.5. Conventional arms control and the relevant security theories 26
2.5.1. The theoretical framework between arms control
and security 26
2.5.2. Modern theoretical framework of conventional arms
control and disarmament: The relationship with the
conflict resolution theories 28
2.6. Conventional arms control and arms trade: The security link 31
2.6.1. The theoretical framework 31
2.6.2. Problematic cases and the issue of SALWs
in a theoretical perspective 33
2.7. Conclusion 36
References 37
CHAPTER 3 – HISTORICAL AND RECENT BACKGROUND 40

3.2. The historical background of conventional arms control 41
3.3. The Post-Cold War achievements in conventional arms control 42
3.4. The historical legacy of arms trade 44
3.5. The new trends of the arms market and transfers 46
3.6. SALWs: An old, yet recently considered issue 52
3.7. Principal Conventions and Regulatory Regimes for
the Post-Cold War arms transfers field 53
3.8. Conclusion 56
References 58
CHAPTER 4 – THE SECURITY CHALLENGES AND IMPLICATIONS

OF THE POST-COLD WAR ERA 63
4.1. Introduction: New forces and dynamics shaping the
arms market and the new implications 63
4.2. Illicit and covert arms trade: The ‘gray’ and ‘black’ market
and their operational dynamics 66
4.3. SALWs and their security challenges and implications 71
4.4. The nexus with the notion of human security and the
international development agenda 75
v
4.5. The link of disarmament and SALWs issues with the
the peace-management process 77
4.6. Incompatibilities of traditional (European type)
conventional arms control 79
4.7. Conflicting approaches small arms trade management:
Unilateralism against multilateralism 82
4.8. Preventing or repairing: The need for a holistic approach 83
4.9. Conclusion 85
References 87
CHAPTER 5 – EVALUATION OF CONVENTIONAL ARMS CONTROL

REGIMES AND FUTURE PERSPECTIVES 93
5.2. Brief summary of the scope and overall assessment of the
major existing regimes in classical conventional arms control 94
5.3. Brief summary of the scope and overall assessment of the major
conventional arms transfers control regimes and initiatives,
including the issues of SALWs and MANPADS 99
5.3.1. International level 99
5.3.2. Regional level and sub-regional level 103
5.4. Overall assessment, future perspectives and necessities:
A general context of a holistic, comprehensive approach
in the conventional arms control field 106
5.5. Conclusion 108
References 110
CHAPTER 6 – CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS 115

6.1. Summary and Conclusions 115
6.2. Policy recommendations 122
6.2.1. Comprehensive Conventional Arms Control Strategy
as a Preventive mechanism 122
6.2.2. Comprehensive Conventional Arms Control Strategy
as a responsive / repairing mechanism 125
vi
6.3. Recommendations for further research 126
6.4. Conclusion: The future of conventional arms control 127
References 129
BIBLIOGRAPHY 130
APPENDIX – A: UN Programme of Action to Prevent, Combat and Eradicate

the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects A-1
APPENDIX – B: UN Protocol against the Illicit Manufacturing of and
Trafficking in Firearms, Their Parts and Components and Ammunition,
supplementing the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime B-1
APPENDIX – C: The Wassenaar Arrangement at a Glance C-1
APPENDIX – D: The Ottawa Convention at a Glance D-1
APPENDIX – E: The Open Skies Treaty at a Glance E-1
APPENDIX – F: The Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE)
Treaty at a Glance F-1
APPENDIX – G: OSCE Principles for Export Controls of
Man-Portable Air Defence Systems (MANPADS) G-1
APPENDIX – H: OSCE Document on SALWs H-1
APPENDIX – I: The Inter-American Convention on Transparency in
Conventional Weapons Acquisitions At a Glance I-1
APPENDIX – J: European Union Code of Conduct on Arms Exports J-1
APPENDIX – K: EU Council Joint Action on the EU Contribution to Combating
the Destabilising Accumulation and Spread of Small arms and Light weapons K-1
APPENDIX – L: EU Council Common Position on
the Control of Arms Brokering L-1
vii
LIST OF TABLES
Table 1.1. World and regional military expenditure estimates 1995-2004…………2
Table 2.1. The world’s top 15 individual arms exporters for 1999………………..20
Table 2.2 Relationship between weapons levels and the probability

of war in the optimistic Intriligator-Brito model……………………….27
Table 2.3. Matrix of Arab-Israeli Arms Control Initiatives

and the Peace Process……………………………………………………30
Table 3.1. Additional International and Regional Initiatives/Agreements on the field

of Regulatory Regimes for the Arms Transfers and SALWs…………...54
Table 4.1. Dynamics of the attitude of the population to arms trade in the
interval between August 1998 and December 2000……………………..65
Table 4.2. Seized weapons and ammunition by the Slovenian Police

on the border crossings…………………………………………………...66
Table 4.3. Small Arms Stockpiles and ratio of population per arms………………...72
Table 4.4. South-Eastern European (SEE) Countries commitments

to Arms or SALWs Control Agreements………………………………...81
Table 5.1 Limitations under the Florence Agreement………………………………97
viii
LIST OF FIGURES AND DIAGRAMS
Figure 2.1. The theory of progress from enmity to amity through arms control……26
Figure 2.2. The Place Called Reconciliation………………………………………..28
Figure 2.3. The Progression of Conflict……………………………………………29
Figure 2.4. A Security Problem……………………………………………………31
Figure 2.5. The Security Problem of Conventional Arms Control and ArmsTrade..32
Figure 2.6. A schema of cultural influences on multilateral arms control, non-

proliferation and security-building dialogues………………………….34
Figure 3.1. Volume index of the trade in major weapons with the developing
world and total trade with the developing world, 1971-1985…………..45
Figure 3.2. Imports of major weapons by region, 1971-1985………………………46
Figure 3.3. Military Expenditures for the period 1989-1999……………………….47
Figure 3.4. Top 15 Arms Exporters, 2000-2004……………………………………48
Figure 3.5. Top 15 Arms Importers, 2000-2004……………………………………49
Figure 4.1. Mikhail Kalashnikov at the Small Arms UN Conference

in New York, June – July 2006…………………………………………74
Figure 4.2. The spectrum of conflict and defence, diplomatic

and development tasks in Operations Other Than War (OOTW)……….83
Figure 4.3. The concept of a new mainstream framework in the conventional

arms control field of pre-conflict and post-conflict situations………….84
ix
LIST OF MAPS
Map 3.1. The supply routes for surplus weapons (1), 1990-1995…………………50
Map 3.2. The supply routes for surplus weapons (2), 1990-1995…………………51
Map 4.1. Light weapons proliferation and circulation in selected regions (1)…….69
Map 4.2. Light weapons proliferation and circulation in selected regions (2)…….70
x
GLOSSARY / LIST OF ACRONYMS
ACVs Armoured Combat Vehicles

APLs Anti-Personnel Landmines
ARF ASEAN Regional Forum
ASEAN Association of South-East Asian Nations
BiH Bosnia and Herzegovina
CCW Convention Certain Conventional Weapons Convention
CEE Central and Eastern Europe
CEOs Conventional Explosive Ordnances
CEU Council of the European Union
CFE Treaty Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty
CIA Central Intelligence Association
CIFTA Inter-American Convention against the Illicit Manufacturing of
and Trafficking in Firearms, Ammunition, Explosives and
Other Related Materials
CIS Commonwealth of Independent States
COCOM Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls
CSBMs Confidence and Security Building Measures
CSCAP Council for Security and Co-operation in the Asia Pacific
CSFP Common Security and Foreign Policy
DCMT Defence College of Management and Technology
DDMSA Department of Defence Management and Security Analysis
DDR Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration
DESO Defence Services Export Organization
DFID Department For International Development
DSEI Defence Systems and Equipment International
ECOWAS Economic Community Of West African States
ESDP European Security and Defence Policy
EU European Union
FCO Foreign and Commonwealth Office
FSC Forum of Security and Co-operation
FSU Former Soviet Union
xi
FYRoM Former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia
GDP Gross Domestic Product
G8 Group of the Eighth most economically developed countries
IMF International Monetary Fund
JSCSC Joint Service Command and Staff College
MANPADS Man-Portable Air Defence Systems
MBFR Talks Mutual and Balanced Force Reduction Talks
MoD Ministry of Defence
NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization
NGO Non-Governmental Organization
NIS New Independent States
OAS Organization of American States
OOTW Operations Other Than War
OSCE Organization of Security and Co-operation in Europe
PfP Partnership for Peace
PoA Program of Action to Prevent, Combat and Eradicate the
Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons, in All Its
Aspects
PSC Private Security Companies
R&D Research and Development
RPGs Rocket-Propelled Grenades
RSG Regional Steering Group
SALWs Small Arms and Light Weapons
SAMs Surface-to-Air Missiles
SCO Shanghai Cooperation Organization
SCSP RIP Stability Pact Regional ImplementationPlan
SEE South-Eastern Europe or South-Eastern European
SEENCA South East European Network on Arms control
SEESAC South-Eastern European Clearinghouse SALW Control
SSI Security Studies Institute
SSR Security Sector Reform
SIPRI Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
TLE Treaty Limited Equipment
UK United Kingdom
xii
UN United Nations
UNCDA United Nations Centre for Disarmament Affairs
UNDP United Nations Development Programme
UNIDIR United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research
UNSC United Nations Security Council
USA United States of America
WA Wassenaar Arrangement
WBO World Bank Organization
WMD Weapons of Mass Destruction
xiii
CHAPTER 1 – INTRODUCTION
1.1. Background
It has been proven in history that the continuous and unlimited arms race, both
quantitatively and qualitatively, is one substantial reason for the occurrence of armed
conflicts. One dominant controversy in international relations is that both policies of
disarmament and arms limitation and policies for the development of military
capabilities are perceived as means for the promotion of security1. The above fact
constitutes an ascertainment of a well-known theory arguing that international law with
regard to arms control is the result of international political processes2. Therefore,
because of the dynamic nature of these processes through time, the demise of the Cold
War era has created new realities in the field of arms control and arms trade
manipulation. During the Cold War the main objectives of arms control and
disarmament were to reduce the risk of a catastrophic nuclear war between the
antagonistic hegemonies of the United States and the former Soviet Union and in
parallel maintaining the equilibrium of forces, while reducing the cost of the arms race3.
Nowadays, although the quests for territorial expansion in Europe and in many respects
in other continents of the globe have stopped, the use of force to address territorial
disputes at the periphery of Europe, in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East
is still evident and more rigorous. As Ian Anthony from Stockholm International Peace
Research Institute (SIPRI) argues, ‘in Central and Northern Europe the priority is no
longer defence in the traditional form but political and socio-economic preventive
activities aimed at preventing and removing the sources of potential conflicts’4.
In addition, civil conflicts continue to inflict hundred of thousands of casualties per year
worldwide and although efforts to limit the weapon inventories of major powers are not
the first priority any more, arms control has acquired the imperative to regulate the
military balance and lessening the risk of armed confrontation in certain regions.
Moreover, as many field experts believe, the new security dimension of a
comprehensive conventional arms control strategy should address the stabilization of
conflict zones where terrorists can find a safe heaven or purchase weapons like Surface-
1
to-Air-Missiles (SAMs), being a particular concern in the war against terror5. Under the
spectrum of the above necessity, the obnoxious reality of the Post-Cold War arms trade
global business poses the most serious impediment for the attainment of such a strategy.
It is a fact that several businesses with a network of international dealers setting off
conflicts around the world have achieved to be globalised, drifted by the globalization
of arms trade. The vast majority of the world’s weapons are produced in developed
countries and sold to the developing world under the exploitation of weak laws and
governmental system loopholes6.
Another reality of the new arms trade and military expenditure era is that
notwithstanding the decline of the global defence spending after its peak during the
Cold War years of 1987-1988, since 1998 there has been a sharp increase in global arms
spending, topped in one trillion $US in 2004, with the five members the G8 – USA,
Britain, France, Germany and Russia – standing responsible for the 89 percent of arms
sales to developing countries7. The following table of the SIPRI Yearbook 2005
presents the world and regional military expenditures estimates for the period 1995-
2004:
Table 1.1. World and regional military expenditure estimates 1995-20048
Figures are in US $b., at constant 2003 prices and exchange rates. Figures in italics are
percentages.
Figures do not always add up to totals because of the conventions of rounding.
%
change
1995-
Region a 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2004
Africa a 8.8 8.5 8.7 9.3 10.3 10.8 11.0 11.6 11.7 12.6 + 43
North (3.4) 3.5 3.7 3.8 3.9 4.3 4.4 4.8 4.9 5.5 + 65
Sub-
Saharan 5.5 5.0 5.0 5.5 6.3 6.5 (6.6) 6.8 6.8 (7.1) + 29
Americas 367 347 347 340 341 353 358 398 446 488 + 33
North 347 328 326 319 320 332 335 375 424 466 + 34
Central 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.3 3.5 3.6 3.7 3.5 3.4 3.2 +2
South 17.2 15.6 18.1 17.4 17.0 17.9 19.9 19.6 18.4 18.8 +9
Asia & 136 141 138 135 137 147 151 151 (158) (164) + 21
2
Oceania
Central
Asia 0.4 0.5 0.5 (0.5) 0.5 .. (0.6) .. (0.6) (0.7) + 73
East Asia 113 119 115 111 112 121 124 123 (129) (132) + 17
South
Asia 13.4 13.6 14.2 14.4 15.5 16.2 16.8 17.0 17.5 20.0 + 50
Oceania 8.7 8.6 8.8 9.1 9.6 9.5 9.9 10.3 10.6 11.0 + 26
Europe 237 236 237 234 239 243 244 250 256 254 +7
CEE 28.1 26.2 27.7 23.4 24.8 27.3 29.2 30.7 33.2 34.2 + 22
Western 209 210 209 211 214 216 215 220 223 220 +5
Middle
East 40.1 39.1 43.0 46.5 46.0 51.7 55.3 52.9 54.4 56.1 + 40
World 789 772 774 765 773 806 819 864 927 975 + 23
Change (%) .. –2.3 0.3 –1.2 1.1 4.2 1.6 5.4 7.2 5.3
Source: SIPRI Yearbook 2005, appendix 8A, table 8A.1 and table 8A.3.
Note: Sub-regional totals are presented within brackets when based on country data accounting
for less than 90% of the regional total. No data are presented when the estimate would be based
on data accounting for less than 60% of the sub-regional total.
(a) For the country coverage of the regions, see Regional coverage. CEE= Central and Eastern
Europe. Some countries are excluded because of lack of data or of consistent time series data.
Africa excludes Angola, Benin, Equatorial Guinea and Somalia; Asia exludes Afghanistan; and
the Middle East excludes Iraq and Qatar
It is more than apparent in Table 1.1. that regions with a long history in armed
confrontations, civil conflicts and long-standing political and social instability, like
Central and South Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Central and Eastern Europe (CEE),
thrust themselves forward as pioneers in the increased rate of military expenditure
during the period 1995-2004, even in 2004 where many of the past rivalries have been
perceived to be in decline.
On the other hand, according to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) of the
United Kingdom (UK) there are an estimated 639 million small arms and light weapons
in circulation, more than one for every ten people on earth9. Their easy access can
exacerbate conflicts, provide aid to terrorist activities and pose insurmountable
3
obstacles to peace-building operations and post-conflict reconstruction. In combination
with a lack of adequate regulations for the management of their transfer and possession
in national and international level can halt all the efforts for long-term sustainable
development in many regions of the globe. Having in mind that there is currently no
treaty or international law regime, which directly control the trade in arms, as well as an
absence of standard definitions of conventional arms, it is very difficult to have a
satisfactory agreement to arms transfer control if the matters to be subject to agreement
cannot be specified10. In other words the arms trade will continue to mean different
things to different individuals and entities.
All the aforementioned facts and realities have risen growing concerns in the academic
world and the framework of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) like Amnesty
International, International Action Network on Small Arms and Oxfam International,
which joined their forces for the UN conference on small arms in June 2006 in New
York. Their aim was to gain support worldwide for pressures against governments to
reach an international arms trade treaty11. Such an agreement would control the
accumulation of surplus weapons by governments while targeting rogue arms traders,
strengthening and expanding the arms control regimes into the arms trade and
conventional weapons realms.
1.2. Reasons for undertaking the study
As Brad Roberts argues, ‘with the end of the Cold War, arms control has lost its
prominence in the public mind. But its relevance for international security has only
grown as it takes on new tasks and an expanding conception in the 1990s’12.
Consequently, nuclear weapons can no longer be the sole focus of interest. In addition
to chemical and biological weapons proliferation concerns, which have emerged in the
1980s and early 1990s, in the Post-Cold War period the interest of the international
community has been concentrated as well in the advanced conventional warfare
systems, being widely traded on a new dynamic international market, shaped by
different forces than in the past. It is an uncontested truth that after the Cold War
4
military spending around the world began to fall, the international market has shrunk
and its character changed radically. The former protagonists found themselves with
excesses in their defence manufacturing production and the market initiative shifted to
the buyer, which is able to exploit every new facilitation of our revolutionary era in
military affairs, like the transfer of ‘know-how’ technology, the ‘dual-use
civilian/military’ technology, and over and above the inalienable right for self-defence
under article 51 of the UN Charter, meaning actually that the buyer can decide for itself
what and from whom to buy and consider the weapons trade and manufacture in
national terms.13 In other words the arms trade has been transformed to a more
vigorous, competitive and commercially oriented process of our present international
system than its Cold War predecessor, making its regulation much more difficult and
complicated and its security implications arguably linked with a future arms control
agenda.
Under this context, the issue of Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALWs) has the need
to be included in a multilateral approach of arms control since it is one of the essential
factors of regional instability and conflict prolongation and it poses great difficulties in
the Post-Cold War peace initiatives around the globe, fostering a culture of violence.
The speech of the UN Secretary-General Mr Kofi Annan in the UN Conference on the
Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects, held on New York in
July 2001 is illustrative:
‘…Most of these are controlled by legal authorities, but when they fall into the
hands of terrorists, criminals and irregular forces, small arms bring devastation.
They exacerbate conflict, spark refugee flows, undermine the rule of law, and
spawn a culture of violence and impunity. In short, small arms are a threat to
peace and development, to democracy and human rights’14. ‘‘emphasis added’’
The issue of the small arms proliferation was first raised in UN in the 1995 General
Assembly resolution A/RES/50/70B and further multilateral cooperation continued on
the UN Conference in July mentioned above. The initiative taken place there was the
adoption of an agreement by the participating states for a Programme of Action to
5
Prevent, Combat and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons, in
All Its Aspects (PoA)15. This programme comprises a number of national, regional and
global meagures, in the areas of legislation, weapons destruction after confiscation,
seizure and collection, as well as international cooperation and assistance in order to
strengthen the countries’ ability in illicit arms and light weapons identification and
tracing. However, transparent and effective controls are not easy to achieve. In contrast
to the major conventional armaments, it is easy to identify a high decentralization in the
manufacture and trade of SALWs, with approximately six hundred companies in 95
countries promoting competitive prices and a black market that possesses a significant
proportion of the global trade16.
In addition, countries identified by many western governments as poor implementers of

human rights have been several times invited to the western defence markets. For
example countries like Iraq, Libya, Colombia and Jordan, whose human rights records
have been criticized by the UK Foreign Office they had been recently invited to the
Defence Systems and Equipment International (DSEI) exhibition in London under the
auspices of the Defence Services Export Organization (DESO)17. Although this does not
mean that the necessary careful processes were not observed, it is a significant evidence
of the diverse nature of arms trade nowadays. Moreover, although codes of conduct,
guidelines and other initiatives regarding several categories of conventional arms,
including SALWs, have been adopted for their regulation in a regional or global level,
none of them is legally binding and they do not prohibit or put constraints in the
possession or the manufacture of the arms in question18. All the aforesaid facts and
arguments signify the necessity of an improvement in the multilateral arms control
negotiating apparatus, embracing conventional arms control and arms trade under a
common umbrella.
1.3. Aim
6
The aim of this thesis is to critically and in parallel examine conventional arms control
and the arms trade under a holistic approach, providing a useful guide to the interrelated
fields of conventional arms control and arms trade. In addition, it will reveal their new
security challenges and implications in the Post-Cold War era while highlighting the
need for a more comprehensive multilateral approach to conventional arms control
nowadays.
1.4. Objectives
For the achievement of the above aim the enabling objectives of the study are to:
 Identify the purposes and objectives of arms control and arms trade control by
linking them with the relevant security theories and models under the existing
literature and to approach the recent problematic areas of this particular field.
 Present a historical flashback of conventional arms control and the arms trade
regulatory efforts development, while concentrating on the recent Post-Cold
War background.
 Analyze the new security challenges and implications of conventional arms
control and arms trade with special regard to their links with the illicit trade in
arms, especially in SALWs, the peace-management process in pre-conflict and
post-conflict environments, and the human security and development agenda.
 Evaluate the existing control regimes and policies in the conventional arms
control and arms trade fields and provide the guidelines of a future perspective
for a holistic, comprehensive approach in conventional arms control.
 Provide some feasible and viable suggestions and policy recommendations that
will assist in strengthening conventional arms control regimes and initiatives,
regulating more effectively the multifold and vigorous arms trade of our times
and hopefully reducing the powder kegs of instability and violent conflict
around the globe.
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1.5. Conceptual Framework: Why conventional arms control and
arms trade should be examined in parallel in the Post-Cold War era
One of the dominant notions of international politics is that war is a constant historical
feature unlikely to disappear. This structural notion, often called as ‘security dilemma’
comprises the self-motivated efforts of states to look after their security needs. These
attempts, intentional or not, can lead to the rising insecurity of other states, since one
may interpret its own measures as defensive and the measures of others as threatening
or potentially offensive19. Consequently, it is evident that no state can gain security in
absolute terms. Increasing one’s security by the development of its military capabilities,
including armaments, can induce the reaction of other states since the subjective
national security may be fostered but the objective international security may be
deteriorated20. Therefore, a co-operative approach by states towards security is highly
authoritative. In this context, the interrelation between arms control and security is
apparent, because both disarmament and arms control policies as well as policies to
promote the military capabilities are perceived as means to ensure security21. However,
some questions arguably should be whether does any direct relation between arms
control and arms trade exist in international security and why should we really worry
about armaments?
Answering the question why worry about armaments, Håkan Wiberg of the Centre of
Peace and Conflict Research at Copenhagen University gives the following
assumptions:
 Armaments can increase the risks of conflict, either by making their proprietors
more belligerent or reckless or by making them the targets of pre-emptive or
accidental wars.
 Armaments can halt social and economic development by the increase of
military expenditures and the detraction of resources available for other
purposes.
 Armaments can make states to force other states to make concessions
unfavorable to their sovereignty and security.
8
 Armaments can militarize a state in several levels, either economical and
political or cultural22.
Thus, the arms trade, standing as the means to acquire armaments, indirectly but
substantially as well should be linked to the same concerns mentioned above. I addition,
there is an international legal obligation for governments to ensure their effective arms
exports regulation, based on Article 2.5 of the UN Charter mentioning that ‘All
members shall give the United Nations every assistance in any action it takes in
accordance with the present charter, and shall refrain from giving assistance to any state
against which the United Nations is taking preventive or enforcement action’23.
Considering as well that SALWs kill over 300,000 people in conflict each year and
affect millions more indirectly through the 200,000 weapons related deaths per year in
so called ‘peaceful’ societies24, by not only re-circulated from one conflict to another,
but by also becoming a unrelenting disease upon fragile post-conflict societies trying to
bring back the peace and the rule of law, a relation between arms trade and conventional
arms control is valid and it stands as a prerequisite for the human security and
sustainable development debates nowadays. This was completely recognized within the
Group of Governmental Experts on the relationship and development, established by the
Secretary-General of UN in 2003, while they examined the links between disarmament,
humanitarian and development activities and their relation to human security25. All the
above issues and implications signify the importance of examining in parallel
conventional arms control and arms trade in the Post-Cold War era leaving the
prospects open for a future arms trade treaty as a part of the established arms control
regimes.
1.6 Scope and Limitations
The study will be limited to conventional arms control and the need for better
regulations in the arms trade field, pointing out their linkages and implications with the
pre-conflict and post-conflict situations as well as the particular problematic case of
9
SALWs. The scope of the research will outstretch around the new security challenges of
conventional arms control and arms trade in the 20th and 21st century, since the
recognition of the relatively new concept of human security as a prerequisite of
sustainable development has led to a debate concerning the different ways in which
donor countries should support the Security Sector Reform (SSR) of other countries.
Thereby, some states express their fears for the extension of the official-development
assistance definition to cover security-related issues, as it has arguably the potential to
diminish the overall backing social and economic assistance, possibly resulted in a Cold
War aid pattern with the strategic national interests of donors dictating their aid
policy26. Thus, an integrated approach of conventional arms control and arms trade
regulations has a direct relation to these debates and issues.
1.7. Research Methodology
Despite the existence of a vast literature on the particular subjects of conventional arms
control; the arms trade dynamics; its regulatory efforts and its security implications,
there are not many books yet dedicated for the inclusion of arms trade control in the
traditional conventional arms control regimes, especially under the form of major
legally binding treaties. Ergo, this paper, using first the existing literature for
conventional arms control and arms trade, and secondly the recently published
theoretical and empirical approaches for their inter-linkages with the pre-conflict and
post-conflict environments as well as their relationship with the human security and
development sphere, will attempt to create a guiding preparatory framework for the
incorporation of arms trade management into the conventional arms control agenda
under a holistic multilateral approach.
Consequently, primary research material was reviewed in the form of conference

proceedings, reports, and related international/regional centers’ surveys as well as
relevant organizations’ and agencies’ reports and evaluations. Secondary research
material has been acquired from journals, monographs, newspapers, books, course
lectures, academic papers and Internet Sources. The basic sources for most of the
10
publications used throughout the study were the Defence College of Management and
Technology library (DCMT), the Security Studies Institute (SSI) library and the Joint
Service Command and Staff College (JSCSC) library, all of them located at Cranfield
University Campus.
1.8. Study Structure27
Chapter 1 has set out the guiding template for this study. It has determined the aim and
the objectives of the paper, suggesting the indispensable initiative, which should be
undertaken for a parallel approach to conventional arms control and the arms trade in
the Post-Cold War era. It has also highlighted the contextual framework of the new
security challenges and implications related with the attempts to regulate armaments in
the globalized international system. Standing at that point, chapter 1 is a coordinative
form for the following chapters of this thesis.
Chapter 2, beyond the identification of the purposes and objectives of arms control and
arms trade control as well as the linkages with the relevant security theories and models
under the existing literature, will also approach theoretically the recent problematic
areas of this particular field and provide the theoretical framework of the specific study.
In addition, it will attempt to correlate the aim of the dissertation with specific models
of the conflict-resolution theory28.
Chapter 3 will present the historical background of the conventional arms control and
the arms trade regulatory efforts development, by mainly concentrating on the recent
Post-Cold War global trends and initiatives and the major treaties and multilateral or
unilateral arrangements.
Chapter 4 will critically analyze the new security challenges and implications of
conventional arms control and the arms trade with special regard to the new forces and
dynamics that shape the arms market and its links with the illicit trade in arms and
SALWs trade, the peace-management process in pre-conflict and post-conflict
11
environments, and the development goals of the international community29. It will also
articulate the nexus of arms control and the arms trade security challenges under the
recently conceived notion of human security and development and it will present the
problematic areas and conflicting approaches of the fields in question, in an attempt to
prepare a framework for a holistic multilateral approach.
Chapter 5 will provide an evaluation of the efficacy of existing control regimes and
policies in the conventional arms control and arms trade fields. It will also examine their
efficacy in dealing with the new security issues of the particular field in question and it
will attempt to broaden the field for a future arms control agenda, including the
complicated field of arms trade, especially that of the SALW’s trade.
Finally, chapter 6 will summarize the previous chapters’ themes and outputs and
provide some feasible and viable suggestions and policy recommendations for the
invigoration of conventional arms control regimes and initiatives. The hope is to give
some useful guidelines for the effective regulation of the manifold and vigorous arms
trade of the Post-Cold War era, being one of the essentially controversial global security
issues in our times even in its reduced state as many field-experts believe30.
1.9. Literature Review
Literature on conventional arms control and the arms trade is vast. It mostly stems from
the relevant critical assessments of field-experts on the specific agreements and
initiatives, as well as from the assessments of the each time trends and relevant
predictions made by several institutes, organizations and other key-experts. After the
end of the Cold War, prominent authors and field-experts like Guido Den Dekker31,
Josef Golblat32, Ian Anthony33, Geoffrey Kemp34, Michael A. Levi35 and Nils Petter
Gleditsch36 have created an extended literature on arms races and their dynamics and in
addition, they have given a lengthy analysis of the law and scope of conventional arms
control as well as its field of application. Moreover, several authors, namely Stuart
Croft37 and Keith R. Krause38, have tried to examine the interrelationship between arms
12
control and security. Concentrating on particular aspects of conventional arms control,
like the control of small arms or the applicability of conventional arms control in the
post-conflict environments, key-experts, namely Jayantha Dhanapala39, Aaron Karp40,
Joanna Spear41 and Fred Tanner42, delved the specific complicated sub-disciplines of the
field in question. Nevertheless, the majority of the literature for those subjects has
derived from the relevant disarmament departments of the United Nations (UN) and
their related publications43 and fora44. Furthermore, the same departments of UN as well
as other national departments for international development have already produced a
proportionate literature for the relationship between disarmament, small arms
proliferation and human and economic development45. Similarly, outstanding authors in
the domain of arms trade and its regulatory efforts include, inter alia, Dr Paul Cornish46,
Ian Anthony47 and other experts of the relevant international institutes and agencies48.
However, except the aforementioned literature sources, the author of this thesis, in the
quest to examine conventional arms control and the arms trade in parallel, started from
their possible relationship under the basic security theory and the conflict resolution
conceptual framework, by consulting authors like Giovanni Manunta49, John Paul
Lederach50 and Christopher Bellamy51. Progressively, the author was able to access a
large number of diverse in origin sources, mainly provided by competent international
and regional associations and agencies52, whereof it became possible to acquire useful
information and evaluative reports for almost all the treaties, conventions, agreements
and initiatives in the domains of conventional arms control and arms trade control. All
the above sources were invaluable for the attainment of the aim of this paper and they
contributed notably to the attempt of the author to provide a comprehensive approach to
the conventional arms control agenda, which includes, inter alia, the control and
regulation of the vigorous arms trade in the Post-Cold War era.
13
References
1
Guido Den Dekker, The Law of Arms Control, (Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, The
Hague, 2001), p. 29.
2
Ibid. p. 5.
3
Ian Anthony and Adam Daniel Rotfeld, Ed., A Future Arms Control Agenda, (Oxford
University Press, Oxford, 2001), p. 3.
4
Ibid. p. 9.
5
Michael A. Levi and Michael E. O’Hanlon, The Future of Arms Control, (The
Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C., 2005), p. 112.
6
Sengupta, K. and Taylor, J. How arms have become a truly global business. The
Independent [online], 10 May, 2006, 30. Available via: Proquest, (Accessed: 01 June
2006).
7
Bancombe, A. Weapons Expenditure: Global spending on arms tops $ 1 trillion. The
Independent [online], 09 June, 2005, 2. Available via: Proquest, (Accessed: 01 June
2006).
8
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, World and regional expenditure
estimates 1995-2004 [online], (SIPRI, Stockholm, 2005), (Accessed: 25 May 2006),
Available at:
http://www.sipri.org/contents/milap/milex/mex_wnr_table.html.
9
Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Small Arms and Light Weapons [online], (FCO,
London, 2006), (Accessed: 01 June 2006),
Available at:
http://fco.gov.uk/servlet/Front?pagename=OpenMarket/Xcelerate/ShowPage&c=P
10
Ian Anthony, Ed., Arms Export Regulations, (Oxford University Press, Oxford,
1991), pp. 1-3.
11
Barret, H. Campaign of the week: Control the arms trade in 100 days. Third Sector
[online], 05 April, 2006, 421,13. Available via: Proquest, (Accessed: 30 May 2006).
12
Brad Roberts, Weapons Proliferation and World Order, (Kluer Law International,
The Hague, 1996), p. 281.
13
Paul Cornish, The Arms Trade and Europe, (The Royal Institute of International
Affairs, London, 1995), pp. 1-5.
14
14
Kofi A. Annan, Small arms, big problems [online], (UN Conference on the Illicit
Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects, New York, 9-20 July,
2001), (Accessed: 02 June 2006), Available at:
http://disarmament2.un.org/cab/smallarms/sg.htm.
15
United Nations Department for Disarmament Affairs, Small Arms and Light Weapons
[online], (United Nations Department for Disarmament Affairs, UN, 2006), (Accessed:
01 June 2006), Available at:
http://disarmament2.un.org/cab/salw.html.
16
Foreign and Commonwealth Office, A Comprehensive Response to a Complex
Problem [online], (FCO UK, London, 2006), (Accessed: 30 May 2006),
Available at:
http://www.fco.gov.uk/servlet/Front?pagename=OpenMarket/Xcelerate/ShowPage&c.
17
Taylor, R. Countries listed by Foreign Office as poor on human rights invited to the
arms trade fair. The Guardian [online], 13 Sep, 2005, 13. Available via: Proquest,
(Accessed: 08 June 2006).
18
Jojef Goldblat, Arms Control: The New Guide to Negotiations and Agreements,
(SAGE Publications Ltd., California, 2002), p. 347.
19
John Baylis and Steve Smith, Ed., The Globalization of World Politics, (Oxford
20
Hague, 2001), p. 28.
21
Ibid. p. 29.
22
Nils Petter Gleditsch and Olav Njølstad, Ed., Arms Races: Technological and
Political Dynamics, (SAGE Publications Ltd., London, 1990), pp. 352-353.
23
United Nations, The UN Charter [online], (UN, 2006), (Accessed: 05 June 2006),
Available at: http://www.un.org/aboutun/charter/
24
Foreign and Commonwealth Office, A Serious Global Problem [online], (FCO UK,
London, 2006), (Accessed: 28 May 2006),
Available at:
http://www.fco.gov.uk/servlet/Front?pagename=OpenMarket/Xcelerate/ShowPage&c.
25
United Nations, The United Nations Disarmament Yearbook, Volume 29:2004,
(United Nations Publications, New York, 2005), p. 177.
15
26
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Recent trends in military
expenditure [online], (SIPRI, Stockholm, 2004), (Accessed: 25 May 2006),
Available at:
http://www.sipri.org/contents/milap/milex/mex_trends.html.
27
Based on the guidelines and notes by Professor Christopher Bellamy during the
Dissertation Workshop held on during the 7th Global Security Course in Cranfield
University.
28
As they have been presented in the Nature of Security Core Module of the the 7th
Global Security Course in Cranfield University by Professor Christopher Bellamy and
supported by the relevant existing literature.
29
Although this chapter will refer as well to the UN Millennium Development Goals of
the initiative of the Secretary-General of UN Mr Kofi Annan, available at
http://www.un.org/milenniumgoals/, it will not necessarily be merely related to them
but it will be extended to the broader sense of sustainable development.
30
Dr Paul Cornish in the arms trade thematic part in Richard Holmes, Ed., The Oxford
Companion To Military History, (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2001), p. 83.
31
Hague, 2001).
32
(SAGE Publications Ltd., California, 2002).
33
University Press, Oxford, 2001).
34
Geoffrey Kemp, The Control of the Middle East Arms Races, (Carnegie Endowment
for International Peace, Washington, 1991).
35
Michael A. Levi and Michael E. O’Hanlon, The Future of Arms Control, (The
Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C., 2005).
36
Nils Petter Gleditsch and Olav Njølstad, Ed., Arms Races: Technological and
Political Dynamics, (SAGE Publications Ltd., London, 1990).
37
Stuart Croft and Terry Terriff, Ed., Critical Reflections on Security and Change,
(Frank Cass Publishers, London, 2000).
38
Keith R. Krause, Ed., Culture and Security: Multilateralism, Arms Control and
Security Building, (Frank Cass Publishers, London, 1999).
39
Jayantha Dhanapala et al, Small Arms Control: Old Weapons, New Issues, (Ashgate
Publishing Ltd., Albershot, 1999).
16
40
Aaron Karp, ‘Small Arms and the Limits of International Consensus’, Journal of
Conflict, Security and Development (CSD), 1(2), 2001.
41
Joanna Spear, ‘The Disarmament and Demobilization of Warring Factions in the
Aftermath of Civil Wars: Key Implementation Issues, Civil Wars, 2(2), 1999.
42
Fred Tanner, ‘Arms Control, Civil War and Peace Settlements’, Civil Wars, 3(2),
Winter 2000.
43
For example:
 United Nations, The United Nations Disarmament Yearbook, Volume 28:2003,
(United Nations Publications, New York, 2004).
 United Nations, The United Nations Disarmament Yearbook, Volume 29:2004,
 UNIDIR, Disarmament and Conflict Resolution Project: Managing Arms in
Peace Processes: The Issues, (UNIDIR, Geneva, 1996).
44
For example:
 United Nations Department for Disarmament Affairs, Small Arms and Light
Weapons [online], (United Nations Department for Disarmament Affairs, UN, 2006),
(Accessed: 01 June 2006), Available at:
 Kofi A. Annan, Small arms, big problems [online], (UN Conference on the
Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects, New York, 9-20 July,
 Kerstin Hoffman, Ed., Disarmament Forum One 1999: The New Security
Debate, (UNIDIR, Geneva, 1999).
45
For example:
 S Willet, ‘The Economics of Security in the Developing World’, Disarmament
Forum: UN Institute for Disarmament Research Quarterly Journal, 1, 1999.
 Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Small Arms and Light Weapons [online],
(FCO, London, 2006), (Accessed: 01 June 2006), Available at:
 Department For International Development, UK Policy and Strategic Priorities
on Small Arms and Light Weapons 2004-2006 [online], (FCO-DFID UK, London,
2006), (Accessed: 28 May 2006), Available at:
http://www.dfid.gov.UK/pubs/files/policysmallarmsweapons.pdf
46
Mainly through the publications:
 Paul Cornish, The Arms Trade and Europe, (The Royal Institute of International
Affairs, London, 1995).
 Paul Cornish, Controlling the Arms Trade, (Bowerdean Publishing Company
Ltd., London, 1996).
17
47
Ian Anthony, Ed., Arms Export Regulations, (Oxford University Press, Oxford,
1991).
48
For example:
 Moida Davidson-Seger, Ed., Conversion Survey 1997, (Project of Bonn
International Center for Conversion), (Oxford University Press Inc., New York, 1997).
 Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, World and regional
expenditure estimates 1995-2004 [online], (SIPRI, Stockholm, 2005), (Accessed: 25
May 2006), Available at:
49
Giovanni Manunta, Security: An Introduction, (ISBN 1-8713 15-68-9, Granfield
University, 1998).
50
John Paul Lederach, Building Peace: Sustainable Reconciliation in Divided Societies,
(United States Institute of Peace Press, Washington, D.C., 1997).
51
Christopher Bellamy, Spiral Through Time: Beyond ‘Conflict Intensity’, (Camberlay:
Strategic and Combat Studies Institute Occasional No 35, August 1998).
52
Including inter alia:
 Arms Control Association, available at:
http://www.armscontrol.org/
 Jane’s Intelligence Review [online], available via: Jane’s Online.
 South-Eastern European Clearinghouse SALW Control (SEESAC) under the
Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe, available at:
http://www.seesac.org/
18
CHAPTER 2 – THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
2.1. Introduction
Τhe mutation of bilateral Cold War arms control into increasingly multilateral arms
reduction and disarmament, which began to take place since the dawn of the 1990s, has
been arguably seen by many theorists as a hoity-toity twitch of the arms control
framework established during the latter half of the 20th century1. The erosion of the
credibility of arms control arrangements, the new dynamics of the unwitting arms trade,
the possible eruption of unresolved political rivalries and conflicts, mainly in the Middle
East, Africa and several regions of Asia and the Balkans as well as the new proliferation
challenges of the non-state actors and global terrorism resulted in the expansion of the
arms control and arms trade control theory into new fields of the security studies.
During the Cold War, as Dieter Senghaas of the University of Bremen argues, it was
comparatively simple to legitimize the armament policies and the international arms
race through the traditional explanation of the action-reaction theorem, where
armament policies are conceived as reactions to the actions of the opponent, thus being
other directed following a reciprocal escalation spiral2. However, as he continues, the
last thirty years the main decisions for armament policies have been driven by inner-
directed and self-centered imperatives of national policies, rather than by external
forces emerged by the reciprocal interaction with the potential enemy3.
All the above argumentation has resulted in different theoretical approaches to arms
control. One group of theorists has argued that radical and fundamental changes can put
at risk the existing processes and the future of arms control will consist of the
implementation, strengthening and further development of the existing agreements and
processes. Another group argues that although incorporating new current security issues
into the arms control agenda is acceptable, focusing solely in the framework of the
existing agreements without taking into account the political and economic linkages can
diminish security by amplifying disagreements and pose serious impediments in the
objectives of arms control. Finally a third group of theorists and practitioners supports
the expansion of the arms control agenda in order to assimilate the new security
19
challenges and problematic cases of the modern international order, like SALWs,
humanitarian and good governance issues, post-conflict security sector reform and
extremist activities by non-state actors, especially by international terrorists4.
Under this theoretical framework the relatively new suggesting issue of an effective
arms trade management regime under a legally binding international treaty is highly
related with the new arms control agenda, particularly the conventional arms control
field. It is characteristic that the manifesto of the Labour political party of UK had
already introduced in January 2006 a strict regime to control the export of conventional
weapons, leading the moves for the EU measures and working actively to secure an
international treaty on arms trade5. Such treaty would be one, which would included
almost all suppliers and recipients, under common standards, looking forward to
common goals. However the practical difficulty of getting any large group of states and
agencies to agree on anything and the different security cultures and perceptions
between the West and the East or between the North and the South may lead to the
following paradox, as Dr Paul Cornish of the Royal Institute of International Affairs
argues: ‘Ironically, therefore, while the search for consensus can seem to be particularly
urgent requirement for effective management of the arms trade, the search itself can
result in still deeper divisions’6. On the other hand, countries claiming to lead a
movement for an arms trade treaty stand first at the scale of arms exports, although the
new ‘war on terror’ and post-conflict reconstruction activities may justify a large
portion of the equivalent expenditures and arms exports. The following table for the
year 1999 trends is illustrative:
Table 2.1. World’s top 15 individual arms exporters for 19997
Top Arms Exporters (current billion dollars)

1999
1. United States 33.0 8. Australia 0.6
2. United Kingdom 3.2 9. Canada 0.6
3. Russia 3.1 10. Ukraine 0.6
4. France 2.9 11. Italy 0.4
5. Germany 1.9 12. China-Mnld 0.3
6. Sweden 0.7 13. Belarus 0.3
7. Israel 0.6 14. Bulgaria 0.2
15. North Korea 0.1
20
Beyond the aforementioned realities, there are a lot of other problematic cases and
implications in a new approach for conventional arms control, under the boundaries of a
possible arms trade treaty, which are going to be mentioned further down. But before
arguing for this theoretical approach, it is prudent to cite some useful definitions and
caveats; identify the purposes, objectives and principles of arms control and arms trade,
focusing on the conventional weapons field and the EU and USA different approaches;
and link them with some relevant security theories and the conflict resolution concept,
while examining the theoretical aspect of the SALWs issue as well.
2.2. Useful definitions and caveats
According to the Oxford Companion To Military History a broad definition of arms

control and disarmament with its relevant caveats may be the following:
‘Arms control involves measures of international agreed restraint in arms

policy. It may involve two, more than two, or all countries. It may set
limits on the level of arms, research and development, testing, manner of
deployment and use. Some arms control measures may not require any
reduction or abolition of arms at all: rather they may involve opening them
up to inspection, relocating them away from particular areas, or
prohibiting certain forms of testing or use. Disarmament is the generic
term for reduction or abolition of arms. It may be unilateral, bilateral, or
multilateral; imposed or agreed; general or local; comprehensive or
partial; formally verified or unverified. It encompasses much international
practice, as well as proposals for ambitious and as yet unrealized schemes.
It encompasses most of what is included in the category of arms control,
but obviously does not encompass such measures as involve no reduction
or abolition of arms’8.
21
In the same source, the general term for arms trade refers to:
‘The transfer (by sale, exchange, or gift) of ‘conventional weapons’ - such

as armoured fighting vehicles, combat aircrafts and warships – together
with associated military equipment and technology. The proliferation of
nuclear and chemical and biological weapons is the concern of a separate
series of control regimes’9.
Similarly, the Treaty for the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE Treaty),
defines as conventional arms control measures, those limitations within the area of
application of the Treaty posed to five major categories conventional armaments and
equipments: battle tanks and armoured combat vehicles, artillery, combat aircraft,
combat aircrafts and attach helicopters10.
However, in the recent Post-Cold War environment the category of Small Arms and
Light Weapons (SALWs) has been informally included in the conventional arms
control agenda. Although there is no internationally agreed definition for this category,
one informal but widely accepted definition should be the following one:
‘They are generally considered to be weapons that can be used by one or

two people. Small arms are designed for individual use, and include
pistols, sub-machine guns, assault rifles and light machine guns. Light
weapons are designed to be deployed and used by a small crew, such as
Man-Portable Air Defence Systems (MANPADS), recoilless rifles and
mortars of less than 100mm caliber11’.
22
2.3. Purposes and objectives of conventional arms control and the EU-
US difference in their approaches
Conventional arms control and reduction of armaments it’s not an end in itself. The
arms control and disarmaments negotiations serve various purposes and objectives, with
some of them being the following:
 To reduce the risk of war started by accident or design, by limiting weapon
systems or deployments perceived as destabilizing, while minimizing the disparities
between heavily and lightly armed states, thereby removing a source of instability.
 To reduce the severity of war if it does initiate.
 To reduce the economic cost of arms races, saving resources necessary for
economic and human development, by placing limits on numbers of expensive military
equipment.
 To reduce the use of certain indiscriminate weapons, such as anti-personnel
mines.
 To make the strategic plans of states more predictable, thus enhancing
international security.
 To promote peaceful and co-operative relations between adversaries,
encouraging states to resort to peaceful means in solving their disputes.
 To encourage the military powers to understand each other’s security concerns,
while conceiving security in multilateral terms12.
Expanding the above purposes it is important to mention one sub-discipline of arms

control in general as well as of the conventional arms control field: Confidence-and
Security-Building Measures (CSBMs) Their objective is to put certain principles of
international law into action so as to provide credibility to countries’ predications of
their peaceful intents. These are divided in two further categories. The first one stands
for the promotion of better communication and understanding among the parties,
including exchange of info about military expenditures and arms transfers, mechanisms
for checking the accuracy of the data provided and rapid communication links for crisis
management. The latter stands for the imposition of military constrains among the
parties, including abstention from certain military activities in border areas,
23
disengagement of armed forces and demilitarization of certain areas and commitments
to the peaceful settlements of disputes. Of course, they may be expanded into the
economic and social sector as well, not being merely limited in the military affairs
field13. However, their purposes are significantly related with the field of arms control
and security in general albeit the discordance of the EU and US approaches for their
implementation in the field of conventional arms control, especially this one of the CFE
Treaty and its implications in the recent Balkan wars.
Characteristically, although the consensus between EU and USA that counter-

proliferation may be viewed as the military component of nonproliferation, thus
disarmament is a synonym for counter-proliferation, America is actually engaged in
unilateral counter-proliferation, pursuing the Bush Doctrine for preemption under their
arms control policy14. In that sense America saw the CFE Treaty as inadequate to
prevent the local wars break up, as in the case of Balkans, and suggested that the CFE
should become a tool for compliance moving in the direction of disarmament, adopting
an active crisis management character in addition to its traditional dialogue role under
the CSBMs that included so far. In contrast, the European states saw the treaty as aimed
at the hole of the continent in the present form of security co-operation and dialogue,
under the agreed inter-state negotiations and CSBMs, and they characterized the US
suggestions as perplexing the CFE with the US-led Dayton Accords for the Ex-
Yugoslavian wars. Moreover, they criticized America for not having adopted its own
Code of Conduct on Arms Export like the respective one of the EU under the
Organization of Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE)15.
2.4. Conceptual principles for arms trade
Trying to identify the conceptual principles of arms trade, it is essential to keep in mind
the classical theory that the nation-state system is the main unit of government of the
world’s populations and the institutional cornerstone of international order16. Because of
the acknowledgement that the primary element of this international political system is
the sovereign state admitting of no superior secular authority, many theorists have
24
defined the character of this system as anarchic, building up the theory of cultural
relativism, in which the relations between the primary systemic components comply to
knowable patterns and are governed by rules17. This is indispensable due to the fact that
each state claims to exercise a monopoly of legitimate force over the territory it
governs, triggering off an international system to being prone to war. Within that
system, failed states, being incapable to exert their anticipated security functions, are
brought forward as sources of international disorder, either by inviting other actors to
intervene legitimately or not, or by assuming hostile intents and actions18. So, arms
control and arms trade constitute two basic functions, either for national or international
security, which have developed both a homogeneous and a contradictory relationship
between them under the veil of the notion of security. Through the arms trade, countries
that do not have an adequate defence industry can acquire a defence or military
capability to ensure their self-defence right under article 51 of the UN Charter19,
fostering thereby their security in particular as well as the international security
potentially as a whole. However, the increase of their military strength can endanger
their or the international security, thus arms control and arms exports control are
prerequisites for the maintenance of international security.
The conceptual weakness of the above complicated relationship between arms control
and arms trade has created a lack of cohesion among the arms suppliers, which,
combined with the technological diffusion, the internationalization and civilianization20
of arms trade nowadays, has created a deficiency to the international community to go
beyond traditional conventional arms control and some relatively straightforward,
punitive embargoes and initiatives concerning the arms exports. Therefore, multilateral
efforts to manage the global trade in conventional arms and technology have not been
effectual enough so far, notwithstanding the pragmatic aspect that it ‘must be in the
interest of states to avoid possible adverse consequences of defence-related trade by
controlling the trade and the market place’21. Having in mind that arms trade has been
considered more causative than symptomatic of conflict, it stands as an ethical issue in
its own right too. Consequently, as Dr Paul Cornish argues, the basic tension exists
between this ethical principle of the goal of arms trade regulation on one hand and the
aforesaid principle of sovereignty on the other22, hindering the efforts for a multilateral
25
legal norm for the effective management of arms trade and its related technology.
However, in order to understand better the relationship between conventional arms
control, arms trade and security, it is important to analyze them under some theoretical
models of the related with the subject security theories.
2.5. Conventional arms control and the relevant security theories
2.5.1. The theoretical framework between arms control and security
As many scholars argue, arms control is normally not a subject for negotiation among
friendly nations. It is needed where relations among states are characterized by
enmity23. Nevertheless, a small quantity of optimistic expectation from negotiations is
of vital importance. Through these negotiations, as William Walker supports, it is
possible to have a progress from enmity and rivalry to forbearance and amity among
states, and avoid any regress by using legal or constitutional locks or the classic role of
balance of power, both elements of our international political system. This theory is
illustrated on the following figure:
Figure 2.1. The theory of progress from enmity to amity through arms control24
Locks:
Enmity/ 2. Legal/
Rivalry Constitutional
Progress Forbearance/
Amity Regress
26
In that sense, arms control in the form of negotiations and agreements is a key-process
from the realm of enmity to the realm of amity among the nation-states, thus has a direct
relationship with the notion of security, although as many theorists argue that ‘the
interrelationship between the achievement of measures of arms control, especially those
involving disarmament and the establishment of an effective system of international
security is complex’25, posing the dilemma whether to seek international security by
arms control or to seek arms control by way of international security. That dilemma
paralyzed the disarmament efforts of the League of Nations26. However, based on the
methodology of the disarmament economists Intriligator and Brito, made in 1967, and
their results which are illustrated on Table No. 2.2, the weapons levels of two states, (A
and B), are related with the probability to war, thus arms control is a way, according to
the author of this paper opinion, to seek international security.
Table 2.2 Relationship between weapons levels and the probability of war in
the optimistic Intriligator-Brito model27
γΑγΒ<1 γΑγΒ<1
Balanced vs Balanced Imbalanced Balanced Imbalanced
Imbalanced
ROWS
Weapons Forces Forces Forces Forces
Levels
Medium High Medium Very

1 to If strong party is to high
Low
Low aggressive Low
High High
2 Low If strong party is High If strong party is
Medium
aggressive aggressive
Very High Very High
3 Low If strong party is High If strong party is
High
aggressive aggressive
COLUMNS 1 2 3 4
γΑ=fA[1-exp(-αθΑ)], fA=number of B weapons destroyed per A counterforce weapons

γΒ=fB[1-exp(-βθΒ)], fB=number of A weapons destroyed per B counterforce weapons
α, β=maximum rates at which A and B fire their weapons
θΑ, θΒ=length of A and B first strikes
27
On this table it is identifiable that weapons levels are associated with the initiation of
war since, as they increase, they give a high probability of war, especially when the
weapons buildup is not balanced. Thus, it is obvious that conventional arms control is
highly needed between states with long-term rivalries living in a certain region, in the
way of reducing the armaments levels and bringing back a military balance amongst
them. Moreover, this relationship of conventional arms control and disarmament with
security has direct linkages not only prior to a potential war initiation, but also in the
peace management process, especially in the case of intrastate wars, and the general
concept of conflict resolution.
2.5.2. Modern theoretical framework of conventional arms control and

disarmament: The relationship with the conflict resolution theories
‘Arms control has undoubtedly a role to play in conflict resolution. It can enhance
stability through deterrence in the case of settlements based on partition, or it can
support the military transformation process for national reconciliation’28. Particularly
in the case of communal reintegration and power sharing among former warring
factions and belligerents, the role of conventional arms control is to support and
implement the change to peace. This movement towards national reconciliation was has
been articulated and theorized in the conceptual framework of John Paul Lederach in his
book under the title Building Peace where the praxis of reconciliation is composed of
four elements: ‘Truth’; ‘Mercy’; ‘Justice’; and ‘Peace’, and it is presented on the
following figure:
Figure 2.2. The Place Called Reconciliation29

Mercy
Acceptance
Truth Forgiveness
Acknowledgement
Support
Transparency
Compassion
Revelation Healing
Clarity
Reconciliation
Justice
Equality Peace
Right Relationships Harmony
Making things right Unity
Restitution Well-being
Security
Respect
28
In the above figure the two essential elements of reconciliation: ‘Truth’ and ‘Peace’ are
highly related with the conventional arms control agreements and negotiations between
the former belligerents through the sub-principles of ‘transparency’ and ‘clarity’ as well
as ‘security’ and ‘respect’ respectively. Transparent arms control arrangements
ingrained with mutual recognition and respect among the warring factions can enhance
security and promote the change to peace. This does not mean of course that arms
control negotiations and arrangements is the substantial tool of peace reconstruction and
sustainability, but combined with a restitution of the Justice and Social sector under
social, economic and political equality, it can support the change from violent
confrontation toward negotiation, giving hopefully a peaceful end to the conflict and
establishing a sustainable peace. Therefore in the conceptual matrix of conflict
progression visualization, expressed by Adam Curle and illustrated on the following
figure, conventional arms control should constitute a prerequisite component of the path
from confrontation via negotiation to sustainable peace.
Figure 2.3. The Progression of Conflict30
UNPEACEFUL RELATIONS PEACEFUL

STATIC UNSTABLE DYNAMIC
BALANCED
3. Negotiation
POWER
4.Sustainable peace
UNBALANCED
1. Education
2. Confrontation
Latent conflict Overt conflict
LOW HIGH
AWARENESS OF CONFLICT
29
Under this process, conventional arms control and disarmament in the aftermath of civil
wars is designed to achieve two goals. First, to remove the means by which these wars
have been prosecuted and prevent a re-ignition of the conflict and second, to enhance
stability and security on ground, supporting the process of confidence and security
building31. However, the aforesaid goals have the same implications even in the case of
mixed interstate / intrastate wars, for instance the long-term Arab-Israeli conflict, where
in the second stage of the conflict progression matrix from confrontation to negotiation,
a number of Arab-Israeli Arms Control Initiatives related with the peace process and
presented on table 2.3 have been taken place, yet without the expected result to
sustainable peace establishment, since the conflict seems to continue perpetually. A
reasonable justification for this has been given by Geoffrey Kemp in his book The
Control of the Middle East Arms Race, by arguing that ‘the precise relationship between
an arms control process and a peace process will vary according to the status of the
conflict and the level of political dialogue among the parties’32. In such situations, a lot
of complexities and difficulties may occur, basically related with the security
perceptions and cultures of the specific domestic environment and linked with the long-
term sustainability of the peace–building arms control measures, which will be
analytically mentioned in chapter 4.
Table 2.3. Matrix of Arab-Israeli Arms Control Initiatives and the Peace Process33
Matrix of Arab-Israeli Arms Control Initiatives and the Peace Process
PRE-NEGOTIATIONS Measures to prevent war by miscalculation
Transparency
‘Red lines’34
Deployment limitations
Weapons testing limitations
External restraints on supply
NEGOTIATIONS Territorial compromise
Demilitarized zones
Peacekeeping forces
Deployment limitations
Enhanced surveillance and verification
Israeli-Palestinian security regime
POST-NEGOTIATIONS Conventional force reduction
Inspection of arms production
Regional arms supply agreements
30
On the other hand, since many of the regional and peace management process-driven
arms control measures, mainly in the cases of ethnic civil conflicts, are characterized
with problematic areas of negotiations and implementations, the need for an expansion
of the traditional conventional arms control agenda into the realm of a future
international, legally binding, arms trade treaty is more demanded than ever. With such
an initiative conventional arms control may be more important in facilitating the
development of tolerable relations within the states, nations and ethnic groups in the
specific prone to conflict regions than in preventing the outbreak of war should relations
become bad.
2.6. Conventional arms control and arms trade: the security link
2.6.1. The theoretical framework
As it is derived from the last argument above, there should be a link between
conventional arms control and the arms trade function and dynamics under the notion of
the fundamental security theory. As Giovanni Manunta argued , security is a function of
the interaction of its components: the asset (A), the protector (p) and the threat (T).
Characteristically, he elucidated that ‘security is the contrived condition of an Asset. It
is created and maintained by a Protector in antagonism with a reacting counterpart
(Threat). It aims to protect the Asset from unacceptable damage’35. The above theory is
illustrated on the following figure:
Figure 2.4. A Security Problem36
Asset
p = protection of A by P
p/r = protection/response
(action taken against perceived threat)
v = perceived vulnerability v
p
Protector p/r Threat
31
Attempting to correlate the above theory with the interrelationship between
conventional arms control and arms trade, it is necessary to make the following
assumptions: (i) the Asset is the international stability and the maintenance of peace in
conflict-prone regions under the process of disarmament and an integrated arms
regulatory mechanisms; (ii) the Protector is the existed conventional arms control
regimes, multilateral or bilateral; (iii) and the Threat is the vigorous and scarcely
managed international arms trade, overt or covert. Having in mind as well that despite
some isolated regional or international initiatives for the better regulation of the arms
market nothing really effective has been decreed and conventional arms, especially
small arms and light weapons, are percolated in conflict-prone and unstable
environments, conventional arms control regimes cannot cover the total perceived
vulnerability, as it is presented on figure 2.5.
Figure 2.5. The Security Problem of Conventional Arms Control and ArmsTrade37
A=International
stability and
management of peace
in unstable regions
v
vvvv
p
T=Arms trade
p/r
P=Conventional arms
control regimes
Consequently, a possible international, legally binding, arms trade treaty, including

SALWs, would arguably help the protector (expanded conventional arms control
regime), to undertake an extended pre-emptive action (p/r) against the perceived threat
(arms trade), so that the vulnerability could be reduced, yet not diminished since arms
are not the causal factor of instability, and moreover the prospect for a general and
32
complete international disarmament is unrealistic. However, it could enhance the
movement towards a more peaceful environment, especially in the case of ethnic and
intrastate rivalries. Nevertheless, such an approach meets several problematic areas
related with conventional arms control and disarmament, either in a holistic approach or
in particular fragile domestic environments.
2.6.2 Problematic cases and the issue of SALWs in a theoretical perspective
A group of scholars, trying to define the notion of security culture in relation to arms
control, argue that:
‘Culture, as it refers to non-proliferation, arms control, disarmament and security-

building issues, consists of those enduring and widely-shared beliefs, traditions,
attitudes, and symbols that inform the ways in which a state’s/society’s interests and
values with respect to security, stability and peace are perceived, articulated and
advanced by political actors and elites’38.
Having in mind that security culture is highly interconnected with the elements of
political, strategic and diplomatic culture, figure 2.6. shows the cultural influences on
multilateral arms control, non-proliferation and security-building dialogues, implying
the interlinked difficulties and complexities for a viable and holistic approach to
conventional arms control. In this sense, the first problematic case is that the mutual
rights and obligations that are provided by conventional arms control agreements are
not perceived necessarily to be equal for all. For example, agreements stopping the
qualitative or quantitative arms levels usually favour the parties which are militarily
superior, highlighting the need for positive or negative incentives and disincentives to
induce the disadvantaged states to adhere into the specific agreements39.
33
Figure 2.6. A schema of cultural influences on multilateral arms control, non-
proliferation and security-building dialogues40
Political Culture
- institutions and traditions
- colonial or historical legacies
- attitudes towards violence, dispute resolution
- societal patterns of authority/hierarchy
- stance towards multilateralism
Strategic Culture
- experiences of war
and peace Diplomatic Culture
- role of armed forces - negotiating strategies
- threat perceptions, security - international standing
doctrines - accept rules of the game
- enemy images
- unilateral or mutual
security posture
Secondly, many theorists and practitioners support the argument that weapons are
morally neutral and a moral concern about the possession and transfer of certain types
of weapons is a mislaid fixation with technology, while the major moral concern should
be the intention of the maker, owner or buyer of the weapon. In addition, a lack of
convincing definition and universal agreement on what makes a ‘legitimate’ level of
self-defence and on what is aggression41, poses the major obstacles in an integrated
approach to conventional arms control and arms trade under the auspices of
multilateralism. That is why some analysts argue that the unilateral arms trade
regulatory efforts offer a more realistic possibility of control42.
34
The aforementioned views about unilateralism are sensible in many respects, since they
provide the ground for addressing in a more detailed effort the disarmament and
demobilization processes in the multifaceted and complex environments of the
developing world conflicts than it should be through widely multilateral, vague
conventional arms control agreements. Yet, they leave all the arms control related
problems to be solved after they occur, without assuming any preventing action. In the
case of Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALWs), the problem acquires huge
dimensions through the further interrelated intrinsic complexities of the issue. It is
characteristic that the lack of internationally accepted normative standards for SALWs
trade is the most significant problem to resolve, raising to the academic cycles the
following fundamental question with the associated pessimistic assumption: ‘When is it
acceptable for countries and factions to acquire small arms and when is it not? Until this
question is answered, there is not much the international community can do about the
issue as a whole’43. Consequently, using formal arms control to address this issue is
hard, basically for two reasons: First, some arms transfers can be considered as
acceptable, even to some resistance groups having a reasonable justification for
revolting against their governmental regimes; and second, the large number of suppliers,
legal or not, combined with the small size of these weapons, pose serious difficulties in
monitoring the SALWs shipments44.
Additionally, non-state actors like rebel and insurgent forces as well as terrorists rely on
low-tech weapons and unconventional tactics to overcome the power of their opponents,
or to assassinate governmental officials and innocent civilians, using Rocket-Propelled
Grenades (RPGs), machine guns, lightweight mortars, common explosives and
MANPADs. The Irish Republican Army (IRA) attacks in major English cities, like at
Canary Wharf in London, or the suicide attacks of Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka are only
some of the numerous examples45. Under this spectrum, the relationship between
conventional arms control, particularly that covering the issue of SALWs and the
conventional explosive ordnances (CEOs), and global terrorism is very much ingrained.
35
2.7. Conclusion
The theoretical framework that has been developed through this chapter, is not a
panacea of security theory in the field of conventional arms control and arms trade.
Nevertheless, it should be arguably considered as a theoretical guide of the evolutionary
agenda of conventional arms control throughout the historical path of this particular
study-discipline. Finding the direct relationship between conventional arms control and
the arms trade is probably a difficult task, since it entails several multifaceted linkages
with the security cultures of states around the globe. However, the multidimensional
and dynamic arms market of the Post-Cold War era seems to open new windows of
research in the theoretical field of conventional arms control. Leaving aside the old
philosophical and unacknowledged questions, whether armaments are the causal factor
of wars or whether the arms trade is a causative or symptomatic phenomenon of
conflicts, the new security challenges emerged in a multipolar international order
require a new approach of the subject. Should conventional arms control and arms trade
management be examined in a multilateral agenda, under an international arms trade
treaty, in a similar way like under the Codes of Conduct of the European Security and
Defence Policy (ESDP)? Or do unilateral efforts serve better the domestic and regional
requirements of the developing world where the regional organizations lack of
robustness and the interstate and intrastate conflicts are highly related with long-term
ethnic and religious disputes and rivalries?
Consequently, if the first approach is better, what about the complicated issue of
SALWs? Should it be examined as a discrete security problem or incorporated into the
conventional arms control regimes. Before attempting to answer these questions, one
has to take into account all the overt or covert folds of the new security challenges of
arms trade and the SALWs issue, as they will be addressed in chapter 4. Only in this
way a theorist can support the crying view about conventional arms control and arms
trade, arguing that ‘an alternative and more fruitful approach is to consider the
implications of recent changes in the international security environment for the
conventional arms trade as a whole – neither neglecting small arms nor inflating their
importance’46. However, before ending up there, a historical background of
conventional arms control and arms trade would be explanatory necessary.
36
References
1
Kerstin Hoffman, Ed., Disarmament Forum One 1999: The New Security Debate,
(UNIDIR, Geneva, 1999), p. 13.
2
Nils Petter Gleditsch and Olav Njølstad, Ed., Arms Races: Technological and Political
Dynamics, (SAGE Publications Ltd., London, 1990), p. 15.
3
Ibid. p. 16.
4
University Press, Oxford, 2001), pp. 6-7.
5
Holman, B. Actively working for an Arms Trade Treaty. The Herald [online], 06
January, 2006, 21. Available via: Proquest, (Accessed: 03 June 2006).
6
Paul Cornish, Controlling the Arms Trade, (Bowerdean Publishing Company Ltd.,
London, 1996), pp. 80-81.
7
US Department of State, Arms transfers trends 1998-1999 [online], (US Department
of State, Washington, 2000), (Accessed: 20 June 2006), Available at:
http://www.state.gov/wmeat/armstransfers_trends.pfd
8
Richard Holmes, Ed., The Oxford Companion To Military History, (Oxford University
Press, Oxford, 2001), p. 79.
9
Ibid. p. 81.
10
11
Department For International Development, UK Policy and Strategic Priorities on
Small Arms and Light Weapons 2004-2006 [online], (FCO-DFID UK, London, 2006),
(Accessed: 28 May 2006), Available at:
12
Richard Holmes, Ed., The Oxford Companion To Military History, (Oxford
13
(SAGE Publications Ltd., California, 2002), pp. 10-11.
14
Michael O. Wheeler, James M. Smith and Glen M. Segell, Perspectives on Arms
Control, (USAF Institute for National Security Studies, US Air Force Academy,
Colorado Springs, 2004), pp. 89-115.
15
Ibid. pp. 115-119.
37
16
(Frank Cass Publishers, London, 2000), p. 29.
17
H. Bull, The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics, (Macmillan,
London, 1977), p. 57.
18
(Frank Cass Publishers, London, 2000), p. 29-30.
19
20
The terms ‘internationalization’ and ‘civilianization’ of the arms market were
presented and analyzed in the presentation of Dr Paul Cornish in Cranfield University of
UK under the title ‘Commerce, Control and Conscience: The Political Economy of the
International Market in Conventional Arms and Related Technology’, during the 7th
Global Security MSc Course 2005-2006 and the Nature of Security module, 19 January
2006. ‘Internationalization’ means the spread of the arms market and defence
manufacturing all around the world without particular national identity of each
company, while ‘civilianization’ means the dual-use technologies combatible both to
the military and civilian field of application.
21
Affairs, London, 1995), p. 76.
22
Ibid. pp. 78-82.
23
(SAGE Publications Ltd., California, 2002), pp. 12.
24
William Walker, Weapons of Mass Destruction and International Order, (Adelphi
Paper No. 370), (IISS/OUP, 2004), p. 11.
25
Hague, 2001), p. 31.
26
Ibid. p. 32.
27
Manas Chatterji and Linda Rennie Forcey, Ed., Disarmament, Economic Conversion,
and Management of Peace, (Praeger Publishers, New York, 1992), p. 82.
28
Winter 2000, 49.
29
John Paul Lederach, Building Peace: Sustainable Reconciliation in Divided Societies,
(United States Institute of Peace Press, Washington, D.C., 1997), p. 30.
38
30
Ibid. p. 65
31
Aftermath of Civil Wars: Key Implementation Issues, Civil Wars, 2(2), 1999, 2.
32
for International Peace, Washington, 1991), p. 151.
33
Ibid. p. 153.
34
‘Red lines’ usually refer to informal agreements between adversaries concerning
limits on the deployment and use of armed forces in given geographic regions.
35
Giovanni Manunta, Security: An Introduction, (ISBN 1-8713 15-68-9, Granfield
University, 1998), p. 43.
36
Giovanni Manunta No. 1, Defining Security, (ISBN 0-9501575-4-6 March 2000), in
Professor’s Christopher Bellamy presentation under the title Security Problems: theory,
during the 7th Global Security MSc Course 2005-2006.
37
Author’s conceived theoretical figure.
38
Security Building, (Frank Cass Publishers, London, 1999), p. 14.
39
40
Security Building, (Frank Cass Publishers, London, 1999), p. 15.
41
Affairs, London, 1995), pp. 77-78.
42
Ibid. p.79
43
Conflict, Security and Development (CSD), 1(2), 2001, 141.
44
Michael A. Levi and Michael E. O’Hanlon, The Future of Arms Control, (Brookings
Institution Press, Washington, D.C., 2005), p. 113.
45
Charles W. Kegley, Jr., The New Global Terrorism: Characteristics, Causes,
Controls, (Pearson Education Inc., New Jersey, 2003), p. 31.
46
Publishing Ltd., Albershot, 1999), p. 60.
39
CHAPTER 3 – HISTORICAL AND RECENT BACKGROUND
3.1. Introduction
Some of the political theorists have viewed the post-cold war order as a typical phase of
post-war peacemaking, being the end of a period of protracted conflict that has led in
attempts to necessitate new distributions of international power and indoctrinate wider
principles and norms for the conduct of international relationships1. This concept had its
implications in the conventional arms control sphere, which arguably started to change
its nature and scope, being a follower of this international order change. One of the
reasons for this is substantially a change in the nature of the international politico-
economic order that induced a different dynamic in the conduct and character of the
international arms trade. The international arms market in the post-cold war era is
characterized as smaller and looser, however vigorous and very complicated to manage
effectively. The first indication for this change in dynamics is that the end of Cold War
continues to have a depressing effect on Western defence industries, rebounding in the
downsizing and structural reform of defence industrial sectors and increasing awareness
in defence exports, albeit into a much compact and reduced market. On the other hand
the cold war notion of the world divided into spheres of influence could not longer
provide a sufficient explanation of the dynamics of arms supply and demand2.
All the above changing scenery has led to further initiatives for the regulations of the
various aspects of arms trade globally and regionally, as well as in national levels, some
of them being the UN Register for Conventional Arms, the EU Code of Conduct on
Arms Trade and many others that will be mentioned further down. In addition, new
emerged issues, like the Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALWs), or the management
of transfer of sensitive dual-use technology, begun to be considered and endorsed under
the agenda of the traditional conventional arms control context, constituted before
merely of the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty and the Certain
Conventional Weapons (CCW) Convention in the specific field3. Recently, a year-old
British initiative to regulate the global conventional arms trade has got some support as
40
well, but top arms suppliers have yet to embraced it while the United States has often
doubted about its value4.
3.2. The historical background of conventional arms control
Compared with nuclear negotiations, the participants in conventional arms control

negotiations would always be more, the boundaries more arbitrary and the forces more
varied. As Emanuel Adler supports, ‘conventional arms control never appeared so
susceptible to negotiated adjustment’5. Therefore, the most essential interest for all the
arms controllers was not basically to restrict conventional forces, but in contrast, to
encourage them as a less ranging means of dealing with a emergency situation that had
the potential to go critical. Because of this particularity, the theories in the domain of
conventional arms control have been less coherent and the relevant negotiations and
agreements had most of the times a bilateral, regional or multilateral context, yet not an
international one, as with the respective ones in the field of Weapons of Mass
Destruction (WMD).
However, every technological advance in weaponry, from the crossbow to the bomber,
has been accompanied by calls for arms abolition and total and general disarmament.
Not surprisingly, all the relevant with these purpose efforts, from the late Middle Ages
until the very recent times, have been unproductive and the each time prohibitions have
failed. This was logical, since countries have found as more important to keep their
force levels up to those of their enemies6. Some of those efforts have been:
 The efforts to demolish all of the combatants fortifications under the 1648 Peace
of Westfalia;
 The unsuccessful efforts for complete disarmament by Tsar Alexander I in 1816;
 The Hague Peace Conference in June 1899 which managed only to expand the
‘laws of armed conflict’ with the prohibitions on weapons causing unnecessary
suffering and on poisoned weapons; and
41
 The failed efforts of the League of Nations in 1927 under Maxim Litvinov, head
of the Soviet diplomatic delegation to the League’s Disarmament Commission on
Geneva7.
One small successful exception to the above dismal picture was the Washington Naval
Treaty of 1922, which managed to put some temporary limitations in a costly enjoining
naval arms race among the great powers of that time8.
Nevertheless, after the end of the Second World War, and being in the UN era, the
scenery and context of conventional arms control changed apparently and significantly,
achieving some agreements in a wide regional level.
3.3. The Post-Cold War achievements in conventional arms control
In the changing political climate in Europe at the end of the cold war, during the period
1990-1992, the emphasis was on enhancing stability and security, so a number of
conventional arms control negotiations were came up to a successful conclusion.
Encasing a period which included the extended efforts of the Mutual and Balanced
Force Reductions (MBFR) Talks and the important signing of the Stockholm Document
in 1986, the signing of the CFE Treaty in November 1990 and its Concluding Act in
1992 provided major reductions and limitations in conventional armaments all around
Europe, specifying verification measures of unprecedented breadth and scope in order to
both ensure the treaty implementation and provide a basis for future agreements and
higher transparency9. Characteristically, the treaty imposed to both North Atlantic
Treaty Organization (NATO) and former Warsaw Pact to limit their conventional
armaments to 20,000 tanks, 30,000 ACVs, 20,000 heavy artillery pieces, 6,800 combat
aircrafts and 2,000 attack helicopters for the treaty’s area of application. On the other
hand the treaty has established four concentric zones capping the deployment of land-
warfare conventional weapons and artillery out from the centre of Europe, while placing
specific limits on the number of tanks, ACVs and artillery for Europe’s southern and
northern flanks, including portions of Russia territory. So far, the CFE state-parties have
executed more than 3,300 on-site inspections and observation visits10.
42
Following the signing of the CFE Treaty and in the context of robust confidence and
security building measures, both NATO and the former Warsaw Pact countries, signed
in March 1992 the Open Skies Treaty, which permits each state-party to conduct short-
notice and unarmed reconnaissance flights over the others’ entire territorial land with
the purpose of collecting data on military forces and activities11. In addition, nine years
after the CFE Treaty, the treaty’s state-parties signed an adaptation agreement that
updates the late cold-war treaty’s structure, called the Adapted CFE. However, the
specific step-up of the CFE, has not yet come into force because of differences between
the USA and Russia, concerning the new weapon limits and the unfulfilled Russian
commitments made in the CFE Final Act12.
On the contrary, conventional arms control has not achieved equivalent goals in other
regions of the globe basically due to different security and political cultures13 between
the nation-states of the specific regions. One sound example is the region of Middle
East. A NATO-Warsaw Pact war considered a remote possibility, mainly because no
one was able to foresee how either side could win, so all the involved countries realized
that arms and troop reduction would translate directly into enhanced multilateral
security. In contrast, according to the belief of the Middle Eastern countries, armaments
considered to be a last resort and necessary instrument of national policy in a long-
historical region where the winners of every war have always gained rewards, yet short-
term ones. In addition in the Middle East there is no military standoff, no secure and
accepted legal boundaries, absence of diplomatic relations and finally no accepted
geographic parameters of the region for arms control agreements or political dialogue14.
Because of all the above reasons, in the Middle East until now, there is no recognition
that conventional arms control will serve either national or mutual interests. Similar
complexities have been apparent to the African continent as well where conventional
arms control and disarmament efforts have been always taking place in the aftermath of
every bloody interstate or intrastate conflict under the peace-making initiatives
undertaken by the international community.
43
Nevertheless, one of the highest achievements of conventional arms control globally,
was the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer
of Anti-Personnel Mines and on Their Destruction, known as the ‘Ottawa Convention’
or ‘Mine Ban Treaty’15. It was a major step towards a solution of a global problem, due
to the fact that the global Anti-Personnel Mines stockpiles have been estimated to be
more than 170 million mines. By the 1st of December 2005, 147 states had become party
to the accord, including some states of the Middle East and South Asia regions.
Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, major powers, such as the USA, Russia and China,
have not signed the treaty16.
3.4. The historical legacy of arms trade
The high degree of laissez-faire in the international arms trade was the most essential
cause of the very active role of European private armaments firms in the pre-1914
period, selling their wares in the Balkans or Latin America under an effort to
diplomatically support their home governments. In contrast, the interwar (First World
War) period witnessed much more governmental involvement, in the form of state-to-
state arrangements and in the wider context of political alliances. As Donald Stoker and
Jonathan Grant argue, ‘in the interwar period business interests usually came second to
diplomatic interests in the sense that private firms were not the initiators of most of the
sales and contracts but rather they were brought into the loop by the governments’17.
The latter trend continued more or less until the end of the Second World War, which,
being the dawn of the Cold War era, signaled the beginning of new patterns and
dynamics in the international arms market.
Characteristically, the major political rationale for arms transfers in the Cold War period
was the influence that the supplier gained in dealings with the recipient nation, under
the form of military aid. That process was serving the purpose of deterrence and friction
against the opponent, as in the case of US supplies to China or Afghanistan, under the
veil of open confrontation or ‘pure’ support of liberation movements and political elites,
as in the case of US military assistance programs to Latin America nations. On the other
44
hand, when countries were dealing with established allies, arms transfers were giving
substance to treaty commitments, continuing the long-term rivalry between the West
and the East, having as obvious cases NATO and Warsaw Pact. However, in many
cases where the situation was more fluid and without formal alliances established, the
recipient countries had became adept of the game of the two superpowers, gaining
short-term or long-term profits18. Nevertheless, the consequences of the cold war arms
trade were much more apparent in the developing world where the arms transfers fed
local arms races and heightened regional tensions that lead to local wars, which in their
turn wasted the scarce resources of the regions in question and aggravated poverty.
However, the argument that arms transfers could help correct the regional power
imbalances by backing the weaker states haltered any effort for arms trade control at
that particular time19. Figure 3.1 and 3.2 show the rising volume trade in major weapons
and the imports of major weapons by the specific regions in question respectively, for
the period 1971-1985.
Figure 3.1. Volume index of the trade in major weapons with the developing
world and total trade with the developing world, 1971-198520
45
Figure 3.2. Imports of major weapons by region, 1971-198521
3.5. The new trends of the arms market and arms transfers
The new international environment of the Post-Cold War era has revealed new trends
and dynamics for the international arms trade. The end of the cold war signaled a
significant decline of defence spending all around the globe in average and a triumph of
the West due to the economic collapse of the former Soviet Union. The recipient
countries were no longer dependent on their strong allied superpowers serving the
interests of their former rivalry and moreover the population outcry for reduced military
expenditures forced every state to reconsider its defence and acquisition policy22. Figure
3.3 is illustrative for this changing trend.
46
Figure 3.3. Military Expenditures for the period 1989-199923
Military Expenditure 1989-1999 - US State Department
1400
1200
WORLD
DEVELOPED
DEVELOPING
1000
US$ bn (constant 1999)
800
600
400
200
0
1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999
Year
On the above figure, after 1998, a new smaller rise in the global military spending can
be observed, basically due to the recent Balkan conflicts, the starting threshold of the
‘war on terror’, and the increase of military expenditure in the developing world under
their rising economic and population growth rate and the insecurity and military
demands which in their turn create. On the other hand this changing international
environment transformed the cold war supplier’s market into a buyer’s market, since
every country now asks for the best hi-tech equipment that serves its needs rather than
being dependent on everything that is provided by their allies or friendly superpowers.
In addition, the globalization process brought three new elements into the nature of
defence manufacturing: its internationalisation, its indigenisation and its
civilianisation24. Defence manufacturing in the post-cold war era, under the waves of
privatizations of formerly state-owned arms-production assets, has spread all around the
world making difficult to completely identify the nationality of each company and over
47
and above, due to the accompanying offsets and the transfer of know-how technology, it
has started to become indigenous to the country is taking place. The ‘dual-use’
technologies for both civilian and military purposes as well as the fact that
manufacturing companies can also be the recipients of technology and component
transfers - considered to be arms transfers under certain conditions - arguably have
made the defence industry less homogeneous than ever before25. Of course, neither the
main arms suppliers have changed significantly nor the major arms importers as it is
delineated on figures 3.4 and 3.5 respectively, and the supply routes for surplus
weapons have more or less been the same, as it is presented on Map 3.1 and 3.2,
showing that the ongoing interstate disputes or rivalries in the regions of the Eastern
Mediterranean, Caucasus, and South-Eastern Asia still serve the interests of the
conventional arms market.
Figure 3.4. Top 15 Arms Exporters, 2000-200426
Top 15 Arms Exporters, 2000-2004 - SIPRI
30000
25000
US$ million (constant 1990)
20000
15000
10000
5000
0
UK
E
A
A
A
DA
N
S
EL
AN
EN
IN
US
AN
IN
TH
I
AL
RU
AI
SS
RA
AN
NA
ST
ED
CH
SP
RA
IT
NE
M
LA
RU
IS
KI
FR
CA
SW
ER
UK
BE
BE
G
UZ
Country
Note: The output of the Russian arms industry has grown rapidly since 1999, but this growth has been
fueled by export orders rather than meaningful expansion of domestic procurement27. However, a lot of
US undelivered orders are under completion, making USA to be the first arms exporter for the moment.
48
Figure 3.5. Top 15 Arms Importers, 2000-200428
Top 15 Arms Importers, 2000-2004 - SIPRI
14000
12000
10000
US$ million (constant 1990)
8000
6000
4000
2000
0
A
AN
A
A
N
K
Y
DI
E
L
CE
UK
DI
LI
YP
AE
IN
D
KE
A
RO
UA
US
U
IR
ST
NA
RA
EE
IN
CH
SA
EG
R
R
IS
KI
TU
R
ST
CA
G
PA
AU
Country
49
Map 3.1. The supply routes for surplus weapons (1), 1990-199529
50
Map 3.2. The supply routes for surplus weapons (2), 1990-199530
51
3.6. SALWs: An old, yet recently considered issue
On the other hand, in a recently familiar pattern, the conclusion of the majority of the
conflicts leads the supply of Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALWs) to exceed
demand, thus becoming cheap and relatively easy to obtain. In its turn, this leads to the
arming of the local criminal groups and eventually the circulation of weaponry abroad,
perpetuating the opportunities for rioting and violent armed insurrection elsewhere31.
This scourge, although an old product of the cold war period, has been considered with
much more seriousness only during the last decade or maybe later. The primary sources
of this plague, predictable enough, have been the recently independent states of the
Former Soviet Union (FSU), the latter being at that time under economic dislocation;
the Afghan Pipeline, a distribution system established by the Cental Intelligenge
Association (CIA) in the 1980s under the veil of the cold war for the supply of the
Mujahideen; some African countries under past interstate and intrastate conflicts, like
Angola and Mozambique; and some South-eastern Asian countries through the
oddments of their past wars, namely Cambodia and Vietnam32.
The very recently held UN Conference on SALWs in June-July 2006 revealed that eight
million guns are made every year and 25 per cent of the four billion $US small arms
trade is illicit. In addition, guns were used in 60-90 per cent of direct conflict deaths in
2003, while six percent of the world’s suicides and 40 percent of the homicides involve
guns33. The reverberation of the above issue, has started to compel the global
community to minimize all arms transfers, acting aggressively against the most
provocative arms deals and moving the interest of the arms transfers field experts away
from the traditional major conventional weapons. As Aaron Karp argues in the Weapons
Proliferation in the 1990s edition of Brad Roberts, the ‘bulk of the trade in major
weapons has become banal, posing no clear threat to security’34. In that context, the
international community started in 2001, under a conference held in New York, to work
on this issue, establishing a UN Program of Action to Prevent, Combat and Eradicate
the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons, in All Its Aspects (PoA) and
signing an international Protocol against the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in
Firearms, Their Parts and Components and Ammunition, as a supplementation of the
52
UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime. These initiatives continued in a
similar UN conference under the auspices of the Group of Governmental Experts for the
purpose of tracing illicit arms trade and of addressing the issue of Man-Portable Air
Defence Systems (MANPADS)35. In addition, various similar initiatives have started to
be undertaken in a regional level, as they are going to be mentioned further down.
3.7. Principal Conventions and Regulatory Regimes for the Post-Cold

War arms transfers field
The first attempt for an international regulatory regime concerning the arms trade was
shaped during the Cold War under the transatlantic Coordinating Committee for
Multilateral Export Controls (COCOM), designed to prevent the flow of technology and
strategic exports to Communist countries of the Warsaw Pact36. After the collapse of the
Soviet Union, where new security and development perspectives started to emerge, an
international agreement on export controls dissipated quickly, since the COCOM was
replaced in 1995 by the relatively weaker ‘Wassenaar Arrangement’37, covering exports
of conventional arms and dual-use goods and technologies. The purpose of the latter
regime was to contribute to the economic development of the reforming countries, by
providing greater access to upgraded technologies and dual-use goods, while providing
guarantees for the civilian use of the goods and technologies in question in those
countries38. However, a major international initiative in the field of transparency in
conventional arms transfers has been the UN Register of Conventional Arms,
established under the 9th December 1991 Resolution of the General Assembly. It called
upon the member-states to exercise restraint in exports and imports of conventional
arms, particularly in situations of tension or conflict; to annually provide data of
conventional weapons transfers; as well as background information for their military
holdings and procurement39. Unfortunately, the scope of application has been limited,
without legal provisions at all, only to seven types of weapons, namely tanks, ACVs,
attack helicopters, warships, missiles and missile launchers40, while it contains various
qualitative and quantitative shortcomings, which will be analyzed in Chapter 5.
53
In general, a brief description of some of the additional to those mentioned above
international and regional initiatives and agreements on the field of regulatory regimes
for the arms transfers can be found in Table 3.1, including the initiatives for the issue of
SALWs. The limitations and weaknesses of the most significant ones will be examined
in Chapter 5 of this thesis.
Table 3.1. Additional International and Regional Initiatives/Agreements on the

field of Regulatory Regimes for the Arms Transfers and SALWs
Name of Regime/Initiative for Arms Brief Description

Transfers and SALWs
UN Protocol against the Illicit Manufacturing of This is the first major policy document on SALWs
Trafficking in Firearms, Their Parts and adopted at the UN. It includes measures of
Components and Ammunition, supplementing the strengthening national legislation and enhanced
UN Convention against Transnational Organized information exchange among governments on
Crime41 illicit firearms, their traders, sources and trafficking
routes.
UN Program of Action (PoA) to Prevent, Combat It pertains to state-to-state transfers of SALWs,
and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and envisioning spheres of action at international,
Light Weapons in All Its Aspects42 regional and national level, including information
sharing, assistance and standard settings.
OSCE Document on SALW43 It divides the tasks for combating the proliferation
and spreading of SALWs into several baskets of
norms and measures, including national
regulations, controls over manufacturing, marking
and record-keeping. It includes as well monitoring
and regulation of international trade in SALWs
consisted of brokering regulation, common export
criteria and transfers controls. Finally, it addresses
the issue of weapons collection, stockpile
management and surplus disposal, especially after
the recent regional conflicts.
OSCE Document on Stockpiles of Conventional It is a complementary document of the OSCE
Ammunition44 Document on SALW, encompassing all the
categories of conventional ammunition, explosive
material and detonating devices. The document
provides practical procedures and mechanisms for
the destruction of surplus stockpiles of ammo with
the final aim to enable the participating states to
strengthen their national capacities in dealing with
the specific problems.
OSCE Decision ON Man-Portable Air Defence It adopts the principles for increased export
Systems (MANPADS)45 controls of MANPADS, drawn from the Wassenaar
Arrangement’s Elements for Export Controls of
MANPADS.
OSCE Decision of Standard Elements of End-User Under this decision no export license is issued
Certificates and Verification Procedures46 without an authenticated end-user certificate by the
receiving state.
54
OSCE Decision for Principles on the Control of This decision states the principles agreed by states
Brokering in SALWs47 to control arms brokering in order to avoid
circumvention of sanctions adopted by the Security
Council or the OSCE or under other arms control
and disarmament agreements, so that to minimize
the risk of diversion of SALWs into illegal
markets, terrorists and other criminal groups.
EU Council’s Joint Action to Combating the It provides financial and technical assistance to
Destabilizing Accumulation and Spread of countries and international organizations that
SALWs48 request support for the specific issue not only in
Europe but all around the globe.
EU Code of Conduct on Arms Exports49 It is a model for the control of conventional
military exports, which was adopted by the EU as a
political commitment in 1998, establishing
common criteria for the approval of exports and for
effective transparency. At the present it is under
revision with the ambitious aim to become a
legally binding Common Position of the EU, so
being hopefully the first regional legally binding
treaty concerning the arms trade.
EU Strategy to Combat Illicit Accumulation and It is a strategy adopted by the EU Council in
Trafficking of SALWs and their Ammunition50 support of the Joint Action against SALWs and
under the European Security Strategy agenda, with
the aim to develop an integrated approach and a
comprehensive plan of action to combat the illicit
trade in SALWs and their ammunition.
Inter-American Convention on Transparency in It is an unprecedented regional transparency regime
Conventional Weapons Acquisitions51 of the 34 member-states of the Organization Of
American States (OAS) that requires its state-
parties to annually report on their weapons exports
and imports and moreover, to make timely
notifications of their weapons acquisitions, whether
imported or produced domestically, being in that
way much more robust than the UN Register of
Conventional Weapons.
The Wassenaar Arrangement on Export Controls It is regulatory regime for the export controls of
for Conventional Arms and Dual-Use Goods and SALWs, being a politically binding document
Technologies: Best Practice Guidelines for Exports providing best practice guidelines for the exports of
of Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALWs)52 SALWs to its member-states.
EU Council’s Common Position on the Control of It is a politically binding document for the EU
Arms Brokering53 member-states with the purpose of avoiding
circumventions of the UN, EU or OSCE embargoes
on arms exports, as well as of the criteria set out in
the European Union Code of Conduct on Arms
Exports. Member-states should take all the
necessary measures to control brokering activities
taking place within their territory and encouraged
to take similar measures for controlling brokering
activities outside of their territory, carried out by
brokers of their nationality resident. Finally,
member-states are also obliged to establish a clear
framework for lawful brokering activities.
55
3.8. Conclusion
As this chapter revealed, the major steps for the field of conventional arms control
started to take place after the end of the Cold War as a result of a new international
order emerged by the arguably economic and political victory of the ‘west’ against the
countries of the Warsaw Pact. One of the unprecedented and much promising treaties of
conventional arms control, the CFE Treaty, brought about enormous reductions and
limitations in heavy conventional weapons and deployments, being supplemented by the
Open Skies Treaties, which opened transparency of military equipment possessions and
deployments into its wider context around Europe. However, the remnants of the Cold
War have been apparent until to date, with the military superpowers to supply major
conventional weapons to conflictful countries in very unstable regions under the
vindication of military balance and regional security. Moreover, in the domain of arms
trade regulatory efforts, every consensus or agreement that was accomplished has
usually maintained a regional character, most of the times only politically binding, and
with numerous qualitative and quantitative imperfections.
On the other hand, the new security challenges of the Post-Cold War era worldwide
incurred new dimensions in the field of conventional disarmament and arms trade
management regimes. Thus, the issue of dual-use technology transfers risks and the
scourge of the propagation of SALWs to and from regions of interstate or intrastate
conflicts have started to pose serious impediments to the economic development of
countries under reform, to undermine good governance and human security, to increase
poverty and to foster terrorist and criminal groups around the globe. Under this context,
and with the international comprehension that the international arms market had become
more vigorous, dynamic and multidimensional than ever before, a lot of initiatives
started to be implemented, basically by international security organizations and regional
economic/political alliances like the UN, EU, OSCE and OAS, as well as by other
regional organizations in other regions, for example in Africa or in South Asia, but with
limited scope. Nevertheless the majority of them comprise politically binding provisions
only, having a regional scope of action. Their scope, limitations and weaknesses will be
examined in Chapter 5 of this thesis, showing that the need for a broader, integrated and
56
holistic approach to conventional arms control and arms trade is much more necessary
than ever before. But before that, and in order to have a clear view of the efforts being
accomplished so far in the field of conventional arms control and arms trade regimes,
Chapter 4 will reveal the new security challenges and implications of the post-cold war
era for the particular field in question.
57
References
1
Ian Clark, The Post-Cold War Order: The spoils of peace, (Oxford University Press,
Oxford, 2001), p. 243.
2
London, 1996), p. 31.
3
The vast majority of the documents of the conventions and initiatives in the field of
conventional arms control and arms trade can be found in the Appendices’ section of
this paper.
4
W Boese, Arms Trade Treaty Future Uncertain [online], (Arms Control Association,
September 2005), (Accessed: 12th July 2006), Available at:
http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2005_09/ArmsTradeTreaty.asp
5
Emanuel Adler, Ed., The International Practice of Arms Control, (John Hopkins
University Press, Baltimore, 1992), p. 77.
6
Coit D. Blacker and Gloria Duffy, Ed., International Arms Control: Issues and
Agreements, (Stanford University Press, California, 1984), p. 81.
7
Ibid. pp. 82-88.
8
For further information about the Washington Naval Treaty see Coit D. Blacker and
Gloria Duffy, Ed., International Arms Control: Issues and Agreements, (Stanford
University Press, California, 1984), p. 89-92.
9
Sergey Koulik and Richard Kokoski, Conventional Arms Control, (Oxford University
Press, Oxford, 1994), pp. 1-6.
10
The content of the CFE Treaty in summary can be found in Appendix F, also
available at:
http://www.armscontrol.org/subject/caec/cfeback2.asp
11
The content of the Open Skies Treaty in summary can be found in Appendix E, also
available at:
http://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/openskies.asp
12
W Boese, The Adapted Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty at a Glance
[online], (Arms Control Association, January 2003), (Accessed: 01st July 2006),
Available at:
http://www.armscontrol.org/pdf/adaptcfe.pdf
13
Security and political culture’s elements in relation to arms control have been
theoretically mentioned in Chapter 2.
58
14
for International Peace, Washington, 1991), pp. 119-128.
15
The content of the Ottawa Convention in summary can be found in Appendix D.
16
W Boese, The Ottawa Convention at a Glance [online], (Arms Control Association,
December 2005), (Accessed: 28th June 2006), Available at:
17
Donald J. Stoker and Jonathan A. Grant, Ed., Girding for Battle: The Arms Trade in a
Global Perspective, 1815-1940, (Praeger Publishers, Westport, 2003), p. xiv.
18
Andrew J. Pierre, The Global Politics of Arms Sales, (Princeton University Press,
New Jersey, 1992), pp. 14-19.
19
Anne Hessing et al, Controlling Future Arms Trade, (Council on Foreign Relations
Inc., New York, 1977), p. 3.
20
Michael Brzoska and Thomas Ohlson, Arms Transfers to the Third World, (Oxford
21
Ibid. p. 8.
22
Dr Paul Cornish’s presentation in Cranfield University of UK under the title
‘Commerce, Control and Conscience: The Political Economy of the International
Market in Conventional Arms and Related Technology’, during the 7th Global Security
MSc Course 2005-2006 and the Nature of Security module, 19 January 2006.
23
Ibid.
24
London, 1996), pp. 10-45.
25
Ian Anthony, Ed., Russia and the Arms Trade, (Oxford University Press, Oxford,
1998), pp. 16-17.
26
27
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Trends in Arms Production
[online], (SIPRI, Stockholm, 2006), (Accessed: 7th June 2006), Available at:
http://www.sipri.org/contents/milap/milex/aprod/trends.html
59
28
29
Moida Davidson-Seger, Ed., Conversion Survey 1997, (Project of Bonn International
Center for Conversion), (Oxford University Press Inc., New York, 1997), p. 118.
30
Ibid. p. 119.
31
Smith, C. International, Light Weapons Proliferation: A Global Survey, Jane’s
Intelligence Review [online], 01 July, 1999, 011(007). Available via: Jane’s Online,
32
Ibid.
33
BBC News Online, Deal Eludes Small Arms Conference, [online], (BBC News, 08
July, 2006), (Accessed: 12th July 2006), Available at:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/5160238.stm
34
Brad Roberts, Ed., Weapons Proliferation in the 1990s, (The MIT Press,
Massachusetts, 1995), p. 61.
35
(United Nations Publications, New York, 2004), pp. 110-111.
36
Burkard Schmitt, Ed., Between Cooperation and Competition: The Transatlantic
Defence Market, (Institute for Security Studies of WEU, Paris, 2001), p. 29.
37
The content of the Wassenaar Arrangement in summary can be found in Appendix C,
also available at:
http://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/wassenaar.asp
38
Brad Roberts, Ed., Weapons Proliferation in the 1990s, (The MIT Press,
Massachusetts, 1995), p. 120.
39
(SAGE Publications Ltd., California, 2002), pp. 246-248.
40
Arms Control Association, Russia Tops in Quantity of Arms Shipped in 2002
[online], (Arms Control Association, Washington, D.C., 2003), (Accessed: 8th July
2006), Available at:
http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2003_11/Unregister.asp
60
41
The content of the UN Protocol against the Illicit Manufacturing of Trafficking in
Firearms, Their Parts and Components and Ammunition can be found in Appendix B,
also available at:
http://www.seesac.org/docum/un-firearms_protocol.pdf.
42
The content of the UN Program of Action to Prevent, Combat and Eradicate the Illicit
Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects can be found in Appendix
A, also available at:
http://www.seesac.org/docum/unpoa.htm
43
The content of the OSCE Document on SALW can be found in Appendix H, also
available at:
http://www.seesac.org/index.php?content=35&section=4
44
Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, OSCE Document on
Stockpiles of Conventional Ammunition, (FSC.DOC/1/03), 19 November 2003 [online],
(SEESAC, Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe, 2006), (Accessed: 15th June 2006),
Available at:
http://www.seesac.org/docum/osce_document_on_ammunition.pdf
45
The content of the OSCE Decision ON Man-Portable Air Defence Systems
(MANPADS) can be found in Appendix G, also available at:
http://www.seesac.org/docum/OSCE_Principles_foe_export_controls_of_MANPADS.p
df
46
Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, OSCE Decision of Standard
Elements of End-User Certificates and Verification Procedures for SALW Exports
(FSG.DEC5/04), 17 November 2004 [online], (SEESAC, Stability Pact for South
Eastern Europe, 2006), (Accessed: 15th June 2006), Available at:
http://www.seesac.org/docum/OSCE_Decision_on_EUC.pdf
47
Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, OSCE Decision for Principles
on the Control of Brokering in SALWs [online], (SEESAC, Stability Pact for South
http://www.seesac.org/docum/OSCE_Decision_on_Brokering.pdf
48
The content of the EU Council’s Joint Action to Combating the Destabilizing
Accumulation and Spread of SALWs can be found in Appendix K, also available at:
http://www.seesac.org/resources/eu_joint.pdf
49
The content of the EU Code of Conduct on Arms Exports can be found in Appendix
J, also available at:
http://www.seesac.org/docum/eu_code.htm
61
50
Council of the European Union, EU Strategy to Combat Illicit Accumulation and
Trafficking of SALWs and their Ammunition (13066/05 PESC 833 CODUN 19 COARM
38), 13 January 2006 [online], (SEESAC, Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe,
2006), (Accessed: 15th June 2006), Available at:
http://www.seesac.org/docum/EU_SALW_strategy_2006.pdf
51
The content of the Inter-American Convention on Transparency in Conventional
Weapons Acquisitions in summary can be found in Appendix I, also available at:
http://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/iactcw.asp
52
The Wassenaar Arrangement on Export Controls for Conventional Arms and Dual-
Use Goods and Technologies, Best Practice Guidelines for Exports of Small Arms and
Light Weapons (SALWs) [online], (Wassenaar, December 2002), (Accessed: 15th June
http://www.wassenaar.org/docs/best_practice_salw.htm
53
The content of the EU Council’s Common Position on the Control of Arms Brokering
can be found in Appendix L, also available at:
http://www.seesac.org/docum/EU_commonposition_on_armsbrokering.pdf
62
CHAPTER 4 – THE SECURITY CHALLENGES AND
IMPLICATIONS OF THE POST-COLD WAR ERA
4.1. Introduction: New forces and dynamics shaping the arms market
and the new implications
As it had been argued in Chapter 3, the internationalization of the defence industries

brought new dimensions in the nature of the arms market. When the commercial risks
and the domestic economic conditions have been unfavourable, joint ventures and
international mergers have been taken place on every level, national, regional or global.
The diffusion of the defence industry has been so extensive, so in many cases, defence
companies have shifted whole sectors of their production cycle to developing regions in
order to take advantage the cheap labour and the low production cost, using semi-
conductors for the manufacture of key sub-components, a process known as ‘off-
shoring’. The above trends in their turn resulted in a civilianization and
commercialization of technological innovation, which signaled the diminution of
governmental control over Research and Development (R&D). This new arms market
environment of the Post-Cold War era produced some evidence to suggest that the
multinationally-produced defence equipment exports are so difficult to be controlled
under national and multilateral export control systems. For instance, unless
governments exercise extra-territorial powers systematically, a defence company may
be British in name but it may have minimal responsibility to British control-authorities1.
In that sense, inconsistent policies of export controls and embargoes have played a
major role, assisting many of the significant transfers of weapons and related
technology that have taken place covertly, including those which are illegal, when
international embargoes and national licensing procedures are circumvented. Moreover,
even when these ‘grey market’ transactions have been difficult to be kept out of the
public eye due to regional and international transparency regimes, the ‘black market’ of
the uncontrolled and unobserved movement of vast quantities of small weapons and
63
ammunition has posed the most serious impediments for an effective control and has
inflicted the worst consequences. The problem has received extremely large dimensions,
so that one estimate suggests that the size of the illegal arms market could range from
US$1 billion to US$10 billion, about half of the ‘legal’ arms trade when the demand is
high2. Having in mind that small arms are widely accepted as the most widely used
tools of violence, the comment of Bianca Jagger, a human rights campaigner of
Amnesty International is characteristic:
‘As a human rights campaigner, I’ve visited countless countries where

people suffer terrible abuses. Women raped at gunpoint during the conflict
in the Balkans, police killings of street children in Brazil, the horrors
committed during conflicts in central Africa. Behind so many of these
atrocities is one common factor: the gun. Around the world, arms
facilitate abuse. Torture, ‘disappearance, rape, all take place at gunpoint.
And behind that gun is the arms dealer, profiting from a trade that’s
barely regulated and spiraling out of control’. 3‘‘emphasis added’’.
Under this necessity, NGOs and international organizations like Oxfam International,
Amnesty International and the International Action Network on Small Arms, have made
several efforts in every UN conference to include the control of all the weapons under a
comprehensive international treaty on arms transfers4. Their argument was that every
UN arms embargo has been breached with impunity and despite the UN naming
hundreds of companies - including those in Britain – for allegedly violating embargoes
imposed on countries engaged in bloody conflicts and repression, the system for
bringing them to book has abjectly failed5. All the above protesting efforts started to
have a repercussion to the population of several countries, even of the superpowers,
making it gradually to change its attitude on the expansion of the arms trade of their
countries. The case of the Russian population is a typical example, as it is presented on
Table 4.1.
64
Table 4.1. Dynamics of the attitude of the population to arms trade in the
interval between August 1998 and December 20006
Question: In your opinion, should Russia expand its arms trade or, on the contrary
reduce it?
August March December Categories of the respondents

1998 1999 2000 (As of March 1999)
Sex Age
Male Female 18-35 36-50 Above
50
Expand 40% 48% 39% 62% 35% 42% 52% 49%
Reduce 37% 31% 41% 23% 39% 39% 27% 28%
No 23% 21% 20% 15% 26% 19% 21% 23%
opinion
However, the arms trade and especially the illicit and covert arms trade in SALWs
poses itself as one of the most controversial international issues of our actuality, and in
addition, the inter-linkages with the conventional arms control agenda, the peace-
management processes and the human development context complicate further its
character, revealing different problematic areas and approaches in several regions of the
globe and a long-term confrontation between unilateralism and multilateralism in every
initiative or discussion concerning its effective management and control. Consequently,
this chapter will attempt to examine all these issues, raising the question and showing
the reasons for the need of a holistic approach between conventional arms control and
arms trade, which can contribute in a more integrated coverage of the conventional arms
transfers management field in the pre-conflict and post-conflict environments.
65
4.2. Illicit and covert arms trade: The ‘gray’ and ‘black’ market and
their operational dynamics
The illicit and covert arms trade, divided into the ‘gray market’ and the ‘black market’,
involves a range of state and non-state actors. As it is stated by Tamara Makarenko in
the Jane’s Intelligence Review of September 2003, ‘although often considered to work
independently of one another, one of the most important traits of the illicit arms trade is
the extent to which the licit and illicit world are complicit in their actions’7. The gray
market is associated with the diversion of legal stockpiles and refers to state supplies of
arms to non-state actors or to embargoed states. It has started during the Cold War,
allowing the superpowers to arm insurgent groups involved in conflicts throughout
satellite states and continued in the Post-Cold War era, where NATO members supplied
the Kosovo Liberation Army during the Balkan conflict and private military companies-
with the knowledge of western states-have supplied weapons to Sierra Leone and
Liberia in spite of the UN sanctions. On the other hand, apart from direct government
supplies, legal stockpiles are eventually diverted to the black market in other ways, like
violations of arms embargoes by private arms brokers, theft from military arsenals, and
theft of stockpiles in collapsed states. In that context the involvement of organized
crime in the illicit arms trade is almost entirely limited to the black market8.
The criminal groups involved in the black market have their own dynamics in structure
and function. Retailers and middlemen operate based on the principle of demand and
supply, looking for new routes for transporting weapons should a new demand occur in
any given part of the world. These dynamics made some experts in several conferences
for the subject in question to argue that ‘what started as an enterprise spawned by a
political revolution, soon became an enterprise operated for financial gain, which under
the threat of crossing international borders, makes the internal security of all nations
vulnerable’9. This was very obvious in the case of the uprisings in Albania in 1991 and
1997, where one million small arms were stolen from the Albanian arsenals and first
used in Kosovo, while soon a network of gangs emerged, developing routes for arms
sales that extended to the rest of Europe, the Middle East, the US and Turkey10.
66
In general, the operation dynamics of the illicit arms trade are concentrated on the
transportation, where shipments of illicit arms often virtually disappear while moving
from source to final destination; on the documentation, where appropriate
documentation is obtained in several ways, including through the corruption of
authorized officials, or through the use of forged or counterfeit papers, or even through
documentation fraud; on corruption, where, used by all actors involved in arms
smuggling, it is sometimes needed to access state-controlled stockpiles or to circumvent
export licensing and customs regulations; and finally, on the financing and banking,
where payments can take the form of commercial payments to avoid bank involvement,
or shipments can be paid in the form of letters of credit and direct transfers of hard-
currency funds under the process of money laundering in order to disguise the final
destination11. Taking into account the overarching lack of transparency within the legal
arms trade, be it state-controlled or by private manufacturers, the generally accepted fact
by the majority of international authorities that the demand for weapons is high and
unlikely to diminish in the immediate future, and the downward trend in prices – for
example, the AK-47 Kalashnikov automatic rifle used to cost about 125 dollars straight
from the factory in the FSU and now it can be purchased for 30 dollars at Russian flea
markets12- , the whole situation has started to be very worrying. The fears become
greater due to the fact that the last quinquennium the number of seized weapons by the
police authorities of European countries on the border crossings is higher than ever
before. The following table, concerning the case of Slovenia is an illustrative example.
Table 4.2. Seized weapons and ammunition by the Slovenian Police on the
border crossings12
Year 2001 2002 2003 2004

Number of seized pieces of weapons 660 412 457 2,276
Number of seized pieces of ammunition 30,348 15,725 13,833 1,910
Additionally, all the conflicts in the region of the Commonwealth of Independent States
(CIS) owe the failure of their resolution, to a significant extent, to their connection to
profitable criminal activities, which are highly interconnected and in particular the
67
illegal drugs trade, a way to raise money and obtain weapons through illegal arms deals.
Armed conflicts, or authoritarian and unrecognized ‘de facto’ states, which appear after
these conflicts, serve as a source of terrorist activities and illegal arms trade,
destabilizing the particular regions further more and the border security of the
neighboring states. There is almost no way so far to install viable export regulatory
regimes on the territories of such states, as it is obvious in the case of the occupied
Azerbaijani territory of Nagornyy Karabakh or the Kurdish populated territory of
Eastern Turkey and Northern Iraq13. Another case study, the one of Slovakia, reveals
more complicated dimensions of the problem, particularly in the Slovak-Ukrainian
border, where poorly-paid and poorly-trained conscripts who guard the weapon stores
and the borders are susceptible to brides and intimidation, easing the possible transit of
illegal weapons14. Moreover, if someone asks the question why does not Ukraine for
example put restrains in its arms sells, then the answer is very obvious, as Leonid
Polyakov, Director of Military Programmes in Ukrainian Centre for Economic and
Political Studies, argues.
‘Is it possible today not to produce arms, and, if your country is called
Ukraine, not to sell them? The answer is no. Having inherited from the
USSR a great deal of its military-industrial complex with million of jobs,
technologies and scientific schools, with established markets – to give up
trading? The difficulties of how to do just that, and the technicalities of
how to measure the trade are two further pertinent issues’15.
On the other hand, the situation of the illicit arms trade, especially that concerning the
SALWs, in other selected regions of the world, like Southern Africa, Northwestern
South Asia and Central America, seems to be much more complicated and
unscrupulous, involving many of the superpowers and modern European states that
claim to fight this scourge. The routes of this kind of proliferation are presented on
Maps 4.1 and 4.2 respectively.
68
Map 4.1. Light weapons proliferation and circulation in selected regions (1)16
69
Map 4.2. Light weapons proliferation and circulation in selected regions (2)17
70
4.3. SALWs and their security challenges and implications
The security challenges of the SALWs arise from their distinctive features, being their
low cost, their portability, their minimum training requirements and their concealablity.
Light arms cost a tiny fraction of the price of major conventional weapon systems. They
can be carried by an individual soldier or by light vehicles and they require very little in
the way of a repair and maintenance infrastructure. In addition, an individual combatant
is able to receive the necessary training to fire a gun or a light weapon in only a few
hours or days, and finally, SALWs can be concealed in the clothing or hand luggage of
a single individual, making them the perfect tools for assassinations, terrorism and
banditry18. An example of their concealability is the case study of Slovenia, where the
relevant authorities have identified various methods of hiding weapons and their
components, as inside televisions, radios, books, dog food, the trunks of vehicles or
even inside a loaf of bread, a chocolate bar or a coffee pack19. The imagination and the
artfulness of the smugglers haves broken any limit of logical thought.
On the other hand, the above distinctive characteristics are in accordance with the
dynamics of this sort of weapons, being their increased lethality, especially after the end
of the cold war, and the proliferation of their making technology. For instance, modern
assault guns can fire a burst of 30-35 bullets, inflicting the death of many people at
once, particularly in crowded environments, as the February 1994 Hebron massacre
committed with a 35-round Galil assault gun. Moreover, while the production of major
conventional weapon systems is confined to a dozen of industrial powers, the
production of SALWs is spread to a much larger group of countries. It is a fact that by
1999, approximately 45 nations were producing light weapons of one sort or another, 22
of them being in the developing world20. According to the survey of 2005 made by the
World Policy Institute of New York, small arms are responsible for two million
casualties each year. Almost 300,000 – mostly civilians – are killed in wars and other
armed conflicts and insurgencies; another 200,000 people are killed in homicides,
suicides and unintentional shootings, while small arms fires wound one and a half
million people around the world annually21. Totally aware of this terrible reality, The
UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, stated in the UN SALW Conference of New York
71
in June-July 2006 that the proliferation of light weapons, such as machine guns, has
spawned a ‘culture of violence’22. This ‘violent culture’ is so evident all around the
world, as it can be observed on Table 4.3, where the civilian weapons in many countries
of the developed and developing world have outstripped the Security Forces weapons
and the number of citizens per weapon have reached down to the surprising ratio of 1.1
in the case of US, a country with one of the highest criminality rates of the world. Of
course the same stand for the countries of Middle East, justifying the ceaseless and
widespread butchery due to their long-term religious and ethnic conflicts.
Table 4.3. Small Arms Stockpiles and ratio of population per arms23
Small Arms Stockpiles Ratio: Population per Arms

Country Population Armed Police Civilian Country Population Total Number
Forces Weapons Weapons Weapons* of
Weapons Citizens
per
Weapon
Egypt 74,035,000 1,935,000 257,000 N/A Egypt 74,033,000 2,192,000 33.7
Jordan 5,703,000 313,000 20,000 600,000 Jordan 6,900,000 933,000 7.3
Turkey 68,234,000 3,947,000 199,000 8,000,000 Kuwait 2,687,000 147,000 18.2
Yemen 20,975,000 340,000 73,000 7,000,000 Lebanon 3,600,000 674,000 5.3
Israel 5,374,000 1,363,000 22,000 503,000 Morocco 29,231,000 939,000 31.1
US 293,027,000 15,000,000 1,000,000 240,000,000 Saudi 24,573,000 638,000 38.5
Arabia
Tunisia 9,563,000 201,000 47.5
Turkey 68,234,000 12,146,000 5.6
Sources: Graduate Institute of International Studies (Geneva); U.A.E 4,496,000 207,000 21.7
Bonn International Centre for Conversion; JAM Research Yemen 20,975,000 7,500,000 2.7
Israel 5,374,000 1,888,000 2.8
US 293,027,000 256,000,000 1.1
*Minimum small arms total stockpiles, including
armed forces, police and privately-owned
weapons.
Sources: Small Arms Survey 2005; Just Facts
(US): JAM Research.
72
Trying to identify how this vast accumulation of light weapons occurs, the Bonn
International Centre Conversion Survey argues that three models of the global spread of
SALWs have been put forward. The first one is the proliferation model, which,
following the familiar pattern of the conventional arms trade, supports that there are a
handful of major producers exporting weapons to a large number of recipients, so
policies must focus on detaining the flow on the supply and recipient side. The second
one is the circulation model, which, maintaining that the number of small arms
transferred already to volatile areas cannot be controlled with supply-oriented
approaches due to the illicit trade basically with government involvement, supports that
disarmament policies must be devised and focus not only on lowering the domestic
availability, but also on lowering the relevant demand for them. Finally, the last model,
known as the diffusion model combines the aforementioned ones, by giving a typology
of the ways by which these weapons are acquired by parties to a conflict. These include:
 ‘Indigenous production.
- Purely domestic.
- Imported technology and licensed production.
 Legitimate import.
- Government grants.
- Government sales.
- Commercial sales.
 Illicit import.
- Covert arms transfers from foreign governments.
- Foreign government gifts to paramilitary groups.
- Black market arms imports.
- Imports from allied foreign insurgent groups.
 In-country circulation.
- Theft from government arsenals.
- Seizure of equipment from opponents.
- Exchanges between domestic insurgent organizations.
- Exchanges between domestic insurgent and criminal organizations.’24
73
While the first model is usually related to a multilateralist approach in conventional
arms trade control, such as supporters of the traditional arms trade regimes like the
Wassenaar Arrangement (WA), the EU Code of Conduct on Arms Exports, the UN
Protocol on Firearms and few more, it lacks of the ability to embrace the regional and
domestic problematic folds and it is driven in majority by politically binding directives.
The second model usually is often based on a unilateralist approach in the field in
question, so lacking of the universality of norms and principles. The third model, in a
policy perspective of course, can drive through thorough and in-depth integrated
approaches in the issue of SALWs control, but it requires the willingness of all the
actors under a common reference point and a legally binding regime, such as a possible
international arms trade treaty, including the issue of SALWs and their ammunition.
The awkward areas of this approach are first the consensus on such a treaty and second
the willingness of the governments to control their production and export, as Mikhail
Kalashnikov, designer of the most widely used rifle AK-47 Kalashnikov, mentioned in
the recently held UN Small Arms Conference in New York.
Figure 4.1. Mikhail Kalashnikov at the Small Arms UN Conference in New

York, June – July 200625
It is not the designers who must ultimately take responsibility for where guns
end up - it is governments who must control their production and export.
(Mikhail Kalashnikov)
74
However, on the other hand many countries, they launch ‘peace’ and ‘aid’ programmes,
making dozens of governments eligible for free surplus weapons, like the Partnership
for Peace (PfP) Programme, leaded by NATO and US, which have provided some
Middle East and Balkan countries with hundreds of thousands of guns and light
weapons. Ironically, each of these ‘assisting’ governments have agencies devotedly
committed to the purpose of halting the arms trade, merely serving as a propaganda and
competitors sabotage tool26.
4.4. The nexus with the notion of human security and the international
development agenda
In the early 1990s, in response to an increase in the number of armed conflicts around
the world, especially intra-state ones, the UN and international organizations started to
relate the issue of SALWs and military expenditure in arms acquisition to the notion of
human security and development. At that time, a growing number of people began to
recognize human security as a broad and comprehensive paradigm that incorporates all
the aspects of human life and ensures a decent human existence. In that new people-
centered security concept, disarmament started to be seen as humanitarian action27. As
Dr Richard Jolly, Special Advisor to the Administrator of the UN Development
Programme (UNDP), reminded in a 1997 UN Conference for the Future of
Disarmament the words of President Eisenhower in 1953:
‘Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every

rocket fired, signifies in a final sense, a theft from those who
hunger and are not fed, from those who are cold and are not
clothed. The world in arms is not spending money alone. It is
spending the sweat of its labourers, the genius of its
scientists, the hopes of its children’28.‘‘emphasis added’’
The above statement is based in a very solid reason of justification, since military
spending, though it can contribute to employment creation, is much less efficient in
75
doing so than expenditure by investments or consumers. This was highly proved by the
Nobel prize-winner economist Wassily Leontief, who estimated that expenditure on
investments by consumers would generate four times as many jobs as the equivalent
expenditure for military purposes. Additionally, the taxation requirements for resources
generation in the military spending, often adds to dept in the developing world due to
the waste of scarce foreign exchange that is needed29. Nevertheless, although
disarmament and military spending reductions can be conceived as political and moral
imperatives that can help to create more stable international, national and local
situations favourable to development, may further reduce a weak state’s ability to
defend itself or affect the short-term prospects for development due to the high
financial costs of the disarmament process30. Moreover, the lack of adequate data on
military expenditure has made more difficult to quantify the potential ‘savings’ that are
able to be released from military spending and redistributed to development goals31.
Under the same spectrum, small arms availability and misuse constitute a development
issue as well, since in most developing countries, the indirect social, political and
economic impacts of injury and insecurity arising from the threat and use of small arms
and light weapons are as crucial as the direct costs. For, example, in Latin America, the
Inter-American Development Bank estimated the regional economic costs of armed
violence to be US$ 140-170 billion per year during the late 1990s, a number equal to 12
per cent of the regional Gross Domestic Product (GDP)32. The indirect costs usually
include:
 An increase in criminality, banditry and criminal violence rates.
 The displacement of social solidity and trust in and between communities.
 Challenges to state and traditional authorities by armed groups, with a great
impact on good governance.
 The erosion or breakdown of social services.
 An overall deterioration of the economic production and trade.
 Undermined livelihoods and a distortion of savings, investment and revenue
collection33.
76
For all the above reasons and realities, disarmament, including the issue of SALWs
availability, and development are two distinct processes, yet mutually reinforcing, since
they linked by security in all its aspects. This was significantly noticeable by the UN
Secretary General’s Report in UN General Assembly in 2004 when he stated that
‘although disarmament and development have their own logics and exist independently
of each other, progress in one can create a conducive environment for the other. Both
should be pursued regardless of the pace of progress in the other; one should not be
hostage to the other’34. However, in accordance with the view of Susan Willet, a Senior
Research Associate at the Centre for Southern African Studies of Sussex University,
how easy is to achieve that, when donors put pressure on developing countries to reduce
military expenditures and have progress in disarmament in order to release resources for
sustainable development and on the other hand they are less amenable to dept
forgiveness that would allow new governments to address their development
progress?35 Therefore, in that sense, because in the international economic system of our
era is not realistic to expect such a debt forgiveness, the only way to achieve a sort of
development with parallel reduction of violence due to the unlimited weapons
availability in the particular countries, is to consider development and disarmament
together, linking them strongly, and incorporating them in a broader concept of an
international conventional arms control regime, such an international arms trade treaty
which will provide all the legal provisions for these issues both solely and
multilaterally.
4.5. The link of disarmament and SALWs issues with the peace-
management process
Another problematic area of conventional arms control and disarmament has been their
relations to the conflict-resolution and peace-management processes. The causative
problem between conventional arms control in conflict resolution and peace settlements
is that neither exists a theoretical transparency, particularly in relation to traditional
arms control, nor has normative-principles building in this area been very successful.
Over and above, the short life cycles of post-conflict arms control arrangements and
77
negotiations raise a lot of questions about sustainability in this particular environment.
The experiences of Kosovo and Sierra Leone reveal that the efficacy of post-conflict
arms control can only be plausibly assessed in relation to the conflict outcome and the
political construct within which it is being accomplished36. Taking as example the case
of Kosovo and the termination of the Bosnia war under the Dayton Framework
agreement, post-conflict arms control regimes took the form of a peace-enforcement
mandate under NATO, establishing a deterrence relationship for redressing the military
balance in favour of the Muslim-Croat Federation, under the legitimate entitlements of
Article 4 of the Florence Agreement and the clear norms and rules of the CFE Treaty
and the Vienna CSBM regional arrangements37. The above reality has inspired many
academics of the field to conceptualize two distinct forms of post-conflict arms control:
the consensual disarmament of the warring factions, defined as the voluntary action that
opposing parties agree to take in the aftermath of an armed conflict with the purpose of
dismantling or constraining their military capabilities; and the coercive disarmament or
arms control, meaning that the external forces are authorized to use force, if necessary,
to implement their mandates38.
However, except the aforesaid lack of conceptual clarity in conflict resolution-related

arms control, the major problem is the exclusion of the prominent issue of SALWs from
the formal post-conflict arms control arrangements, since the opposing parties and the
peacekeeping forces treat it as a distinct security issue. For example, the Dayton process
has not included weapon categories such as small arms and mines, being a ‘proxy’ of
the classical CFE Treaty process39. Having in mind the flow of such weapons to
neighboring countries or other volatile regions in the aftermath of the conflicts through
the organized crime nets, the negative consequences of this omission can be significant.
One possible but not credible justification for the above omission is that the
acknowledgment that often the process of disarmament is rendered more complicated
by the inward role that weapons have come to play in some societies, is missing from
the existing literature on disarmament and conventional arms control. In many post-civil
war societies, ‘gun culture’ is well developed, reflecting a symbol of manhood rather
than a weapon of violence and posing resistance in every effort to curb private
ownership. This mannerism entails the necessity for disarmament strategies to bear in
78
mind the ‘normal’ role of guns in the society should they seek a greater chance of
success. Based on this home truth, few academics support that what is required is a
mixture of limited disarmament and rigorous arms control with the preference to
strengthen existing tribal structures and norms as restricting sources, rather than attempt
to impose greenhorn and outlandish norms from without40. However, this complexity is
not the only incompatibility of classical conventional arms control and disarmament
when attempted to apply in several regions and societies of the world with different
social, political, religious and security cultures.
4.6. Incompatibilities of traditional (European type) conventional

arms control
Three regions in which CFE type conventional arms control is difficult to employ in an
enduring way are the Taiwan Strait, South Asia and the Middle East, where
fundamental and strategic realities argue against formal and far-reaching arms accords,
basically because the opposing parties in each case disagree about what the military
balance should be. The outcome is always some modest CSBM arrangements rather
than lasting conventional arms control regimes. For example, in the Taiwan Strait, how
can China be convinced to possess equal weapons or personnel ceilings, which it will
permanently preclude it from having the capacity to seize Taiwan? In that case, every
formal arms control arrangement must be contemplated only on the basis of
fundamental political changes for the status quo of the region. Something similar is
valid for the case of India and Pakistan, while in the Middle East the problem is more
complex, including many more actors, some of them relying on the size of their armed
forces, or to friendly western alliances. In addition, for the case of the Middle East,
there is probably no way to guarantee peace through classical conventional arms control
– like in Europe – and it is extremely difficult to use such type of arms control to
maintain a stable military balance, even if all the conflicting parties claim consensually
that they want peace and are ready to abjure their ability to launch offensive military
operations41. One of the substantial reasons for this complexity is that in contrast with
other volatile regions, in the Middle East there is no institutionalized regional
79
cooperation and security system to cement these countries under a common security and
political agenda and address issues like the military balance of the region and arms
transfers and export policies. For that reason, Peter Jones, a Research Associate at the
Munk Centre for International Relations in Toronto University, argues the following for
the Middle East:
‘Arms control is not achieved in a vacuum. Without an effort to

establish a new regional political and security order it is highly
unlikely that the most serious matters of arms control can be
addressed. Emphasis should thus be placed on creating a regional
cooperation and security system first, and on arms control second. Of
course, this is not to say that discussions over arms control issues
should wait for the day when a regional system is fully established; the
two sets of discussions go hand-in-hand’42.
Such a system, similar to the OSCE or the Stability Pact for SEE, could establish
political and security bonds in the opposing parties and therefore, address issues like
far-reaching arms control arrangements and arms transfers policies. If it is linked as well
with the major international or other multifold regional initiatives, like the UN PoA in
SALWs, the WA and EU Code on Arms Exports, it can provide solid foundations for
the eve of a new, more secure and more promising for development era of the Middle
East. Table 4.4 shows the participation of the SEE countries to all the relevant arms
control and arms trade regulatory regimes, following the framework of the OSCE and
the SEE Stability Pact RIP. However, the relevant experts do not all embrace such a
similar approach for the Middle East. For instance, Keith Krause, the programme
director of the Small Arms Survey launched in the Middle East periodical type, suggests
that the biggest challenge for the resolution of conflicts in the Middle East is not to get
the two sides to talk, but to get their small arms out of circulation43. Inspired, mainly by
the situation in Middle East and the remorseless global trade in arms, especially in
unstable regions of the world, two contradictious approaches on conventional arms
trade management and particularly on SALWs management have started to emerge. For
80
convenience reasons one could define that as the controversy between unilateralism and
multilateralism in the specific field.
Table 4.4. South-Eastern European (SEE) Countries commitments to Arms or

SALWs Control Agreements44
MONTENEGRO47
HERZEGOVINA
MACEDONIA
International Agreement BOSNIA AND
BULGARIA45
ROMANIA48
CROATIA46
MOLDOVA
ALBANIA
or Instrument
SERBIA
FYR
EU Code of Conduct on
2003 2002 1998 2001 2004 2005 2005 1998 2005
Arms Exports49
OSCE Document on
2000 2000 2000 2000 2000 NO 2000 2000
2000
SALW50
OSCE Document on
2003 2003 2003 2003 2003 NO 2003 2003
2003
Conventional
Ammunition51
OSCE Decision on
2003 2003 2003 2003 2003 NO 2003 2003
2003
MANPADS52
OSCE Decision on EUC53
2004 2004 2004 2004 2004 NO 2004 2004
2004
OSCE Decision on
2004 2004 2004 2004 2004 NO 2004 2004
2004
Brokering54
SCSP Regional
2001 2001 2001 2001 2001 2001 2001 2001
2001
Implementation Plan55
UN Firearms Protocol56
NO NO 2002 2004 (2005)57 2006 NO 2004 2006
UN Programme of Action
2001 2001 2001 2001 2001 NO 2001 2001
2001
on SALW58
Wassenaar Arrangement
NO NO 2000 2005 NO60 NO NO 2000 NO
(MANPADS)59
NO NO 2003 2005 NO NO NO 2003 NO
(Brokering)61
NO NO 2003 2005 NO NO NO 2003 NO
(Exports)62
81
4.7. Conflicting approaches on small arms trade management:
Unilateralism against multilateralism
The controversy arguably defined as unilateralism against multilateralism on the

domain of small arms trade regulatory efforts, is based actually on the two main policy
attitudes concerning the field in question. The first approach proceeds from the
assumption that international efforts must focus on combating the illegal trade in all its
aspects, including the illegal production, storage and transfer of SALWs. The related
legal trade, under this approach, should be considered as a state’s sovereign right by the
international community and be out of the field of major international and legally
binding agreements. The advocates of this view, including US, China, India and
Pakistan, are in favour of concentrating on formation of national practices and
regulations under international exchange of information and collaboration and oppose
against possible introductions of international transparency measures in SALWs
production, stocks and transfers63. The statement of US Under-Secretary of State John
Bolton during the Preparatory Committee process of the UN Conference on the Illicit
Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All its Aspects – held in New York from 9-
20 July 2001, is representative of such an approach: ‘The United States will not join
consensus on a final document that contains measures contrary to our constitutional
right to keep and bear arms’64. ‘‘emphasis on the original’’.
The second approach, often called ‘comprehensive approach’, is typical of the European
Countries, inspired in many respects by the EU Code of Conduct on Arms Exports, and
it presumes that legal and illegal trade should not be rigidly separated. Moreover the
advocates of this approach support that the uncontrolled proliferation of small arms
should be prevented through the elimination of their destabilizing accumulation and
legal binding transparency measures of their legal transfers and stocks. The justification
given is that illegally traded arms had been operated in on legal basis and coverage
under the operational networks of the black market. Many of the supporters of this
approach stand not only for eliminating illegal trade under global, legally binding
measures of transparency and national accountability, but also for establishing
international control regimes over the production, stocks, storage and supply of arms65.
82
4.8. Preventing or repairing? The need for a holistic approah
All the above debates and arguments give the sense of a controversy between the
notions of ‘preventing’ or ‘repairing’ inside the conventional arms control agenda when
it addresses the issue of the arms trade management and principally the circulation of
SALWs in volatile regions of the globe either in pre-conflict or post-conflict
environments. Christopher Bellamy, professor of security studies in Cranfield
University of UK, has contrived a new model concerning the spectrum of conflict and
defence, diplomatic and development tasks in the field of Operations Other Than War as
it is illustrated on figure 4.2. In that model, preventive diplomacy and deployment, war
fighting, including pre-emptive strikes and peace-enforcement operations, as well as
peacekeeping and peace-building efforts were all elements of the contested process of
‘peace accomplishment’. Deterrence, as it is obvious on the spiral of the model, goes on
in all parts of the circle, but most apparently it occurs in the pre-conflict section66.
Figure 4.2. The spectrum of conflict and defence, diplomatic and development
tasks in Operations Other Than War (OOTW)67
83
Making an arbitrary correlation between the above model and a holistic conventional
arms control apparatus, another similar model can be conceived, as it is shown on figure
4.3. In a pre-conflict environment of a volatile region, where there are strong indications
of overwhelming flow of SALWs under the designation of a possible SALWs register
and monitoring regime, the deployment of UN mandated small arms field missions
could prevent or maybe decrease the arms builds-up. In that context, deterrence in the
form of an international, legally binding, arms trade treaty could further enhance the
efforts for the sustention of the military balance and the elimination of the SALWs flow.
This concept of international deterrence in the form of such treaty could be effective
even after the initiation of conflict provided that there are certain legal and globally
accepted provisions for the enforcement of micro-disarmament or even consensual and
coercive arms control agreements and arms embargoes under the UN and other regional
organizations’ mandates. In addition, it can include the opportunity windows for
Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) processes under the Security
Sector Reform (SSR) programmes of the international community and donor states.
Figure 4.3. The concept of a new mainstream framework in the conventional

arms control field of pre-conflict and post-conflict situations68
DETERRENCE = International arms trade treaty’s legally binding provisions for pre-conflict and post conflict
environments, interrelated to UN/Regional Organizations’ embargoes and overall security and economic policy.
84
However, due to the fact, that deterrence in general is much more effective and obvious
in the pre-conflict segment, such an integrated conventional arms control regime must
concentrate mostly in the pre-conflict environments, under the context of an
international arms trade treaty’s provisions. This prerequisite is in total accordance with
the following statement of UN Secretary General in 1995, Boutros-Gali, within the
framework of his project called Supplement to An Agenda for Peace: ‘it is evidently
better to prevent conflicts through early warning, quiet diplomacy and, in some cases
preventive deployment than to have to undertake major politico-military efforts to
resolve them after they have broken down’69.
4.9. Conclusion
This chapter argued about the new security challenges of conventional arms control and
the trade in arms, especially SALWs, in the post-cold war era. The new forces shaping
the international market have established a vigorous arms trade that is so complicated to
be controlled by the national governments and the international community. In the
whole context and dynamics of this international arms market the illicit trade in arms
under the networks of the grey and the black market stands as a major challenge for the
security and sustainable development of the developing world, setting off a violence
culture in the periphery and the interior of extended regions while threatening the
international and human security by the interrelated linkages with the transnational
organized crime. On the other hand, the regulation of the weaponry level has been
several times linked with the peace-management process after the end of interstate and
intrastate conflicts and under the agenda of conventional arms control negotiations and
disarmament accords. The different political context and security cultures of every
region have revealed so far that classical conventional arms control regimes or arms
trade regulatory mechanisms have not been employed so successfully in every situation,
especially when rival factions confront each other because group survival is at stake and
there are no regional political/security mechanisms for addressing these issues. These
complexities have forced a lot of field experts to believe that only for the most zealous
observers disarmament is a panacea for the termination of violent conflict. In addition
85
two different approaches on the issue of SALWs control have started to emerge: the first
supporting the constitutional right of sovereign states to arm themselves and
concentrating on the eradication of the illicit trade in arms by the international exchange
of information and collaboration, and the latter supporting the establishment of
international legally binding control regimes for both the legal and illegal trade that are
highly interacted inter se.
However, a more mainstream and integrated approach seems to be the greatest

imperative. This could be a multifold conventional arms control mechanism, which
under the foundational basis of an international and legally binding treaty, could
enhance preventive diplomacy in the field of the unscrupulous arms trade, and on the
other hand, could include, under flexible provisions, the register of SALWs and
multilateral and cooperative monitoring of their proliferation, providing early warning,
implementing voluntary light weapons collection or developing and enforcing the
national gun control laws under UN mandated small field missions. Of course, this does
not mean that post-conflict disarmament and bilateral arms control negotiations will
stop to operate, but micro-disarmament under such a control mechanism is always more
desirable and effective, since it is related to the pre-conflict or early post-conflict
segments of volatile environments. Next chapter will examine the scope and limitations
of the major current regimes, initiatives and policies in conventional arms control, arms
transfers and exports, including the arrangements that concern small arms, and it will
attempt to give a summarizing context of the more holistic approach that is needed, as it
was mentioned above.
86
References
1
London, 1996), pp. 35-41.
2
Ibid. pp. 41-44.
3
Jagger, B. Comment and Debate: One death every minute: The arms trade makes big
money for the richest nations while fuelling conflict across the world. The Guardian
[online], 25 January, 2006,27. Available via: Proquest, (Accessed: 30 June 2006).
4
Pati, A. Coalition calls for global arms agreement in 2006. Third Sector [online], 11
January, 2006, 409,2. Available via: Proquest, (Accessed: 30 May 2006).
5
Sengupta, K. Every embargo to halt global arms trade has been broken, UN reports;
The Independent [online], 16 March, 2006, 25. Available via: Proquest, (Accessed: 10
June 2006).
6
Centre for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies (CAST), ‘Opinion of the Russians
about Arms Trade and Defence Industry’, Eksport Vooruxheniy, March-April 2001, 19-
21.
7
Makarenko, T. Tracing the dynamics of the illicit arms trade, Jane’s Intelligence
Review [online], 01 September, 2003. Available via: Jane’s Online, (Accessed: 02 June
2006).
8
Ibid.
9
George C. Marshall European Center For Security Studies, Ed., A report of the George
C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies Conference on Organized Crime:
The National Security Dimension, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, 29 August - 02
September, 1999, (The George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies and
The Federal Bureau of Investigation, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, 1999).
10
Ibid.
11
Review [online], 01 September, 2003. Available via: Jane’s Online, (Accessed: 02 June
2006).
12
Iztok Prezelj and Marija Gaber, Athena Papers Series No. 5: Smuggling as a Threat
to National and International Security: Slovenia and the Balkan Route, (Partnership for
Peace Consortium of Defence Academies and Security Studies Institutes, Garmisch-
Partekirchen, Germany, 2005), p. 12.
12
Ibid. p. 53.
87
13
Leonid Polyakov, Managing The Challenge Of Illegal Arms Transfers, (Defence
Academy of the United Kingdom, Conflict Studies Research Centre, Surrey, 2003), pp.
2-3.
14
Eugene Kogan, Southeastern European Defence Industry: International Cooperation
and Market Opportunities, (Defence Academy of the United Kingdom, Conflict Studies
Research Centre, Surrey, 2005), pp. 4-5.
15
Leonid Polyakov, Managing The Challenge Of Illegal Arms Transfers, (Defence
Academy of the United Kingdom, Conflict Studies Research Centre, Surrey, 2003), p.
4.
16
17
Ibid. p. 145.
18
Publishing Ltd., Albershot, 1999), pp. 4-5.
19
Iztok Prezelj and Marija Gaber, Athena Papers Series No. 5: Smuggling as a Threat
to National and International Security: Slovenia and the Balkan Route, (Partnership for
Peace Consortium of Defence Academies and Security Studies Institutes, Garmisch-
Partekirchen, Germany, 2005), p. 54.
20
Publishing Ltd., Albershot, 1999), p. 6.
21
Martin, J. Small arms trigger alarms. Middle East [online], October, 2005, (360), 26.
Available via: Proquest, (Accessed: 19 June 2006).
22
BBC NEWS, Annan warns of ‘violence cullture’ [online], (BBC NEWS UK, London,
2006), (Accessed: 12 July 2006), Available at:
23
24
25
88
26
27
(United Nations Publications, New York, 2004), pp. 217-220.
28
UN Department for Disarmament Affairs, The Future of Disarmament: Edited
transcripts of meetings held at UN in 1997, New York, 10 April – 23 October 1997, (UN
Centre for Disarmament Affairs, New York, 1998), p. 83.
29
Ibid. pp. 83-85.
30
UN Secretary General with the assistance of the Group of Governmental Experts, The
relationship between disarmament and development in the current international
context: Report by UN Secretary General under Res. 57/65 of UN General Assembly of
22 November 2002, 23 June 2004 (UN General Assembly Fifty-ninth session A/59/50,
New York, 23 June 2004).
31
S Willet, ‘The Economics of Security in the Developing World’, Disarmament
Forum: UN Institute for Disarmament Research Quarterly Journal, 1, 1999, 25-27.
32
Department For International Development, Tackling Poverty By Reducing Armed
Violence: Recommendations from a Wilton Park Workshop, 14-16 April, 2003 [online],
(FCO-DFID UK, London, 2006), (Accessed: 28 May 2006), Available at:
http://www.dfid.gov.UK/pubs/files/tacklingpovertybyreducingarmedviolence.pdf
33
Ibid.
34
UN Secretary General with the assistance of the Group of Governmental Experts, The
relationship between disarmament and development in the current international
context: Report by UN Secretary General under Res. 57/65 of UN General Assembly of
22 November 2002, 23 June 2004 (UN General Assembly Fifty-ninth session A/59/50,
New York, 23 June 2004).
35
S Willet, ‘The Economics of Security in the Developing World’, Disarmament
36
Winter 2000, 49-50.
37
Ibid. pp. 52-53.
38
UNIDIR, Disarmament and Conflict Resolution Project: Managing Arms in Peace
Processes: The Issues, (UNIDIR, Geneva, 1996), pp. 169-172.
39
Winter 2000, 53.
89
40
Aftermath of Civil Conflicts: Key Implementation Isuues’, Civil Wars, 2(2), Summer
1999, 3.
41
Michael A. Levi and Michael E. O’Hanlon, The Future of Arms Control, (Brookings
Institution Press, Washington, D.C., 2005), pp. 119-121.
42
P Jones, ‘Arms Control in the Middle East: is it time to renew ACRS?’ Disarmament
43
44
SEESAC, South Eastern Europe SALW Monitor 2006 [online], (SEESAC, SEE,
http://www.seesac.org/target/introduction%20and%20Country%20assesments-06.pdf
45
Entered the Wassenaar Arrangement in 1996.
46
47
Serbia is the successor state to the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro in terms of
international agreements and treaties entered into. Montenegro has still to apply for
membership of the UN and OSCE; when their membership is accepted they will then be
able to accept their commitments under the various regional agreements. Montenegro
will also have to formally ratify the UN Firearms Protocol as an independent member
state, although it is bound by the SCSP Regional Implementation Plan, having played a
role in Stability Pact regional meetings.
48
49
EU Code of Conduct for Arms Exports, 08 June 1998.
50
OSCE Document on Small Arms and Light Weapons, FSC.JOUR/314, 24 November
2000.
51
OSCE Document on Stockpiles of Conventional Ammunition, FSC.DOC/1/03, 19
November 2003.
52
OSCE Decision on Man-Portable Air Defence Systems, Decision No. 7/03,
FSC.DEC/07/03, 23 July 2003.
53
OSCE Decision on Standard Elements of End User Certificates and Verification
procedures for SALW Exports, Decision No. 5/04, FSC.DEC/5/04, 17 November 2004.
90
54
OSCE Decision on Principles on the Control of Brokering in SALW, Decision No.
8/04, FSC.DEC/8/04, 24 November 2004.
55
Stability Pact Regional Implementation Plan – Combating the Proliferation of Small
Arms and Light Weapons, 28 November 2001, (Revised 15 May 2006).
56
Protocol against the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, their Parts
and Components and Ammunition, supplementing the United Nations Convention
against Transnational Organized Crime (the Firearms Protocol), entered into Force on
03 July 2005.
57
FYR Macedonia expressed an ‘Intent to Ratify’, but this has not yet happened.
58
United Nations Programme of Action to Prevent, Combat and Eradicate the Illicit
Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects, UN Document
A/CONF.192/15, July 2001.
59
Wassenaar Arrangement on Export Controls for Conventional Arms and Dual-Use
Goods and Technologies, Elements for Export Controls of Man-Portable Air Defense
Systems (MANPADS). Agreed at the WA Plenary, 01 December 2000.
60
FYR Macedonia expressed an ‘Interest’ in being invited to join the Wassenaar
Arrangement, but have not yet been invited to join by the members.
61
Goods and Technologies, Elements for Effective Legislation on Arms Brokering.
Agreed at the WA Plenary, 2003.
62
Goods and Technologies, Best Practice Guidelines for Exports of Small Arms and Light
Weapons (SALW). Adopted at the WA Plenary of 11-12 December 2002.
63
Centre for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies (CAST), ‘Small Arms and Light
Weapons – Global and Regional Aspects’, Eksport Vooruxheniy, January - February
2001, 24-27.
64
Conflict, Security and Development (CSD), 1(2), 2001, 139.
65
2001, 24-27.
66
Christopher Bellamy, Spiral Through Time: Beyond ‘Conflict Intensity’, (Camberlay:
Strategic and Combat Studies Institute Occasional No 35, August 1998), p. 33.
67
Ibid.
91
68
Author’s concept inspired by the OOTW model in Christopher Bellamy, Spiral
Through Time: Beyond ‘Conflict Intensity’, (Camberlay: Strategic and Combat Studies
Institute Occasional No 35, August 1998), p. 33.
69
92
CHAPTER 5 – EVALUATION OF CONVENTIONAL ARMS
CONTROL REGIMES AND FUTURE PERSPECTIVES
5.1. Introduction
As it was argued in previous chapters, what had been during the cold war a quite
foreseeable and firmly managed international arms trade system, in the post-cold war era
it has been replaced by a market in which the major arms exporters – for example USA,
Russia, UK and France – have followed an unparalleled competition for new and old
clients no longer reserved by the political or ideological considerations taken into account
during the cold war. Protecting defence industrial interests has become the dominant
interest within the military-industrial complexes in these and the other major exporters1.
On the other hand, the proliferation challenges of conventional weapons mentioned in
chapter 4 revealed that they have started to put new demands on multilateral preventive
diplomacy seeking to establish stronger legal mechanisms, especially under a consensus
within the great powers2. However, control of conventional weapons supplies is one of
the few areas that lack a developed international legal framework3, except some political
binding agreements or some legally binding agreements with limited scope and field of
application. As it is argued by Ian Anthony, the main reason is that arms transfer can
been seen as a policy issue or as a legal issue, providing the debates for bad political
choice-based arms transfers, without necessarily being illegal and vice-versa4.
Nevertheless, since 1998, major diplomatic efforts, under the spectrum of political
commitments, strategies and programmes of action, have started to be established in
international, regional and national level concerning the issues of arms transfers’
management and the elimination of the disastrous accumulations of SALWs and their
destabilizing effects.
Arguing on the above facts, Paul Cornish supports that all these proposals made to
regulate or reduce the international arms trade are guided by a sense of what would be
best for the humanity itself, based on pragmatic politics, legal and ethical ideas and
norms5. In particular reference to the national policies, all these norms and principles
have introduced elaborate export control systems all around the world which often share
93
certain distinctive characteristics, among them the following: lists of weapons and goods
with the requirement of special license for their export; lists of proscribed and preferred
countries; lists of criteria and standards against which applications to export may be
judged; broadly developed license application procedures and administrative functions
for the export and imports of the goods in question; verification and authenticity proving
methods for license grants and denials with the related enforcement mechanisms at
custom services and the judicial system; and finally; end-user certificates with the
relevant guarantees for non re-export and exported consignment to a destination which
would otherwise not have been licensed6. However, there are important differences
across the range of the various national policies on the specific issues, reflecting different
legal and constitutional practices, as well as strategic foreign policy expectations. Similar
differences reflecting the different national policies and interests can be found also in the
several established conventional arms control regimes or arms trade regulatory regimes,
both in international and regional level and in multilateral or unilateral context.
Moreover, the unscrupulous arms trade of conventional arms, especially SALWs trade,
continues in a global scale, fuelling deadly conflicts and causing unprecedented violence
and underdevelopment in the unstable regions of the world. Therefore, having in mind
the new security challenges and implications of conventional arms control and arms trade
fields which mentioned in chapter 4, the purpose of this chapter will be to give first a
brief summary of the scope of all of the major established regimes and initiatives for the
field in question, either international or regional ones, providing a succinct evaluation of
their efficacy. In addition, based on an overall assessment of the conventional arms
control agenda up to date, it will approach its future perspectives and necessities by
giving a general context of a comprehensive approach in the contemporary conventional
arms control field, as it was theorized in the previous chapter.
existing regimes in classical conventional arms control
The major selected conventional arms control regimes for the purpose of this chapter are
the CFE Treaty, the Dayton Accords following the Serbian-Bosnian war in the Balkans,
94
the 1999 Inter-American Convention, as well as the unprecedented ‘Anti-Mine’
Convention of 1997, known as the Ottawa Convention. The CFE Treaty, negotiated and
signed during the final years of the cold war is often referred as ‘the cornerstone of
European security’ since it eliminated the FSU’s overwhelming quantitative advantage in
conventional weapons in Europe by establishing equal limits on the amount of tanks,
ACVs, heavy artillery, combat aircrafts and attack helicopters between NATO and the
Warsaw Pact, covering an area between the Atlantic Ocean and the Ural Mountains.
More specifically, NATO and Warsaw Pact were each limited to 20,000 tanks, 30,000
ACVs, 20,000 heavy artillery pieces, 6,800 combat aircrafts and 2,000 attack helicopters
for the treaty’s area of application. All these numbers are referred as Treaty Limited
Equipment (TLE). To prevent any state-party from gathering a significant asymmetrical
stockpile of conventional weapons, the CFE prohibits a single party from possessing
more than a third of the Treaty’s TLE total. As of January 2002, NATO’s 19 members
claimed holdings of 60,358 TLE versus a cumulative limit of 88,986 TLE, while Russia
reported holdings of 23,516 TLE against limits of 28,216 TLE7.
The breakup of the FSU in December 1991 rendered inapplicable the CFE Treaty ceilings
as well as the inspection quotas, but the Tashkent Document and the Joint Declaration
Agreement established new territorial ceilings incorporating the New Independent States
(NIS). The Oslo Document in its turn made it possible for the CFE Treaty to enter
provisionally into force in July 2002 and under the Concluding Act in the same month,
known as the CFE-1A Agreement, the signatories committed themselves to negotiate
additional measures, merely under political commitments and not legally binding
provisions, as it was in the CFE Treaty. In 1996 and under the pressure of the new post-
cold war order the treaty was becoming inadequate to deal with the rapidly changing
post-cold war situation. So, the first review conference of the treaty concluded in 1999 on
a new agreement known as the Adapted CFE Treaty. The principal adaptations consist in
ending the military bloc-related, bilateral character of the treaty so that each state will
now have a national ceiling, whereas states with territory in the treaty area of application
will also have a territorial ceiling limiting the overall amount of equipment that can exist
on their soil. The Adapted Treaty will enter into force after all 30 signatories have ratified
it and until then, the original CFE will be valid8. In the domain of transparency and
verification, the CFE parties have carried out more than 3,300 on-site inspections and the
main remark is that Russia has consistently been in non-compliance with its flank limits,
95
yet within its overall treaty limits9. The main reason for the difficulties in ratifying the
adapted version is that in 2002 Moscow declared that it had met the new TLE limits but
NATO repeated that Russia must still fulfill its commitments with regard to Georgia and
Moldova before ratification10. As an overall assessment the declared objective of the CFE
Treaty to eliminate disparities in conventional forces in Europe, which were most
prejudicial to strategic stability, has been achieved through a mixture of legally and
politically binding instruments. Further arms control efforts for the treaty’s context
continue in the Forum for Security Co-operation (FSC) of the OSCE, but its mandate and
the continuous strategic interests in the region do not provide sufficient space for
consideration of further significant quantitative and qualitative weapons limitations
applicable to all European States11. However, the new CFE Treaty combined with NATO
enlargement has empowered the institutionalization of national and regional verification
organizations for implementing the relevant agreements and it gives the hope for a
greater EU cohesion and confidence building towards a more co-operative European
Security and Defence Policy (ESDP.)12.
In 1995, following the same model of the CFE Treaty, the negotiations initiated by the
US at Dayton airbase between the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Republic of
Croatia and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, concluded on the General Framework
Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, known as the Dayton Agreement.
Under the supplementary agreement of Florence in 1996 and the auspices of OSCE and
the Agreement on Sub-Regional Arms Control, numerical ceilings for battle tanks,
ACVs, artillery pieces of 75mm and above, combat aircrafts and attack helicopters of the
parties were set in a ratio of 5: 2: 2 for Serbia and Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina
and Croatia respectively. In general the agreement incorporated the following protocols:
The Protocol on Reduction; the Protocol on Procedures governing the Reclassification of
Specific Models or Versions of Combat-capable Trainer Aircraft into Unarmed Trainer
Aircrafts; the Protocol on exchange of Information and Notification; the Protocol on
Existing Types of Armaments; the Protocol on Inspection; and the Protocol on Sub-
Regional Consultative Commission. All the limitations under the Florence Agreement are
presented on Table 5.1. However, the blurry point of the agreement is that it has been
linked to the ‘train-and-equip’ programme of United States with the purpose to provide
military support for the armed forces of Bosnia and Herzegovina, so being criticized as a
remilitarization programme of the Ex-Federation, permitting the partition of Bosnia and
96
Herzegovina. Many times, Serbia and Montenegro suspended its implementation until the
compelling resumption after the NATO’s bombings. In addition the Dayton Agreement,
tolerating the existence of three armies in Bosnia, cannot guarantee lasting stability in the
Balkans, while not meeting the criteria for what is usually termed a ‘conventional arms
control agreement’, since it was imposed from outside on the former belligerents13. This
agreement will be likely to match the CFE expectations only after the integration of the
accession process of the state-parties in EU and the reduction of NATO’s military
leverage in the region.
Table 5.1. Limitations under the Florence Agreement14
Party Tanks ACVs AIFVs Artillery Aircrafts Helicopters Manpower

(Armoured
Infantry
Fighting
Vehicles)
Yugoslavia 1,025 850 152 3,750 155 53 124,339
Croatia 410 340 76 1,500 62 21 65,000
Bosnia/Herzegovina 410 340 76 1,500 62 21 65,000
Federation of 273 227 38 1,000 41 14 55,000
Bosnia/Herzegovina
Republika Srpska 137 113 38 500 21 7 500
Of course, as it was explained on previous chapters the contradictory security and

political culture, the lack of institutionalized regional organizations with common
consensual politico-economic and security agenda and the perceived notion of ‘survival
being at stake’ through the long-term historical rivalries, has not allowed yet similar
effectively implemented conventional arms control regimes to be established in the
region of Middle-East, rendering it an area of no practical application of consensual
classical arms control regimes, thus the most unstable region of the globe in average.
Similar situations, but not in the same severity and extent, can be marked in South-East
Asia, where defence multilateralism has been less than modest, except some proposals for
a South-East Asian Register of Conventional Arms and Military Expenditures as a
Confidence and Security Building Measure (CSBM) under the auspices of the
97
Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN), the Council for Security and Co-
operation in the Asia Pacific (CSCAP) and the United Nations Centre for Disarmament
Affairs (UNCDA)15.
On the other side of the Atlantic, in 2002, an unprecedented regional transparency regime
took place under the initiative of the General Assembly of the Organization of American
States (OAS), known as the Inter-American Convention on Transparency in
Conventional Weapons Acquisition. This convention requires its states parties to
annually report on their weapons exports and imports, as well as make timely
notifications of their weapons acquisitions, whether imported or produced domestically16.
The list of weapons covered by the particular convention includes battle tanks, ACVs,
large-calibre artillery systems, combat aircraft, attack helicopters, warships, missiles and
missile launchers, contributing to regional openness and transparency in the acquisition
of conventional weapons by exchanging information regarding those weapons, for the
purpose of promoting confidence among the American states17. The only shortcomings of
the convention, not allowing it to be the most integrated globally accepted conventional
arms control regime, is that it does not cover small arms and light weapons, being as well
merely politically binding and it does not provide enforcement mechanisms in the case of
non-compliance. However, taking into account that in comparison with other regions
Latin America is a relatively small arms market and that during the recent years there has
been a decline among the majority of the participating states in arms imports and exports
due to economic slump and reduced conflict ratio18, this convention seems to work
effectively, being an exemplary case of conventional arms control regime.
However, the most successful convention in the conventional arms control field, which
gained an international consensus driven by ethical and humanitarian norms and
principles under the effective pressure of NGOs, has been the 1997 Convention on the
Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines
and on Their Destruction, typically referred as the ‘Ottawa Convention’ or ‘Mine-Ban
Treaty’. By December 2005, 147 states had become party to the accord. However, the
major powers – USA, Russia and China – have not signed the treaty and few countries in
key regions of tensions, like the Middle East and South Asia have opted to participate.
Another shortcoming is that the treaty did not create an implementation or verification
body or sanctioning measures for not compliance, though it provides the UN with a
98
comprehensive report by all state-parties on the numbers and locations of Anti-Personnel
Landmines (APLs) as well as the relevant national programmes for their destruction19. In
addition, mines designed to be detonated by the presence, proximity or contact of a
vehicle as opposed to a person, that are equipped with anti-handling devices, are not
considered APLs as a result of being so equipped. Consequently, this lack of provisions
to regulate anti-vehicle mines, and in general, its articles dealing with definitions and
exceptions may give rise to divergent interpretations affecting its implementation20.
Nevertheless, in general, the treaty is the most comprehensive conventional arms control
regime ever established since it constitutes a prelude to an unconditional ban on use of
certain conventional weapons, leading to their gradual abolition. In contrast, the
effectiveness of the arms trade regulatory regimes so far has not arguably been so
oversold.
conventional arms transfers control regimes and initiatives, including
the issues of SALWs and MANPADS
5.3.1. International Level
The three major international regimes in the field of conventional arms trade control are
the UN Register of Conventional Arms, merely limited on the field of transparency and
information exchange; the UN Firearms Protocol as a supplementation of the UN
Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, which excludes of its agenda the
state-to-state or state-to-non-state actors transactions of the particular weapons; and the
UN Programme of Action to Prevent, Combat and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in SALWs
in All Its Aspects, which does not include the ‘legal’ trade of these weapons and does not
provide any enforcement mechanisms, being only politically binding.
The UN Register of Conventional Arms, established on 9 December 1991 by the UN

General Assembly, called upon all the UN states to provide annually information on the
previous years’ imports and exports of seven type of weapons: tanks; ACVs, large-calibre
artillery, combat aircraft, attack helicopters, missiles and missiles launchers21. The last
99
year, two amendments have been included concerning the lowering of artillery threshold
reporting down to 75mm and the inclusion of MANPADS22. Although the Register calls
upon member-states to exercise restraint in exports and imports of conventional arms by
placing adequate laws and administrative procedures, it is not a legally binding
convention and contains many qualitative and quantitative shortcomings. For example
most of Russia’s declared arms exports, including those to China and Taiwan, could not
be verified, because many of the recipients do not participate in the Register, like China,
most Arab states and African countries23. The main reasons for that participation
unwillingness are the non-inclusion of SALWs in the Register and its discriminatory
character, since it includes only transfers and not weapon inventories, resulting in a fairly
accurate notion about the arms inventories of the importing countries not possessing a
significant indigenous defence industry, whereas the major arms producers, not importing
much have got considerably less to report, keeping the actual state of their inventories
undisclosed24. Consequently, the Register does not provide so much transparent
assessment for the military potential of many countries, having additionally a lot of
discrepancies on the type and model of weapons, both in qualitative and quantitative
terms25. The opinion of Josef Goldblat in his book Arms Control is characteristic:
‘Even if the above requirements were met, the Register, as well as other
similar arrangements – whether global or regional – would not, by
themselves, necessarily lead to limitations of arms transfers. There are
no objective criteria for determining which types of quantities of
armaments are excessive. In certain situations the Register could even
stimulate, instead of dissuading, the acquisition of arms by states eager
to redress what they perceive as military imbalances’26.
The only legally binding document concerning global measures to regulate international
transfers of weapons, but limited itself in the category of small arms, has been the UN
Protocol against the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, Their Parts and
Components and Ammunition, which has been established in June 2001 by a relevant
General Assembly resolution as a supplementation of the UN Convention against
Transnational Organized Crime27. The parties to the Protocol have undertaken the legal
commitments to combat the illicit trade in firearms by criminalizing the trafficking-
related activities in their domestic laws; seizing and destroying confiscated weapons;
100
keeping records and providing for an exchange information, experience and technical
assistance; marking weapons at the manufacturing point and at import; complementing
the import and transit licensing requirements under a common content; and finally
establishing security measures for the prevention of theft, loss or diversion of weapons 28.
However, despite its global, legally binding applicability, the Protocol comprises
imperfections and weaknesses. First it applies merely to the illicit manufacturing and
trafficking of firearms and their components and to the investigation and prosecution of
offences established under Article 5 of the Protocol, where those offences are
transnational in nature, involving organized criminal groups as well29. This means that it
does not apply to state-to-state transactions or to state-to-non-state actors transactions and
moreover it does not enable itself to the regulation of the legal trade in arms, which under
the globalized and innovating market networks of rogue states and relevant non-state
actors, may sounds legal formally but it is illegal by nature. Second, it merely encourages
state-parties that have established a system of licensing or authorization of manufacturing
or a system of licensing and authorization of brokering, to include the relevant
information in their exchanges of information. In addition, it only suggests for national
registration and licensing systems of arms brokers, without any obligatory mandate on
that field30.
Eventually, a modest but significant step towards the development of international norms
and practices for restrictions on SALWs, has been the UN Programme of Action to
Prevent, Combat and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All
Its Aspects, known as UN PoA, which contains measures to be undertaken at the
national, regional and global levels31.
At the national level, the UN PoA agreed, inter alia, to put in place adequate laws and
administrative procedures to exercise effective control over the production, exports,
imports and retransfers of SALWs, criminalizing the relevant illicit activities; to establish
national coordination agencies for policy guidance and monitoring as well as national
point of contacts as a liaison between states; to ensure the reliable and licensed marking
procedures as well as the accurate record-keeping; to assess applications for export
authorizations according to strict national regulations; to use authenticated end-user
certificates and effective legal and enforcement measures; to make notifications to the
original exporting states about re-exports; to develop laws and procedures regulating the
101
activities of those engaged in SALWs brokering; to take all the appropriate legal and
administrative issues against any activity violating the UN arms embargoes; to ensure
that confiscated small arms are destroyed or disposed under officially authorized
processes; to destroy surplus SALWs; and to develop effective DDR programmes where
possible. At the regional level the UN PoA agreed, inter alia, to strengthen the moratoria
in the affected regions; to establish sub-regional and regional mechanisms for combating
the illicit trade in SALWs across borders; to encourage the promotion of safe stockpile
management under the regional mechanisms; to encourage negotiations, where
appropriate, with the aim of concluding relevant legally binding instruments; to establish
a point of contact within sub-regional and regional organizations acting as liaison on
matters relating to the implementation of PoA; and to encourage regions to develop,
where appropriate and on a voluntary basis, measures to enhance transparency. At the
global level the UN PoA agreed, inter alia, to request the UN Secretary General to collate
data provided by states on a voluntary basis on the implementation of the programme; to
encourage co-operation with the World Customs Organization and the International
Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) in order to identify groups and individuals
engaged in the illicit trade of SALWs; to encourage states to consider ratifying or
acceding to international legal instruments against terrorism and transnational organized
crime; and finally to co-operate with the UN system for the effective implementation of
the UN arms embargoes32.
Although through a general assessment of the UN PoA it is noticeable that it has

provided general guidance for governments, regional and international organizations as
well as the civil society in combating the illicit trade on SALWs, yet it is not legally
binding, it does not offer compulsory transparency mechanisms and in addition, owing to
the opposition of the USA, it has never reached consensus on the need to establish
effective controls over the private ownership of SALWs or on the need to halt sales of
such weapons to non-state actors33. However, this programme of action has been the
incentive for other similar regional and sub-regional initiatives.
102
5.3.2. Regional and sub-regional level
At the regional and sub-regional level the major initiatives for conventional arms trade
regulations, including the categories of SALWs and MANPADS can be observed on the
Wassenaar Arrangement, the relevant principles and documents of OSCE and the
relevant codes of conduct and joint actions of the EU. Wassenaar Arrangement, formally
established in 1996 has been the first multilateral export control regime covering both
armaments and sensitive dual-use goods and technology. Actually, it is a voluntary export
control regime whose 39 members exchange information on transfers of conventional
weapons and dual-use technologies. Its purpose is to promote ‘greater responsibility’
among its members in arms exports and to prevent ‘destabilizing accumulations’. It
targets at ‘states of concern’ to member-states34. During the recent years it has been
expanded in scope to include best practices and guidelines for the control of SALWs 35
and MANPADS36 as well as to provide elements for effective legislation on arms
brokering among its state-parties37. However, member-states continue to be divided over
Wassenaar’s scope, primarily whether the arrangement should become more than just a
body for exchanging and collecting information. In addition there is no consensus among
members over the definitions ‘states of concern’ and ‘destabilizing transfers’ and because
the arrangement operates by consensus, a single country can block any proposal. This
lack of legally binding provisions renders it difficult to achieve uniformity in arms
exports policies and more importantly, some major arms exporters, such as Belarus,
China, Israel and South Africa, are not members of the arrangement38.
One of the first ethical approaches concerning the regulation of the arms trade started
under the agenda of OSCE principles in 1993 when its members, by reaffirming the
principles governing the conventional arms transfers, they further broadened the aim of a
cooperative and common approach to security, by considering among the others for their
export policies, the respect for human rights in the recipient country; its record of
compliance with its international commitments; the legitimate security needs of the
recipient country; and its proportionate response to the security treats confronting it39.
Under the Document of 2003 on SALWs, driven by the UN PoA, member-states agreed
to ensure effective national control over manufacturing and licensing authorizations as
well as to prosecute under appropriate penal codes those engaged in illegal production of
SALWs. Each participating state should ensure its efficacy in enforcing its international
103
commitments on SALWs through its national authorities and judicial system. The
document provided for information exchange on SALWs exports and imports as well as
of surplus, seized or destroyed small arms on an annual basis40. The additional decisions
of OSCE on end-user certificates41, on stockpiles of conventional ammunition42, on
control of SALWs brokering43 as well as control of MANPADS44 exports, broadened its
scope of application. However, the OSCE principles on arms exports and the relevant
supplementary documents on SALWs and MANPADs produce the same shortcomings as
the UN PoA, yet in a lesser degree since OSCE has got an integrated, cooperative and
common approach to security.
However, the most comprehensive efforts on the control of arms transfers and SALWs
have been undertaken by the EU through the EU Code of Conduct On Arms Exports45,
the EU Council Common Position of 2003 on the Control of Arms Brokering46 and the
EU Strategy to Combat Illicit Accumulation and Trafficking of SALWs and their
Ammunition47, the latter supplementing the relevant EU Council Joint Action of July
200248. The EU Code of Conduct On Arms Exports is based on standard ethical criteria,
including the respect for human rights in the recipient country; the preservation of
regional peace and stability; the national security of state-parties as well as the security of
friendly and allied countries; the behavior of the recipient with regard to terrorism and
international law; and the compatibility of arms exports with the technical and economic
capacity of the recipient country. The operative provisions of the Code of Conduct
obliges member-states to circulate through diplomatic channels details of licenses refused
accompanied by the relevant explanation and in depth consultation among the members
for any transaction, pursuing in that way a uniformity in the arms exports policies 49. The
only shortcoming of the code is that the final decision to transfer or deny the transfer of
any item remains at the national discretion of each state since the code is only politically
binding50. However, all the members under the Common Security and Foreign Policy
follow more or less a similar comprehensive approach to their national policies
incorporating the commitments. A characteristic example is the Consolidated EU and
National Arms Export Licensing Criteria of the UK’s policy51.
Moreover, the EU Strategy against the illicit accumulation and trafficking of SALWs and
their ammunition has developed a comprehensive and coherent approach which harnesses
all forms of leverage at the European’s Union disposal and in addition, it has developed a
104
multifaceted action to cover all the dimensions of the illicit accumulation and trafficking
of SALWs, both preventive and reactive. Finally it supports effective multilateralism and
all the relevant international and regional initiatives under diplomatic channels, field
missions, partnership and cooperation, assistance programmes and generally a promotion
of the relevant successful European Union’s national and regional control systems for
adaptation all around the world. The most significant objectives of the EU Strategy are
the support of the adoption of a legally binding international instrument on the tracing
and marking of SALWs and ammunition and the establishment of a consensus within
exporting countries to only supplying SALWs to governments, in accordance with
restrictive and appropriate regional and international criteria on arms exports52.
Nevertheless, in the quest of these objectives, the best template would be an international,
legally binding arms trade treaty and the step-up of the institutional capacity and scope of
all the other regional organizations. Nevertheless, the whole policy of EU in the domain
of arms transfers and SALWs regulation thrusts itself forward as the most comprehensive
and integrated regime on the entire field of conventional arms control.
Of course, there are some other regional or sub-regional initiatives and strategies on the
field of arms trade control, like the Economic Community Of West African States
(ECOWAS) Moratorium on the Importation, Exportation and Manufacture of SALWs in
West Africa, projecting West Africa as the first region globally to announce a halt to the
procurement of SALWs, yet not legally binding, and promoting the moratorium as a
possible Convention in the future53. Some other examples as well can be pin-pointed in
America, like the Inter-American Convention against the Illicit Manufacturing of and
Trafficking in Firearms, Ammunition, Explosives and Other Related Materials (CIFTA)54
or in South-Eastern Europe, like the Stability Pact for SEE Regional Implementation Plan
(SCSP RIP) and the South-Eastern European Clearinghouse SALW Control (SEESAC)55,
the latter working under the OSCE principles and the efforts of the participating states to
accede in the EU. In contrast, in Asia, the efforts of ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) and
the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) are of a very limited scope and
effectiveness56.
105
5.4. Overall assessment, future perspectives and necessities: A general
context of a holistic, comprehensive approach in the conventional arms
control field57
The above argumentation about the major conventional arms control regimes and arms
trade regulatory initiatives arguably revealed that wherever the mandates of regional
organizations of great institutional capacity accompanied countries with ‘westernized’
security culture, traditional conventional arms control concerning arms limitations and
reductions managed to incorporate adequate multilateral initiatives concerning the
management of arms transfers. However, the relevant efforts for this ‘arms trade
management’, usually constituted of merely politically binding commitments or programs
of actions, aiming mainly at transparency enhancement, weapons marking, uniformity of
adequate legislative procedures, record keeping and exchange of information as well as
monitoring of brokering activities and politically agreed strategies and joint actions.
Notwithstanding the lack of their international legal applicability, they provided
significant steps for the majority of the developed world and in some cases for the
developing world as well. Nevertheless, in the domain of SALWs, which have inflicted
more casualties than any other category of weapons, the shortcomings of every
international or regional effort identified that as with other categories of conventional
weapons, measures intended to limit the SALWs transfers and to control arms trading and
brokering activities cannot be expected to be really effective unless they restrict and
regulate the manufacture and the very possession of the specific weapons in question in a
similar way like the ‘Anti-Mine Treaty’s’ provisions. In addition, the absence of a
generally acceptable definition of SALWs and the lack of clarity over the terms
‘excessive’ and ‘destabilizing’, since no definite limits have been set for permitted
activities, make the licit transfers of SALWs undistinguishable from the illicit ones58.
Due to the aforesaid realities, effective co-operation on the management of arms trade by
the supplying states suggests three prerequisites according to Paul Cornish’s opinion:
First the initiative should be organized and institutionalized in a wide regional or
international level, rather than being a casual arrangement among governments; second
the participants should be amenable to a higher legal and political authority, preferably
the UN, rather than being driven by mere high-politics and national interests; and third
106
the international community must be willing to sustain a time-consuming but long-lived
initiative rather a short-lived one59. UN, representing the competent legal authority
should seek consensus on an international legally binding arms trade treaty, restricting
the arms transfers and more over, imposing legally binding obligations to arms brokers at
an international level. The very successful functioning mechanism of the EU Code of
Conduct, in terms of arms exports control, and the UN PoA in terms of a strategy against
the illicit trade in SALWs, can assist such a treaty to integrate all the aspects of trade in
the particular category.
Additionally, as it was theorized in chapter 4, all these efforts and co-operation should be
focused principally on the pre-conflict environments under the norms of prevention and
co-operation. Prevention should comprise both preventive diplomacy and early warning
systems for destabilizing situations as well as preventive deployment of SALWs field
missions. Similarly, co-operation should comprise a multifaceted regime, being,
according to the situation, a ‘coercive trade-management regime’, where the goal is
agreed by the sellers in a relatively straightforward manner of denial and domination, or a
‘mutual regime’ that involves sellers and buyers from all around the world shared the
same norms and values in the specific issues, like in the case of WMD60. In that sense
both supply-side strategies, including inter alia border controls and appropriate
legislative and administrative procedures, and demand-side strategies, including inter alia
the decrease of the need for weapons by state-citizens61, must be undertaken at the global,
regional and national level. Moreover, micro-disarmament strategies, being a mixture of
the aforementioned strategies, should provide de-weaponisation policies under a
multifold and inter-linked comprehensive mechanism, adjusted on the template of an
international arms trade treaty, with the ultimate purpose to confiscate all illegal weapons
and ban the civilian possession of all prohibited and non-prohibited bore weapons in the
countries that is necessary under special task force groups. The case of Pakistan is a
limited-scope example of such a strategy62. Under that spectrum, a comprehensive
approach on conventional arms control verges on both the pre-conflict and post-conflict
environment of armaments management, not only to the control of legal exports and
generally the field of preventive diplomacy, but also to the efforts for integrating SALWs
control and reduction measures into the broader programmes of Security Sector Reform
(SSR), under the agenda of Demobilization, Disarmament and Reintegration (DDR)
107
processes of the sustainable peace-building efforts in post-conflict environments
undertaken by the international community or the donor states63.
5.5. Conclusion
Concluding for this chapter, and having already evaluated the efficacy of all the major
regimes and initiatives on the fields of conventional arms control and arms trade control
by identifying some of their shortcomings and some of their strengths, the final
conjecture turned up the imperative for a comprehensive and holistic approach on the
field in question, which incorporates all strategies, initiatives and agreements. Therefore,
under such an approach, the future perspectives of arms control lie on the willingness to
be linked to a broader strategy, involving the tools of security guarantees and alliance
formations under an indispensable consensus on avoiding making arms control a narrow
means of advancing unilateral or partially multilateral policies. The future perspectives of
conventional arms control are based on an extension of its agenda to include among the
others the following efforts: to deprive terrorist groups and extremist militias of resources
and sanctuaries, particularly located in failed states and civil conflict’s environments of
the developing world; to limit as much as possible the access to SALWs from insurgents,
criminal groups and civilians; to become interrelated with other means of conflict
mitigation, such as preventive diplomacy, economic instruments and humanitarian-led
interventions – coercive or not – and moreover; to give some solutions built on
meaningful and verifiable formal treaty-based approaches and under multilateral and
legally binding accords preferably, which in their turn can involve individual countries’
coordinated use of national legislation and strategies to achieve the desirable result.
Nevertheless, as it has been revealed both in this chapter and the previous one, the
imperative of an international, legally binding arms trade treaty covering all the aspects
of licit and illicit trade in arms and particularly the issue of SALWs, their manufacture,
possession and marking under common mechanisms, is higher than ever and totally
linked to the above approach. However it requires great patience and long-term efforts by
the international community, since it must incorporate all the collateral international and
regional regimes / initiatives made so far and moreover, it should be adjusted to the
different security cultures and needs of every region, implementing globally accepted
108
strategies and addressing both pre-conflict and post-conflict situations. This forbearance
is necessary in order to avoid a hypercharge of the conventional arms control agenda, as
Michael A. Levi argues in his book The Future of Arms Control: ‘Pursuing agreements
that deliver only marginal benefit simply to create momentum for disarmament and to
embellish the existing infrastructure of global governance often is counterproductive’64.
109
References
1
Ian Anthony, Ed., Russia and the Arms Trade, (Oxford University Press Inc., New
York, 1998), p. 95.
2
Brad Roberts, Weapons Proliferation and World Order, (Kluwer Law International, The
Hague, 1996), p. 257.
3
Ian Anthony, Ed., Russia and the Arms Trade, (Oxford University Press Inc., New
York, 1998), p. 98.
4
Ibid. p. 219.
5
Paul Cornish, Controlling the Arms Trade: The West versus the Rest, (Bowerdean
Publishing Company Ltd., London, 1996), pp. 46-50.
6
Ibid. pp. 54-55.
7
Wade Boese, The Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty at a Glance
[online], (Arms Control Association, 2002), (Accessed: 7 June 2006), Available at:
8
Jozef Goldblat, Arms Control: The New Guide to Negotiations and Agreements, (SAGE
Publications Ltd., London, 2002), pp. 222-230.
9
Wade Boese, The Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty at a Glance
10
Wade Boese, The Adapted Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty at a Glance
11
Jozef Goldblat, Arms Control: The New Guide to Negotiations and Agreements,
(SAGE Publications Ltd., London, 2002), pp. 222-230.
12
Michael O. Wheeler, James M. Smith and Glen M. Segell, Perspectives on Arms
Colorado Springs, 2004), p. 117.
13
14
Ibid. p. 232.
15
Bates Gill and J. N. Mak, Ed., Arms Transparency and Security in South-East Asia,
(Oxford University Press Inc., New York, 1997), pp. 56-67.
110
16
Wade Boese, The Inter-American Convention on Transparency in Conventional
Weapons Acquisitions at a Glance [online], (Arms Control Association, 2003),
17
(SAGE Publications Ltd., London, 2002), p. 235.
18
Wade Boese, The Inter-American Convention on Transparency in Conventional
19
Wade Boese, The Ottawa Convention at a Glance [online], (Arms Control Association,
http://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/ottawa.asp
20
21
Arms Control Association, Russia Tops in Quantity of Arms Shipped in 2002 [online],
(Arms Control Association, 2003), (Accessed: 7 July 2006), Available at:
22
UN Centre for Disarmament Affairs, United Nations Register of Conventional Arms
[online], (UNCDA, New York, 2003), (Accessed: 5 July 2006), Available at:
http://disarmament.un.org/cab/2003GRE.pdf
23
Arms Control Association, Russia Tops in Quantity of Arms Shipped in 2002 [online],
(Arms Control Association, 2003), (Accessed: 7 July 2006), Available at:
24
25
UN Department for Disarmament Affairs, The Future of Disarmament: Edited
transcripts of meetings held at UN in 1997, New York, 10 April – 23 October 1997, (UN
Centre for Disarmament Affairs, New York, 1998), pp. 131-155.
26
27
United Nations General Assembly, Resolution 55/255 adopted by the General
Assembly on 8 June 2001: Protocol against the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking
in Firearms, Their Parts and Components and Ammunition, supplementing the United
Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime [online], (SEESAC, 2005),
http://www.seesac.org/docum/un-firearms-protocol.pdf
111
28
Jozef Goldblat, Arms Control: The New Guide to Negotiations and Agreements, (SAGE
Publications Ltd., London, 2002), p. 251.
29
Article 4 of the Resolution 55/255 adopted by the General Assembly on 8 June 2001:
Protocol against the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, Their Parts and
Components and Ammunition, supplementing the United Nations Convention against
Transnational Organized Crime, available at:
30
Ibid. Article 15.
31
(SAGE Publications Ltd., London, 2002), p. 254-256.
32
UN Centre for Disarmament Affairs, Conventional Arms: Programme of Action to
Prevent, Combat and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All
Its Aspects, (UN Document A/CONF.192/15/) [online], (UN, New York, 2001),
http://disarmament2.un.org/cab/poa.html
33
(SAGE Publications Ltd., London, 2002), p. 254-256.
34
Wade Boese, The Wassenaar Arrangement at a Glance [online], (Arms Control
Association, 2005), (Accessed: 10 June 2006), Available at:
35
The Wassenaar Arrangement on Export Controls for Conventional Arms and Dual-Use
Goods and Technologies, Best Practice Guidelines for Exports of Small Arms and Light
Weapons, as adopted by the plenary of 11-12 December 2002 [online], (WA, Wassenaar,
http://www.wassenaar.org/docs/best_practice_sapw.htm
36
Goods and Technologies, Elements for Export Controls of Man-Portable Air Defense
Systems, agreed at the WA Plenary, 1 December 2000 [online], (SEESAC, 2002),
http://www.seesac.org/docum/Wassenaar_Arrangement_2000_MANPADS.pdf
37
Goods and Technologies, Elements for Effective Legislation on Arms Brokering, agreed
at the 2003 Plenary [online], (SEESAC, 2003), (Accessed: 10 June 2006), Available at:
http://www.seesac.org/docum/Wassenaar_Arrangement_2000_Surplus%20Disposal.pdf
38
Wade Boese, The Wassenaar Arrangement at a Glance [online], (Arms Control
112
39
40
OSCE, OSCE Document On Small Arms and Light Weapons [online], (SEESAC,
http://www.seesac.org/docum/osced1.htm
41
OSCE, Decision No 5/04: Standard Elements of End-User Certificates and Verification
Procedures for SALW Exports [online], (SEESAC, 2005), (Accessed: 2 June 2006),
Available at:
http://www.seesac.org/OSCE_Decision_on_EUC.pdf
42
OSCE, OSCE Document on Stockpiles of Conventional Ammunition [online],
(SEESAC, 2005), (Accessed: 2 June 2006), Available at:
http://www.seesac.org/OSCE_document_on_ammunition.pdf
43
OSCE, Decision No 8/04: OSCE Principles on the Control of Brokering in Small Arms
and Light Weapons [online], (SEESAC, 2005), (Accessed: 2 June 2006), Available at:
http://www.seesac.org/docum/OSCE_Decision_on_Brokering,pdf
44
OSCE, Decision No 3/04: OSCE Principles For Export Controls of Man-Portable Air
Defence Systems (MANPADS) [online], (SEESAC, 2005), (Accessed: 2 June 2006),
Available at:
http://www.seesac.org/docum/OSCE_Principles_for_export_controls_of_MANPADS.pdf
45
The Council of European Union, EU Code Of Conduct On Arms Exports [online],
46
The Council of European Union, Council Common Position 2003/468/CSFP of 23
June 2003 on the Control of Arms Brokering [online], (SEESAC, 2005), (Accessed: 2
June 2006), Available at:
http://www.seesac.org/docum/council_common_position_on_armsbrokering.pdf
47
The Council of European Union, EU Strategy to combat illicit accumulation and
trafficking of SLAW and their ammunition, adopted by the EU Council on 15-16
December 2005 [online], (SEESAC, 2005), (Accessed: 25 June 2006), Available at:
http://www.seesac.org/docum/EU_SALW_Strategy_2005.pdf
48
The Council of European Union, Council Joint Action of 12 July 2002 on the
European’s Union contribution to combating the destabilizing accumulation and spread
of small arms and light weapons and repealing Joint Action 1999/34/CSFP [online],
49
Burkard Schmitt, European armaments cooperation: Core documents, (EU Institute for
Security Studies, Alencon, 2003), pp. 23-28.
113
50
51
UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Export Controls and Sanctions: The
Consolidated EU and National Arms Export Licensing Criteria [online], (FCO UK,
London, 2006), (Accessed: 1 June 2006), Available at:
http://www.fco.ov.uk/servlet/Front?pagename=OpenMarket/Xcelerate/ShowPage&c..
52
The Council of European Union, EU Strategy to combat illicit accumulation and
trafficking of SLAW and their ammunition, adopted by the EU Council on 15-16
December 2005 [online], (SEESAC, 2005), (Accessed: 25 June 2006), Available at:
53
United Nations, The United Nations Disarmament Yearbook, Volume 29:2004, (United
Nations Publications, New York, 2005), pp. 138-144.
54
Ibid. p. 146.
55
Stability Pact for Southern Eastern Europe Regional Implementation Plan (Revised
2006), Combating the Proliferation and Impact of Small Arms and Light Weapons
[online], (SEESAC, 2006), (Accessed: 17 June 2006), Available at:
http://www.seesac.org/docum/sp_rip_2006.pdf
56
United Nations, The United Nations Disarmament Yearbook, Volume 29:2004, (United
Nations Publications, New York, 2005), pp. 148-151.
57
58
Ibid. p. 256.
59
Paul Cornish, Controlling the Arms Trade: The West versus the Rest, (Bowerdean
Publishing Company Ltd., London, 1996), p. 60.
60
Ibid. p. 61
61
62
Dipankar Banerjee, Ed., South Asia At Gun Point, (Regional Centre for Strategic
Studies, Colombo, 2000), pp. 286-287.
63
FCO UK, Department For International Development, Small Arms and Light Weapons:
A UK Policy Briefing [online], (DFID, London, 2006), (Accessed: 25 June 2006),
Available at:
http://www.dfid.gov.uk/pubs/files/salw-briefing.pdf
64
Michael A. Levi and Michael E. O’Hanlon, The Future Of Arms Control, (The
Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C., 2005), p. 131.
114
CHAPTER 6 – CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
6.1. Summary and Conclusions
Throughout history, somewhat paradoxically, policies of disarmament and arms

reduction and policies for the development of military capabilities have both been
perceived as means for security promotion and preservation. However, as has turned out
several times, the continuous and unlimited arms race, both quantitatively and
qualitatively, is one of the substantial reasons for the occurrence of interstate and
intrastate wars. Whilst during the cold war the main objectives of arms control were to
reduce the risk of a disastrous nuclear war between the hegemonies of USA and FSU as
well as to maintain equilibrium of armed forces, in the post-cold war era new security
challenges have brought more complicated dimensions in the particular field. As had
been argued in chapter 1, by limiting the scope of this dissertation on conventional arms
control, its main aim was to formulate a parallel examination of the conventional arms
control and the arms trade in the post-cold war era and to provide a guide of the new
security challenges and implications of these two closely interrelated fields. The reason
of this parallel examination was emerged through the need of the expansion of the
conventional arms control agenda to the complicated field of arms market and transfers.
This market, under its dynamic nature, and driven by the new international order, took an
unprecedented dimensional character, transformed into a vigorous, competitive in
character and commercially oriented process. This in its turn has made its regulation
much more problematical and demanding, and moreover, has posed new security
implications possibly linked with a future conventional arms control agenda.
Many academics and field-experts believe that, with the end of the cold war,
conventional arms control has lost its prominence in the public mind. However, its
relevance for global security has increasingly grown after the 1990s, as it has taken on
new tasks and an expanding conception. Under these realities the author of this paper
moved towards a more comprehensive and holistic approach on the conventional arms
control field, by taking seriously into account the new security challenges of arms
transfers, especially those concerning the unscrupulous trade in SALWs. The hope was to
115
provide some useful guidelines and feasible suggestions that will arguably assist on
strengthening the conventional arms control regimes and initiatives and regulate more
effectively the multifaceted and vigorous arms trade of our times.
Therefore, for the attainment of the above purpose, in chapter 2, the author developed an
inter-linked and multifold theoretical framework between conventional arms control and
the arms trade, based on the relevant security theory models. This conceptual framework
revealed the complexities of the relationship between conventional arms control and the
arms trade under the different security cultures around the globe as well as the direct and
indirect linkages with the post-conflict environments’ particularities. It did not have the
purpose to provide a panacea of conventional arms control security theory, since it left
aside the banal philosophical questions whether armaments are the causal factor of
conflicts or whether the arms trade is a causative or symptomatic phenomenon of
conflicts. The actual purpose was to prepare the argumentation for a new required
approach on the field, by raising the persistent and long-standing questions of the past
concerning which is the best approach for conventional arms control and arms trade
management. Is it multilateralism or unilateralism? Should the trade in SALWs be
examined as a discrete security problem of a unique and stand-alone character or be
totally incorporated into a comprehensive arms control agenda.
As was discussed in chapter three, the most significant steps and advancements in the
field of conventional arms control started with the end of the cold war, based on the
outcome of a international order dominated by the ‘west’ in economic and political terms.
The first example of a legally and politically binding regime in the conventional arms
control sphere of that period was the CFE Treaty. This treaty brought enormous
reductions and limitations in the military arsenals of the European countries and built
upon the creation of confidence and security building measures all around Europe, thus it
strengthened the strategic stability of the region and signaled the end of a major pan-
European war under the launch of a surprise attack.
However, except the above success and the unprecedented and outstanding achievement
of the ‘Anti-Mine Treaty’, all the other efforts for conventional arms control regimes of a
similar range have failed or not successfully implemented either at international or
regional level. This fact has shown the remnants of a cold war type politics by the
116
superpowers, which provided the unstable regions with vast quantities of conventional
weapons under the pretension of military balance preservation or regional security
maintenance. It has also shown the ideological and political deregulation of a multifold
and dynamic arms market, which started to function under commercial-based criteria and
the processes of civilianization and internationalization. And finally, it has revealed the
different political and security cultures of every region. In general, all these factors have
changed the scope and character of the old-fashioned, traditional conventional arms
control agenda and brought new security challenges, particularly in the field of
conventional disarmament and the arms trade management regimes.
Thus, the issue of dual-use technology transfers risks and the plague of the proliferation
and re-circulation of SALWs, to and from regions of interstate or intrastate conflicts,
have started to pose serious obstacles to the economic growth of developing states. They
also started to undermine efficient governance and human security, to increase pauperism
and to foster terrorist and criminal groups at a global scale. Under this context, and with a
global conception that the international arms market has become more forceful, self-
motivated and multidimensional than ever before, a lot of initiatives started to be
implemented, basically by international security organizations and regional
economic/political alliances like the UN, EU, OSCE and OAS. Other regional
organizations, for example in Africa or in South Asia, followed the same path but with
limited capacity. Nevertheless, the majority of them comprise politically binding
rationales and documents only, having a regional scope of applicability.
Recognizing the fact that the new forces shaping the international market have
established a vigorous arms trade that is so complicated to be controlled by the national
governments and the international community, chapter 4 argued about the new security
challenges of conventional arms control and the trade in arms, particularly the SALWs
trade. These security challenges and risks comprise first the illicit trade in arms under the
networks of the gray and the black market, which stands as a major challenge for the
security and sustainable development of the developing world. It sets off a violence
culture in the periphery and the interior of extended regions while threatening the
international and human security by the interrelated linkages with the transnational
organized crime. Secondly, they comprise all the problematical linkages of the weaponry
level regulation during the peace-management processes, in the aftermath of interstate
117
and intrastate conflicts and under the spectrum of coercive or consensual conventional
arms control accords. These problematical linkages, shaped and driven by the different
political context and security cultures of every region, have revealed so far that classical
conventional arms control regimes or arms trade regulatory mechanisms have not been
employed so successfully in every situation. This was more obvious when rival factions
confronted each other because group survival was at stake and there were no regional
political/security mechanisms for addressing these issues.
The repercussion of the above complexities has created two controversial approaches in
the academic and practitioners’ circles of the field. These concern basically the issue of
SALWs control and generally the arms trade control in the future. The first one supports
that sovereign states have a constitutional and internationally given right, under the UN
Charter provisions, to arm themselves in order to ensure their legitimate self-defense
needs. So, all the efforts of the international community should concentrate on the
eradication of the illicit trade in arms by using extended networks of international
exchange of information and collaboration. In contrast, the second approach supports the
establishment of international, legally binding control regimes for both the licit and illicit
trade in arms, due to their high interconnection. It also encourages the movement towards
multilateralism in the specific field. Considering the aforementioned security challenges
and debates, the author of this paper, has theorized a mainstream and holistic approach in
the conventional arms control field of our times, based on a multifaceted control
mechanism. Such a mechanism could enhance preventive diplomacy in the field of the
unscrupulous arms trade, and on the other hand, could include, under flexible provisions,
the register of SALWs and multilateral and cooperative monitoring of their proliferation.
Moreover it could provide early warning, implement voluntary light weapons collection,
or develop and enforce the national gun control laws under UN mandated small field
missions. However, conceptualizing such an approach does not mean that post-conflict
disarmament and bilateral arms control negotiations should stop to operate, but micro-
disarmament under such a control mechanism is always more desirable and effective. The
reason for this is its relation to the pre-conflict or early post-conflict segments of volatile
environments.
118
The necessity for the aforesaid approach was further intensified by the evaluation of all
the major conventional arms control and arms trade control regimes, which took place in
chapter 5. That thorough assessment brought up all the critical strengths, shortcomings
and imperfections of all those efforts. In general, the majority of the existing initiatives
and strategies in the field of regulation of arms transfers have taken into account the
following factors on which they built up relevant guidelines:
 The requirements of the recipient country to enable it to exercise its right to self-
defence according to Article 51 of the UN Charter;
 The right of the recipient country to meet its legitimate security needs;
 The necessity to avoid destabilizing and excessive accumulations of arms;
 The risk that the proposed arms, and especially SALWs transfer, might support or
encourage terrorism;
 The risk that the proposed SALWs transfer might facilitate organized crime;
 The record of compliance with international obligations and commitments, in
particular on the non-use of force, on the field of non-proliferation, and on the
compliance with the United Nations Security Council’s (UNSC) imposed arms
embargoes;
 The record of respect for international law governing the conduct of armed
conflict;
 Respect for human rights in the recipient country;
 The risk that the proposed transfer will be used for internal repression;
 The impact of the proposed transfer on internal tensions or conflicts;
 The impact of the proposed transfer on regional peace, security and stability;
 The nature and costs of arms build-up in relation to the diversion of resources
needed for economic and human development;
 And finally, the consent of the importing state regarding transfers to territories
under its control or jurisdiction.
All the above guidelines, they have provided cooperative efforts first for the development
of adequate national legislations and administrative procedures to regulate arms
brokering activities. Secondly, they provide for the establishment and maintenance of
effective national systems of export and import authorization, particular on SALWs
119
transfers. All these of course, under the ultimate purpose to undertake further steps to
enhance international co-operation in preventing, combating and eradicating illicit trade
and brokering in SALWs and generally in conventional armaments, while establishing
transparency and monitoring regimes under international and regional co-operative
mechanisms.
Nevertheless, every conventional arms control regime or arms transfers control regime
established so far, at international or regional level, presents apparent weaknesses and
shortcomings, focalized on the existence of discrepancies in both qualitative and
quantitative terms. These include the following:
 They do not provide sufficient space for consideration of further significant
quantitative and qualitative weapons limitations applicable to all the participants, as in
the case of the CFE Treaty.
 They are highly linked to the so-called ‘remilitarization’ programmes of the
superpowers, as in the case of the Florence Agreement.
 They are not part of an institutional agenda of the regional security and economic
organizations, which in their turn lack of the adequate institutional capacity to assume a
coherent regional security approach, as in the case of the majority of the initiatives and
agreements in the Middle East and South Asia.
 They merely concentrate on transparency and monitoring procedures, not having
a legally binding status, as in the case of the Inter-American Convention on Transparency
in Conventional Weapons Acquisition or the example of the UN Register.
 They do not include all the categories of conventional weapons, particularly
SALWs, as in the case of the Inter-American Convention on Transparency in
Conventional Weapons Acquisition or the example of the UN Register.
 The legally binding ones do not in include state-to-state transactions or state-to-
non-state actors transactions, as in the case of the UN Firearms Protocol.
 Those ones with an international scope of application lack of wide participation,
due to loose provisions and definitions, like the UN Register.
 They merely encourage member-states to adopt and implement effective national
legislations and administrative procedures for the control of arms brokering and license
authorization without any compulsory provisions for compliance verification and
enforcement mechanisms. All of them, even the most integrated ones, namely the UN
120
Firearms Protocol, the EU Code of Conduct On Arms Exports as well as the OSCE and
EU Strategy for SALWs, show up the above imperfection.
 They have never reached consensus on the establishment of legally binding
transparency mechanisms or on the establishment of effective controls over the private
ownership of arms, as in the case of UN PoA, and mainly due to the opposition of the
superpowers.
 Even the most comprehensive arms transfers control regimes and initiatives,
which include all categories of weapons and provide effective monitoring mechanisms,
namely the OSCE and EU initiatives, are not legally binding.
 Moreover, in the most vulnerable regions like the Middle East or South-Eastern
Asia, all the relevant efforts have been of a limited value and scope.
 Finally and most importantly, there is absence of an international consensus on a
legally binding arms transfers agreement, namely an international arms trade treaty,
which could act as a ‘common template’, incorporating all the regional and international
initiatives in a coherent approach. This could address both pre-conflict and post-conflict
situations under flexible and adjustable to every region provisions.
The latter shortcoming implies the absence of the cornerstone of a necessary,

comprehensive and strategic approach for conventional arms control nowadays. On that
approach the author concluded in chapter 5. This was highly acknowledged by the UK
Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw’s speech in March 2005 when he argued that ‘we still have
no legally-binding international treaty on conventional arms exports…that is a gap which
I want the international community to fill’1. However, the adoption of such treaty
requires sustainable and tolerant efforts by the international community, since it must
include all the major regimes and initiatives made so far and over and above, be
compatible to the different security cultures and needs of every region. It should also put
in practice globally accepted strategies, either preventive or responsive/restoring ones.
Such a treaty, being the core of a new holistic agenda in the conventional arms control
field, stands as a substantial component of the necessary policy recommendations.
121
6.2. Policy recommendations
Avoiding potentially the repetition of policy recommendations of the most relevant and
substantial arms control regimes and initiatives, particularly in the domain of arms
transfers, like the UN PoA and the OSCE/EU Codes and Strategies, the recommendations
of the author are principally based on the emerged conclusions of this chapter. They
follow the evaluation of the existing regimes and initiatives and the general form of the
suggested comprehensive approach to the field in question.
6.2.1. Comprehensive Conventional Arms Control Strategy as a preventive

mechanism
 Adoption of an international, legally binding arms trade treaty which can

control arms brokering and trafficking activities under globally accepted legislative
status and law enforcement mechanisms
 Firstly, the adoption of such a treaty can provide all the relevant provisions for an
international common approach to arms brokering and trafficking, licit and illicit, by
establishing a responsible and transparent legally binding policy on legal and illegal
transfers at international, regional and national level. The best standards and criteria for
that policy can derive from the strict EU criteria to prevent the sale of arms, including
SALWs, which could be used for both internal repression and external aggression, or
those sales which can undermine sustainable development. Furthermore, such a treaty
should include every type of transaction both state-to-sate and state-to-non-state actor
transaction, while it should also address the issue of control over the private ownership of
guns. In addition, it can be enhanced by the effective and compulsory implementation of
transparent annual reports on arms transfers at international level and a universal system
to mark and trace weapons and their related ammunition. Finally it can support effective
multilateralism and international CSBMs, while also being incorporated into the relevant
regional initiatives.
122
 Secondly, following the adoption of the above treaty an international code of
conduct on arms exports, including those of SALWs, must be integrated into the regional
organizations’ strategies and moreover into the national governments’ legislation and
administrative procedures.
 Third, such treaty should provide for an internationally accepted machinery of

penalizing possible infringements and monitoring the implementation of sanctions, by
being linked to the UN arms embargoes mandates and to the International Criminal Court
statutory provisions.
 Fourth, it should address the issues of police, border control, customs and judicial
co-operation mechanisms at international and regional level under a coherent legislative
and law enforcement status. In addition it should provide for the relevant transparency,
record-keeping and information exchange provisions, inspired mainly by the equivalent
strategies followed by the EU and the UN PoA.
 Fifth, it should also focus policy attention on ammunition under equivalent legally
binding provisions for law enforcement and transparency. This is a prerequisite since lack
of ammunition is one factor that can limit the use of SALWs and furthermore their
industrial-scale production is limited to a few countries. In addition, ammunition also has
to be packed in a bulk way in order to minimize safety risks, meaning that their re-supply
tends to be less easy to conceal than the importation of SALWs.
 Lastly, in order to have a consensus on such a treaty, the international community

should first have a consensus on the definitions ‘destabilizing’ and ‘excessive’
accumulations of arms. Such a consensus can produce common principles and norms on
their transfers regulation and management. This consensus should be established within
the framework of the most competent body for collective security, namely the UN.
However, in order to hopefully adopt such an integrated conventional regime of an
international arms trade treaty, under globally accepted norms and principles, all the
qualitative and quantitative imperfections of the already existed regimes and initiatives
should start to disappear. Only in that way they will show that the international
community has grown up and is ready to take such a further step.
123
 Adoption under international consensus of a surplus stock reduction policy
in SALWs and their ammunition
Stockpile reduction policies in SALWs and their ammunition have started to be practiced
by many regional organizations or under the framework of DDR operations. However,
the scope of these strategies should be broadened to an international level, under
appropriate funds provided by the World Bank Organization. This should be coordinated
by a UN competent body established under an international agreement. This body should
either meet requests by willing states or, working under the principle of coercive
disarmament, enforce such policies in an effort to support the peacekeeping operations to
strengthen the effective rule of law in co-operation with duly elected local governments.
On the other hand such policies should address, inter alia, the effective management of
safe storage and prevention of the diversion of SALWs and, over and above, promote the
restructuring of some industrial sites producing low-cost SALWs around the globe.
 Tackling the underlying factors for the illegal demand of SALWs
Addressing the underlying factors favoring the illegal demand of SALWs stands as one
of the major tools of the preventive part of the authors’ comprehensive approach on
conventional arms control, though it is not a usual component of a classical conventional
arms control agenda. The linkages between disarmament, human development and
human security mentioned prior to this chapter have revealed that the best policy to
prevent accumulation of weapons, and particularly SALWs accumulation in unstable and
developing regions, is to step up the efforts of the international community and regional
organizations to prevent political conflicts and poverty growth. This should be done by
implementing ‘honest’ and non-profit development and assistance programmes under
efforts to reduce the debt of the developing world to the International Monetary Fund
(IMF) and the World Bank Organization (WBO). At the same, necessary SSR processes
and not remilitarization activities should be put on operation. In that sense, the
international and regional preventive diplomacy of the specific field should be more
active. Nevertheless, this requires first the development of the institutional capacity and
security agenda of regional organizations, especially in the Middle East and South Asia,
by both their own efforts and the efforts of the international community.
124
6.2.1. Comprehensive Conventional Arms Control Strategy as a responsive /
repairing mechanism
 Promotion of the removal and destruction of surplus weapons from affected

societies
A comprehensive conventional arms control approach should be able to act as responsive

mechanism in post-conflict environments by promoting the collection and destruction of
SALWs during DDR processes. This should be done by encouraging the surrender of
surplus or illicit weapons held by civilians in post-conflict societies or impose such
surrender under the necessary law adoption and enforcement. This should be
implemented by the national governments in co-operation with the UN mandated
peacekeeping forces and the SALWs field missions. The same policies should be applied
for the safe storage, stockpile management and destruction of surplus weapons under the
assistance of the regional organizations. These organizations should take care, with their
own assets or with funds from the international community, the parallel rehabilitation of
the ex-combatants and the re-generation of investments and long-term employment
programmes for the low-income groups. However the above linkages of this micro-
disarmament process, being either coercive or consensual, should be run in parallel with
the SSR and DDR processes and the adoption of ad hoc legislation concerning arms
brokering and trafficking. Moreover, they should focus on changing the ‘gun culture’ in
these particular societies, by altering the legitimate security needs at both national and
local level and investing on poverty reduction and development programmes. Finally they
should gradually promote the civil and civilian control of the security forces under a
transition to democratic constitutions, by applying relevant awareness programmes
towards a safety culture and the establishment of resilient communities. For the
achievement of this goal, the adoption of similar security policies similar to the EU ones,
namely the CSFP and the ESDP, is an imperative and it should be further incorporated
into the national legislation and governmental administrative procedures of every state of
the regions in question.
125
 Establishment of civilian and military crisis management operations linked
to disarmament and arms trade control efforts
Civilian crisis management operations and military crisis management operations, which
are linked to disarmament processes and consensual or coercive arms control
arrangements, should adopt a common conventional arms control agenda in the case of
internal conflicts and cross-border tensions. In that way, peacekeeping forces, including
small arms field missions, should implement the compliance with the disarmament and
demobilization mandates and at the same time deal with the restoration of security
through training, advice, assistance and mentoring activities. They should also put in
place effective border controls in an effort to implement at the national level the
necessary aforesaid arms trade control regimes, either international or regional. It is a fact
that disarming the warring factions and the civilians cannot work without having an
international or regional consensus on what constitutes illegitimate and disproportionate
using and carrying of arms and without addressing the issue of border controls under a
common legally binding agenda.
6.3. Recommendations for further research
The preceding study has suggested the following areas for further research:
 What are the baselines common reference points in legal terms for a globally
accepted legislative status and enforcement mechanism of an international, legally
binding arms trade treaty? Will they be driven by the economic/strategic interests of the
major arms exporters or by the international community ethics as a whole?
 What are the main difficulties for a substantial reduction of the financial debt of
the post-conflict environments of the developing world under DDR processes, in order to
achieve in parallel, sustainable conventional arms control agreements, elimination of the
illicit trade and demand for arms and prosperous opportunities for long-term economic
and human development?
126
 Are the regional organizations of the unstable regions of the world, namely the
Middle East and South Asia, totally ready to adopt westernized norms and practices in
the fields of conventional arms control and arms transfers control. Can they challenge the
perceived security culture needs of their member states for the sake of a minimized gun
culture? If so, what should be done by them and by the international community to
increase their institutional capacity in the specific field and the field of a common
security policy?
 Finally, what would be a sustainable adaptation mechanism of conventional

arms control in order to address a further possible deregulation and commercial
emancipation of the international conventional arms control market in the future?
6.4. Conclusion: The future of conventional arms control
Conventional arms control is currently being through a transitional phase in his

conceptual framework and field of application. After the end of the cold war it started to
include in its agenda the issues of conventional arms trade and the SALWs transfers,
although these domains have never been considered as components of the classical
conventional arms control content. The post-cold war era has also revealed that reducing
access to armaments will not significantly reduce the scale of ethnic conflicts in certain
cases, because all too often these wars are not fought for political and strategic objectives
that are amenable to outside diplomacy but for the perceived notion of survival being at
stake between the warring factions. In that case, lack of proper weapons cannot often
guarantee compromise but an invitation to improvise. So, what is the objective of all the
recently established controls on conventional arms trade? Is it to end conflicts? The
answer of course is no. However, avoiding thinking so narrowly, it is easy to understand
that the more comprehensive and legally binding agreements and initiatives the
international community is willing to establish, the less blood will be lost in conflicts.
Additionally, the fact that these arms, especially SALWs, circulate in the aftermath of
conflicts all around the globe, affecting significantly the peaceful societies under the
networks of organized crime, highlights the importance of a holistic approach to the
specific field.
127
The general content of such a holistic approach was the purpose of the author under a
parallel examination of conventional arms control and the arms trade in the post-cold war
era. And as was argued, such an approach can modernize the conventional arms control
field in order to meet the new security challenges of our times, by addressing both pre-
conflict and post-conflict situations in the quest to assist on international stability and
peace. The optimistic prospects for the future of conventional arms control under this
approach will hopefully be that it will continue to serve as a force for good in the world
for every responsible national government that takes seriously into account the notion of
‘security’. This was also highlighted in the words of Jack Straw, Foreign Secretary of
UK, in February 2002 when arguing that: ‘arms control is one of the key levers which
allow us to act as a force for good in the world, making Britain more secure by helping to
make the world more stable’2.
128
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138
APPENDIX A
UN Programme of Action
Programme of Action to Prevent, Combat and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in

Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects
(UN Document A/CONF.192/15)
I. Preamble
1. We, the States participating in the United Nations Conference on the Illicit
Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects, having met in
New York from 9 to 20 July 2001,
2. Gravely concerned about the illicit manufacture, transfer and circulation of
small arms and light weapons and their excessive accumulation and
uncontrolled spread in many regions of the world, which have a wide range of
humanitarian and socio-economic consequences and pose a serious threat to
peace, reconciliation, safety, security, stability and sustainable development at
the individual, local, national, regional and international levels,
3. Concerned also by the implications that poverty and underdevelopment may
have for the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons in all its aspects,
4. Determined to reduce the human suffering caused by the illicit trade in small
arms and light weapons in all its aspects and to enhance the respect for life and
the dignity of the human person through the promotion of a culture of peace,
5. Recognizing that the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons in all its
aspects sustains conflicts, exacerbates violence, contributes to the
displacement of civilians, undermines respect for international humanitarian
law, impedes the provision of humanitarian assistance to victims of armed
conflict and fuels crime and terrorism,
6. Gravely concerned about its devastating consequences on children, many of
whom are victims of armed conflict or are forced to become child soldiers, as
well as the negative impact on women and the elderly, and in this context,
taking into account the special session of the United Nations General
Assembly on children,
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7. Concerned also about the close link between terrorism, organized crime,
trafficking in drugs and precious minerals and the illicit trade in small arms
and light weapons, and stressing the urgency of international efforts and
cooperation aimed at combating this trade simultaneously from both a supply
and demand perspective,
8. Reaffirming our respect for and commitment to international law and the
purposes and principles enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations,
including the sovereign equality of States, territorial integrity, the peaceful
resolution of international disputes, non-intervention and non-interference in
the internal affairs of States,
9. Reaffirming the inherent right to individual or collective self-defence in
accordance with Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations,
10. Reaffirming also the right of each State to manufacture, import and retain
small arms and light weapons for its self-defence and security needs, as well
as for its capacity to participate in peacekeeping operations in accordance with
the Charter of the United Nations,
11. Reaffirming the right of self-determination of all peoples, taking into account
the particular situation of peoples under colonial or other forms of alien
domination or foreign occupation, and recognizing the right of peoples to take
legitimate action in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations to
realize their inalienable right of self-determination. This shall not be construed
as authorizing or encouraging any action that would dismember or impair,
totally or in part, the territorial integrity or political unity of sovereign and
independent States conducting themselves in compliance with the principle of
equal rights and self-determination of peoples,
12. Recalling the obligations of States to fully comply with arms embargoes
decided by the United Nations Security Council in accordance with the
Charter of the United Nations,
13. Believing that Governments bear the primary responsibility for preventing,
combating and eradicating the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons in
all its aspects and, accordingly, should intensify their efforts to define the
problems associated with such trade and find ways of resolving them,
14. Stressing the urgent necessity for international cooperation and assistance,
including financial and technical assistance, as appropriate, to support and
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facilitate efforts at the local, national, regional and global levels to prevent,
combat and eradicate the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons in all its
aspects,
15. Recognizing that the international community has a duty to deal with this
issue, and acknowledging that the challenge posed by the illicit trade in small
arms and light weapons in all its aspects is multi-faceted and involves, inter
alia, security, conflict prevention and resolution, crime prevention,
humanitarian, health and development dimensions,
16. Recognizing also the important contribution of civil society, including non-
governmental organizations and industry in, inter alia, assisting Governments
to prevent, combat and eradicate the illicit trade in small arms and light
weapons in all its aspects,
17. Recognizing further that these efforts are without prejudice to the priorities
accorded to nuclear disarmament, weapons of mass destruction and
conventional disarmament,
18. Welcoming the efforts being undertaken at the global, regional, subregional,
national and local levels to address the illicit trade in small arms and light
weapons in all its aspects, and desiring to build upon them, taking into account
the characteristics, scope and magnitude of the problem in each State or
region,
19. Recalling the Millennium Declaration and also welcoming ongoing initiatives
in the context of the United Nations to address the problem of the illicit trade
in small arms and light weapons in all its aspects,
20. Recognizing that the Protocol against the Illicit Manufacturing of and
supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational
Organized Crime, establishes standards and procedures that complement and
reinforce efforts to prevent, combat and eradicate the illicit trade in small arms
and light weapons in all its aspects,
21. Convinced of the need for a global commitment to a comprehensive approach
to promote, at the global, regional, subregional, national and local levels, the
prevention, reduction and eradication of the illicit trade in small arms and light
weapons in all its aspects as a contribution to international peace and security,
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22. Resolve therefore to prevent, combat and eradicate the illicit trade in small
arms and light weapons in all its aspects by:
o Strengthening or developing agreed norms and measures at the global,
regional and national levels that would reinforce and further coordinate
efforts to prevent, combat and eradicate the illicit trade in small arms
and light weapons in all its aspects;
o Developing and implementing agreed international measures to
prevent, combat and eradicate illicit manufacturing of and trafficking
in small arms and light weapons;
o Placing particular emphasis on the regions of the world where conflicts
come to an end and where serious problems with the excessive and
destabilizing accumulation of small arms and light weapons have to be
dealt with urgently;
o Mobilizing the political will throughout the international community to
prevent and combat illicit transfers and manufacturing of small arms
and light weapons in all their aspects, to cooperate towards these ends
and to raise awareness of the character and seriousness of the
interrelated problems associated with the illicit manufacturing of and
trafficking in these weapons;
o Promoting responsible action by States with a view to preventing the
illicit export, import, transit and retransfer of small arms and light
weapons.
II. Preventing, combating and eradicating the illicit trade in small arms and light
weapons in all its aspects
1. We, the States participating in this Conference, bearing in mind the different
situations, capacities and priorities of States and regions, undertake the
following measures to prevent, combat and eradicate the illicit trade in small
arms and light weapons in all its aspects:
At the national level
2. To put in place, where they do not exist, adequate laws, regulations and
administrative procedures to exercise effective control over the production of
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small arms and light weapons within their areas of jurisdiction and over the
export, import, transit or retransfer of such weapons, in order to prevent illegal
manufacture of and illicit trafficking in small arms and light weapons, or their
diversion to unauthorized recipients.
3. To adopt and implement, in the States that have not already done so, the
necessary legislative or other measures to establish as criminal offences under
their domestic law the illegal manufacture, possession, stockpiling and trade of
small arms and light weapons within their areas of jurisdiction, in order to
ensure that those engaged in such activities can be prosecuted under
appropriate national penal codes.
4. To establish, or designate as appropriate, national coordination agencies or
bodies and institutional infrastructure responsible for policy guidance, research
and monitoring of efforts to prevent, combat and eradicate the illicit trade in
small arms and light weapons in all its aspects. This should include aspects of
the illicit manufacture, control, trafficking, circulation, brokering and trade, as
well as tracing, finance, collection and destruction of small arms and light
weapons.
5. To establish or designate, as appropriate, a national point of contact to act as
liaison between States on matters relating to the implementation of the
Programme of Action.
6. To identify, where applicable, groups and individuals engaged in the illegal
manufacture, trade, stockpiling, transfer, possession, as well as financing for
acquisition, of illicit small arms and light weapons, and take action under
appropriate national law against such groups and individuals.
7. To ensure that henceforth licensed manufacturers apply an appropriate and
reliable marking on each small arm and light weapon as an integral part of the
production process. This marking should be unique and should identify the
country of manufacture and also provide information that enables the national
authorities of that country to identify the manufacturer and serial number so
that the authorities concerned can identify and trace each weapon.
8. To adopt where they do not exist and enforce, all the necessary measures to
prevent the manufacture, stockpiling, transfer and possession of any unmarked
or inadequately marked small arms and light weapons.
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9. To ensure that comprehensive and accurate records are kept for as long as
possible on the manufacture, holding and transfer of small arms and light
weapons under their jurisdiction. These records should be organized and
maintained in such a way as to ensure that accurate information can be
promptly retrieved and collated by competent national authorities.
10. To ensure responsibility for all small arms and light weapons held and issued
by the State and effective measures for tracing such weapons.
11. To assess applications for export authorizations according to strict national
regulations and procedures that cover all small arms and light weapons and are
consistent with the existing responsibilities of States under relevant
international law, taking into account in particular the risk of diversion of
these weapons into the illegal trade. Likewise, to establish or maintain an
effective national system of export and import licensing or authorization, as
well as measures on international transit, for the transfer of all small arms and
light weapons, with a view to combating the illicit trade in small arms and
light weapons.
12. To put in place and implement adequate laws, regulations and administrative
procedures to ensure the effective control over the export and transit of small
arms and light weapons, including the use of authenticated end-user
certificates and effective legal and enforcement measures.
13. To make every effort, in accordance with national laws and practices, without
prejudice to the right of States to re-export small arms and light weapons that
they have previously imported, to notify the original exporting State in
accordance with their bilateral agreements before the retransfer of those
weapons.
14. To develop adequate national legislation or administrative procedures
regulating the activities of those who engage in small arms and light weapons
brokering. This legislation or procedures should include measures such as
registration of brokers, licensing or authorization of brokering transactions as
well as the appropriate penalties for all illicit brokering activities performed
within the State's jurisdiction and control.
15. To take appropriate measures, including all legal or administrative means,
against any activity that violates a United Nations Security Council arms
embargo in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations.
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16. To ensure that all confiscated, seized or collected small arms and light
weapons are destroyed, subject to any legal constraints associated with the
preparation of criminal prosecutions, unless another form of disposition or use
has been officially authorized and provided that such weapons have been duly
marked and registered.
17. To ensure, subject to the respective constitutional and legal systems of States,
that the armed forces, police or any other body authorized to hold small arms
and light weapons establish adequate and detailed standards and procedures
relating to the management and security of their stocks of these weapons.
These standards and procedures should, inter alia, relate to: appropriate
locations for stockpiles; physical security measures; control of access to
stocks; inventory management and accounting control; staff training; security,
accounting and control of small arms and light weapons held or transported by
operational units or authorized personnel; and procedures and sanctions in the
event of thefts or loss.
18. To regularly review, as appropriate, subject to the respective constitutional and
legal systems of States, the stocks of small arms and light weapons held by
armed forces, police and other authorized bodies and to ensure that such stocks
declared by competent national authorities to be surplus to requirements are
clearly identified, that programmes for the responsible disposal, preferably
through destruction, of such stocks are established and implemented and that
such stocks are adequately safeguarded until disposal.
19. To destroy surplus small arms and light weapons designated for destruction,
taking into account, inter alia, the report of the Secretary-General of the
United Nations on methods of destruction of small arms, light weapons,
ammunition and explosives (S/2000/1092) of 15 November 2000.
20. To develop and implement, including in conflict and post-conflict situations,
public awareness and confidence-building programmes on the problems and
consequences of the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons in all its
aspects, including, where appropriate, the public destruction of surplus
weapons and the voluntary surrender of small arms and light weapons, if
possible, in cooperation with civil society and non-governmental
organizations, with a view to eradicating the illicit trade in small arms and
light weapons.
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21. To develop and implement, where possible, effective disarmament,
demobilization and reintegration programmes, including the effective
collection, control, storage and destruction of small arms and light weapons,
particularly in post-conflict situations, unless another form of disposition or
use has been duly authorized and such weapons have been marked and the
alternate form of disposition or use has been recorded, and to include, where
applicable, specific provisions for these programmes in peace agreements.
22. To address the special needs of children affected by armed conflict, in
particular the reunification with their family, their reintegration into civil
society, and their appropriate rehabilitation.
23. To make public national laws, regulations and procedures that impact on the
prevention, combating and eradicating of the illicit trade in small arms and
light weapons in all its aspects and to submit, on a voluntary basis, to relevant
regional and international organizations and in accordance with their national
practices, information on, inter alia, (a) small arms and light weapons
confiscated or destroyed within their jurisdiction; and (b) other relevant
information such as illicit trade routes and techniques of acquisition that can
contribute to the eradication of the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons
in all its aspects.
At the regional level
24. To establish or designate, as appropriate, a point of contact within subregional

and regional organizations to act as liaison on matters relating to the
implementation of the Programme of Action.
25. To encourage negotiations, where appropriate, with the aim of concluding
relevant legally binding instruments aimed at preventing, combating and
eradicating the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons in all its aspects,
and where they do exist to ratify and fully implement them.
26. To encourage the strengthening and establishing, where appropriate and as
agreed by the States concerned, of moratoria or similar initiatives in affected
regions or sub-regions on the transfer and manufacture of small arms and light
weapons, and/or regional action programmes to prevent, combat and eradicate
the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons in all its aspects, and to
A-8
respect such moratoria, similar initiatives, and/or action programmes and
cooperate with the States concerned in the implementation thereof, including
through technical assistance and other measures.
27. To establish, where appropriate, sub-regional or regional mechanisms, in
particular trans-border customs cooperation and networks for information-
sharing among law enforcement, border and customs control agencies, with a
view to preventing, combating and eradicating the illicit trade in small arms
and light weapons across borders.
28. To encourage, where needed, regional and sub-regional action on illicit trade
in small arms and light weapons in all its aspects in order to, as appropriate,
introduce, adhere, implement or strengthen relevant laws, regulations and
administrative procedures.
29. To encourage States to promote safe, effective stockpile management and
security, in particular physical security measures, for small arms and light
weapons, and to implement, where appropriate, regional and sub-regional
mechanisms in this regard.
30. To support, where appropriate, national disarmament, demobilization and
reintegration programmes, particularly in post-conflict situations, with special
reference to the measures agreed upon in paragraphs 28 to 31 of this section.
31. To encourage regions to develop, where appropriate and on a voluntary basis,
measures to enhance transparency with a view to combating the illicit trade in
small arms and light weapons in all its aspects.
At the global level
32. To cooperate with the United Nations system to ensure the effective
implementation of arms embargoes decided by the United Nations Security
Council in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations.
33. To request the Secretary-General of the United Nations, within existing
resources, through the Department for Disarmament Affairs, to collate and
circulate data and information provided by States on a voluntary basis and
including national reports, on implementation by those States of the
Programme of Action.
A-9
34. To encourage, particularly in post-conflict situations, the disarmament and
demobilization of ex-combatants and their subsequent reintegration into
civilian life, including providing support for the effective disposition, as
stipulated in paragraph 17 of this section, of collected small arms and light
weapons.
35. To encourage the United Nations Security Council to consider, on a case-by-
case basis, the inclusion, where applicable, of relevant provisions for
disarmament, demobilization and reintegration in the mandates and budgets of
peacekeeping operations.
36. To strengthen the ability of States to cooperate in identifying and tracing in a
timely and reliable manner illicit small arms and light weapons.
37. To encourage States and the World Customs Organization, as well as other
relevant organizations, to enhance cooperation with the International Criminal
Police Organization (Interpol) to identify those groups and individuals
engaged in the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons in all its aspects in
order to allow national authorities to proceed against them in accordance with
their national laws.
38. To encourage States to consider ratifying or acceding to international legal
instruments against terrorism and transnational organized crime.
39. To develop common understandings of the basic issues and the scope of the
problems related to illicit brokering in small arms and light weapons with a
view to preventing, combating and eradicating the activities of those engaged
in such brokering.
40. To encourage the relevant international and regional organizations and States
to facilitate the appropriate cooperation of civil society, including non-
governmental organizations, in activities related to the prevention, combat and
eradication of the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons in all its aspects,
in view of the important role that civil society plays in this area.
41. To promote dialogue and a culture of peace by encouraging, as appropriate,
education and public awareness programmes on the problems of the illicit
trade in small arms and light weapons in all its aspects, involving all sectors of
society.
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III. Implementation, international cooperation and assistance
1. We, the States participating in the Conference, recognize that the primary
responsibility for solving the problems associated with the illicit trade in small
arms and light weapons in all its aspects falls on all States. We also recognize
that States need close international cooperation to prevent, combat and
eradicate this illicit trade.
2. States undertake to cooperate and to ensure coordination, complementarity and
synergy in efforts to deal with the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons
in all its aspects at the global, regional, sub-regional and national levels and to
encourage the establishment and strengthening of cooperation and partnerships
at all levels among international and intergovernmental organizations and civil
society, including non-governmental organizations and international financial
institutions.
3. States and appropriate international and regional organizations in a position to
do so should, upon request of the relevant authorities, seriously consider
rendering assistance, including technical and financial assistance where
needed, such as small arms funds, to support the implementation of the
measures to prevent, combat and eradicate the illicit trade in small arms and
light weapons in all its aspects as contained in the Programme of Action.
4. States and international and regional organizations should, upon request by the
affected States, consider assisting and promoting conflict prevention. Where
requested by the parties concerned, in accordance with the principles of the
Charter of the United Nations, States and international and regional
organizations should consider promotion and assistance of the pursuit of
negotiated solutions to conflicts, including by addressing their root causes.
5. States and international and regional organizations should, where appropriate,
cooperate, develop and strengthen partnerships to share resources and
information on the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons in all its
aspects.
6. With a view to facilitating implementation of the Programme of Action, States
and international and regional organizations should seriously consider
assisting interested States, upon request, in building capacities in areas
including the development of appropriate legislation and regulations, law
A-11
enforcement, tracing and marking, stockpile management and security,
destruction of small arms and light weapons and the collection and exchange
of information.
7. States should, as appropriate, enhance cooperation, the exchange of experience
and training among competent officials, including customs, police, intelligence
and arms control officials, at the national, regional and global levels in order to
combat the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons in all its aspects.
8. Regional and international programmes for specialist training on small arms
stockpile management and security should be developed. Upon request, States
and appropriate international or regional organizations in a position to do so
should support these programmes. The United Nations, within existing
resources, and other appropriate international or regional organizations should
consider developing capacity for training in this area.
9. States are encouraged to use and support, as appropriate, including by
providing relevant information on the illicit trade in small arms and light
weapons, Interpol's International Weapons and Explosives Tracking System
database or any other relevant database that may be developed for this
purpose.
10. States are encouraged to consider international cooperation and assistance to
examine technologies that would improve the tracing and detection of illicit
trade in small arms and light weapons, as well as measures to facilitate the
transfer of such technologies.
11. States undertake to cooperate with each other, including on the basis of the
relevant existing global and regional legally binding instruments as well as
other agreements and arrangements, and, where appropriate, with relevant
international, regional and intergovernmental organizations, in tracing illicit
small arms and light weapons, in particular by strengthening mechanisms
based on the exchange of relevant information.
12. States are encouraged to exchange information on a voluntary basis on their
national marking systems on small arms and light weapons.
13. States are encouraged, subject to their national practices, to enhance,
according to their respective constitutional and legal systems, mutual legal
assistance and other forms of cooperation in order to assist investigations and
A-12
prosecutions in relation to the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons in
all its aspects.
14. Upon request, States and appropriate international or regional organizations in
a position to do so should provide assistance in the destruction or other
responsible disposal of surplus stocks or unmarked or inadequately marked
small arms and light weapons.
15. Upon request, States and appropriate international or regional organizations in
a position to do so should provide assistance to combat the illicit trade in small
arms and light weapons linked to drug trafficking, transnational organized
crime and terrorism.
16. Particularly in post-conflict situations, and where appropriate, the relevant
regional and international organizations should support, within existing
resources, appropriate programmes related to the disarmament, demobilization
and reintegration of ex-combatants.
17. With regard to those situations, States should make, as appropriate, greater
efforts to address problems related to human and sustainable development,
taking into account existing and future social and developmental activities, and
should fully respect the rights of the States concerned to establish priorities in
their development programmes.
18. States, regional and subregional and international organizations, research
centres, health and medical institutions, the United Nations system,
international financial institutions and civil society are urged, as appropriate,
to develop and support action-oriented research aimed at facilitating greater
awareness and better understanding of the nature and scope of the problems
associated with the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons in all its
aspects.
IV. Follow-up to the United Nations Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small
Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects
1. We, the States participating in the United Nations Conference on the Illicit
Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects, recommend to the
General Assembly the following agreed steps to be undertaken for the
effective follow-up of the Conference:
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o To convene a conference no later than 2006 to review progress made in
the implementation of the Programme of Action, the date and venue to
be decided at the fifty-eighth session of the General Assembly;
o To convene a meeting of States on a biennial basis to consider the
national, regional and global implementation of the Programme of
Action;
o To undertake a United Nations study, within existing resources, for
examining the feasibility of developing an international instrument to
enable States to identify and trace in a timely and reliable manner illicit
small arms and light weapons;
o To consider further steps to enhance international cooperation in
preventing, combating and eradicating illicit brokering in small arms
and light weapons.
2. Finally, we, the States participating in the United Nations Conference on the
Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects:
o Encourage the United Nations and other appropriate international and
regional organizations to undertake initiatives to promote the
implementation of the Programme of Action;
o Also encourage all initiatives to mobilize resources and expertise to
promote the implementation of the Programme of Action and to
provide assistance to States in their implementation of the Programme
of Action;
o Further encourage non-governmental organizations and civil society to
engage, as appropriate, in all aspects of international, regional,
subregional and national efforts to implement the present Programme
of Action.
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APPENDIX B
United Nations A/RES/55/255 General Assembly Distr.: General 8 June 2001 Fifty-
fifth session Agenda item 10500 57445
Resolution adopted by the General Assembly [without reference to a Main Committee
(A/55/383/Add.2)]
55/255. Protocol against the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms,

Their Parts and Components and Ammunition, supplementing the United Nations
Convention against Transnational Organized Crime
The General Assembly,

Recalling its resolution 53/111 of 9 December 1998, in which it decided to establish an
open-ended intergovernmental ad hoc committee for the purpose of elaborating a
comprehensive international convention against transnational organized crime and of
discussing the elaboration, as appropriate, of international instruments addressing
trafficking in women and children, combating the illicit manufacturing of and trafficking
in firearms, their parts and components and ammunition, and illegal trafficking in and
transporting of migrants, including by sea,
Recalling also its resolution 54/126 of 17 December 1999, in which it requested the Ad
Hoc Committee on the Elaboration of a Convention against Transnational Organized
Crime to continue its work, in accordance with resolutions 53/111 and 53/114 of 9
December 1998, and to intensify that work in order to complete it in 2000,
Recalling further its resolution 55/25 of 15 November 2000, by which it adopted the
United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, the Protocol to
Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children,
supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime,
and the Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and Air, supplementing
the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime,
Reaffirming the inherent right to individual or collective self-defence recognized in
Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, which implies that States also have the
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right to acquire arms with which to defend themselves, as well as the right of self-
determination of all peoples, in particular peoples under colonial or other forms of alien
domination or foreign occupation, and the importance of the effective realization of that
right,
1. Takes note of the report of the Ad Hoc Committee on the Elaboration of a Convention
against Transnational Organized Crime on its twelfth session,1 and commends the Ad
Hoc Committee for its work;
2. Adopts the Protocol against the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms,
Their Parts and Components and Ammunition, supplementing the United Nations
Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, annexed to the present resolution,
and opens it for signature at United Nations Headquarters in New York;
3. Urges all States and regional economic organizations to sign and ratify the United
Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and the protocols thereto as
soon as possible in order to ensure the speedy entry into force of the Convention and the
protocols thereto.
101st plenary meeting 31 May 2001
Annex
Protocol against the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, Their
Parts and Components and Ammunition, supplementing the United Nations
Convention against Transnational Organized Crime
Preamble
The States Parties to this Protocol,
Aware of the urgent need to prevent, combat and eradicate the illicit manufacturing of
and trafficking in firearms, their parts and components and ammunition, owing to the
harmful effects of those activities on the security of each State, region and the world as a
whole, endangering the well-being of peoples, their social and economic development
and their right to live in peace, Convinced, therefore, of the necessity for all States to take
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all appropriate measures to this end, including international cooperation and other
measures at the regional and global levels,
Recalling General Assembly resolution 53/111 of 9 December 1998, in which the
Assembly decided to establish an open-ended intergovernmental ad hoc committee for
the purpose of elaborating a comprehensive international convention against transnational
organized crime and of discussing the elaboration of, inter alia, an international
instrument combating the illicit manufacturing of and trafficking in firearms, their parts
and components and ammunition,
Bearing in mind the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, as
enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations and the Declaration on Principles of
International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Cooperation among States in
accordance with the Charter of the United Nations,
Convinced that supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational
Organized Crime with an international instrument against the illicit manufacturing of and
trafficking in firearms, their parts and components and ammunition will be useful in
preventing and combating those crimes,
Have agreed as follows:
I. General provisions
Article 1
Relation with the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime
1. This Protocol supplements the United Nations Convention against Transnational
Organized Crime. It shall be interpreted together with the Convention.
2. The provisions of the Convention shall apply, mutatis mutandis, to this Protocol unless
otherwise provided herein.
3. The offences established in accordance with article 5 of this Protocol shall be regarded
as offences established in accordance with the Convention.
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Article 2
Statement of purpose
The purpose of this Protocol is to promote, facilitate and strengthen cooperation among
States Parties in order to prevent, combat and eradicate the illicit manufacturing of and
trafficking in firearms, their parts and components and ammunition.
Article 3
Use of terms
For the purposes of this Protocol:
(a) “Firearm” shall mean any portable barrelled weapon that expels, is designed to expel
or may be readily converted to expel a shot, bullet or projectile by the action of an
explosive, excluding antique firearms or their replicas. Antique firearms and their
replicas shall be defined in accordance with domestic law. In no case, however, shall
antique firearms include firearms manufactured after 1899;
(b) “Parts and components” shall mean any element or replacement element specifically
designed for a firearm and essential to its operation, including a barrel, frame or receiver,
slide or cylinder, bolt or breech block, and any device designed or adapted to diminish
the sound caused by firing a firearm;
(c) “Ammunition” shall mean the complete round or its components, including cartridge
cases, primers, propellant powder, bullets or projectiles, that are used in a firearm,
provided that those components are themselves subject to authorization in the respective
State Party;
(d) “Illicit manufacturing” shall mean the manufacturing or assembly of firearms, their
parts and components or ammunition:
(i) From parts and components illicitly trafficked;
(ii) Without a licence or authorization from a competent authority of the State Party
where the manufacture or assembly takes place; or
(iii) Without marking the firearms at the time of manufacture, in accordance with article
8 of this Protocol; Licensing or authorization of the manufacture of parts and components
shall be in accordance with domestic law;
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(e) “Illicit trafficking” shall mean the import, export, acquisition, sale, delivery,
movement or transfer of firearms, their parts and components and ammunition from or
across the territory of one State Party to that of another State Party if any one of the
States Parties concerned does not authorize it in accordance with the terms of this
Protocol or if the firearms are not marked in accordance with article 8 of this Protocol;
(f) “Tracing” shall mean the systematic tracking of firearms and, where possible, their
parts and components and ammunition from manufacturer to purchaser for the purpose of
assisting the competent authorities of States Parties in detecting, investigating and
analysing illicit manufacturing and illicit trafficking.
Article 4
Scope of application
1. This Protocol shall apply, except as otherwise stated herein, to the prevention of illicit
manufacturing of and trafficking in firearms, their parts and components and ammunition
and to the investigation and prosecution of offences established in accordance with article
5 of this Protocol where those offences are transnational in nature and involve an
organized criminal group.
2. This Protocol shall not apply to state-to-state transactions or to state transfers in cases
where the application of the Protocol would prejudice the right of a State Party to take
action in the interest of national security consistent with the Charter of the United
Nations.
Article 5
Criminalization
1. Each State Party shall adopt such legislative and other measures as may be necessary
to establish as criminal offences the following conduct, when committed intentionally:
(a) Illicit manufacturing of firearms, their parts and components and ammunition;
(b) Illicit trafficking in firearms, their parts and components and ammunition;
(c) Falsifying or illicitly obliterating, removing or altering the marking(s) on firearms
required by article 8 of this Protocol.
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2. Each State Party shall also adopt such legislative and other measures as may be
necessary to establish as criminal offences the following conduct:
(a) Subject to the basic concepts of its legal system, attempting to commit or participating
as an accomplice in an offence established in accordance with paragraph 1 of this article;
and
(b) Organizing, directing, aiding, abetting, facilitating or counselling the commission of
an offence established in accordance with paragraph 1 of this article.
Article 6
Confiscation, seizure and disposal
1. Without prejudice to article 12 of the Convention, States Parties shall adopt, to the
greatest extent possible within their domestic legal systems, such measures as may be
necessary to enable confiscation of firearms, their parts and components and ammunition
that have been illicitly manufactured or trafficked.
2. States Parties shall adopt, within their domestic legal systems, such measures as may
be necessary to prevent illicitly manufactured and trafficked firearms, parts and
components and ammunition from falling into the hands of unauthorized persons by
seizing and destroying such firearms, their parts and components and ammunition unless
other disposal has been officially authorized, provided that the firearms have been
marked and the methods of disposal of those firearms and ammunition have been
recorded.
II. Prevention
Article 7
Record-keeping
Each State Party shall ensure the maintenance, for not less than ten years, of information
in relation to firearms and, where appropriate and feasible, their parts and components
and ammunition that is necessary to trace and identify those firearms and, where
appropriate and feasible, their parts and components and ammunition which are illicitly
manufactured or trafficked and to prevent and detect such activities. Such information
shall include:
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(a) The appropriate markings required by article 8 of this Protocol;
(b) In cases involving international transactions in firearms, their parts and components
and ammunition, the issuance and expiration dates of the appropriate licences or
authorizations, the country of export, the country of import, the transit countries, where
appropriate, and the final recipient and the description and quantityof the articles.
Article 8
Marking of firearms
1. For the purpose of identifying and tracing each firearm, States Parties shall:
(a) At the time of manufacture of each firearm, either require unique marking providing
the name of the manufacturer, the country or place of manufacture and the serial number,
or maintain any alternative unique user-friendly marking with simple geometric symbols
in combination with a numeric and/or alphanumeric code, permitting ready identification
by all States of the country of manufacture;
(b) Require appropriate simple marking on each imported firearm, permitting
identification of the country of import and, where possible, the year of import and
enabling the competent authorities of that country to trace the firearm, and a unique
marking, if the firearm does not bear such a marking. The requirements of this
subparagraph need not be applied to temporary imports of firearms for verifiable lawful
purposes;
(c) Ensure, at the time of transfer of a firearm from government stocks to permanent
civilian use, the appropriate unique marking permitting identification by all States Parties
of the transferring country.
2. States Parties shall encourage the firearms manufacturing industry to develop measures
against the removal or alteration of markings.
Article 9
Deactivation of firearms
A State Party that does not recognize a deactivated firearm as a firearm in accordance
with its domestic law shall take the necessary measures, including the establishment of
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specific offences if appropriate, to prevent the illicit reactivation of deactivated firearms,
consistent with the following general principles of deactivation:
(a) All essential parts of a deactivated firearm are to be rendered permanently inoperable
and incapable of removal, replacement or modification in a manner that would permit the
firearm to be reactivated in any way;
(b) Arrangements are to be made for deactivation measures to be verified, where
appropriate, by a competent authority to ensure that the modifications made to a firearm
render it permanently inoperable;
(c) Verification by a competent authority is to include a certificate or record attesting to
the deactivation of the firearm or a clearly visible mark to that effect stamped on the
firearm.
Article 10
General requirements for export, import and transit licensing or authorization systems
1. Each State Party shall establish or maintain an effective system of export and import
licensing or authorization, as well as of measures on international transit, for the transfer
of firearms, their parts and components and ammunition.
2. Before issuing export licences or authorizations for shipments of firearms, their parts
and components and ammunition, each State Party shall verify:
(a) That the importing States have issued import licences or authorizations; and
(b) That, without prejudice to bilateral or multilateral agreements or arrangements
favouring landlocked States, the transit States have, at a minimum, given notice in
writing, prior to shipment, that they have no objection to the transit.
3. The export and import licence or authorization and accompanying documentation
together shall contain information that, at a minimum, shall include the place and the date
of issuance, the date of expiration, the country of export, the country of import, the final
recipient, a description and the quantity of the firearms, their parts and components and
ammunition and, whenever there is transit, the countries of transit. The information
contained in the import licence must be provided in advance to the transit States.
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4. The importing State Party shall, upon request, inform the exporting State Party of the
receipt of the dispatched shipment of firearms, their parts and components or
ammunition.
5. Each State Party shall, within available means, take such measures as may be
necessary to ensure that licensing or authorization procedures are secure and that the
authenticity of licensing or authorization documents can be verified or validated.
6. States Parties may adopt simplified procedures for the temporary import and export
and the transit of firearms, their parts and components and ammunition for verifiable
lawful purposes such as hunting, sport shooting, evaluation, exhibitions or repairs.
Article 11
Security and preventive measures
In an effort to detect, prevent and eliminate the theft, loss or diversion of, as well as the
illicit manufacturing of and trafficking in, firearms, their parts and components and
ammunition, each State Party shall take appropriate measures:
(a) To require the security of firearms, their parts and components and ammunition at the
time of manufacture, import, export and transit through its territory; and
(b) To increase the effectiveness of import, export and transit controls, including, where
appropriate, border controls, and of police and customs transborder cooperation.
Article 12
Information
1. Without prejudice to articles 27 and 28 of the Convention, States Parties shall
exchange among themselves, consistent with their respective domestic legal and
administrative systems, relevant case-specific information on matters such as authorized
producers, dealers, importers, exporters and, whenever possible, carriers
of firearms, their parts and components and ammunition.
2. Without prejudice to articles 27 and 28 of the Convention, States Parties shall
exchange among themselves, consistent with their respective domestic legal and
administrative systems, relevant information on matters such as:
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(a) Organized criminal groups known to take part or suspected of taking part in the illicit
manufacturing of or trafficking in firearms, their parts and components and ammunition;
(b) The means of concealment used in the illicit manufacturing of or trafficking in
firearms, their parts and components and ammunition and ways of detecting them;
(c) Methods and means, points of dispatch and destination and routes customarily used by
organized criminal groups engaged in illicit trafficking in firearms, their parts and
components and ammunition; and
(d) Legislative experiences and practices and measures to prevent, combat and eradicate
the illicit manufacturing of and trafficking in firearms, their parts and components and
ammunition.
3. States Parties shall provide to or share with each other, as appropriate, relevant
scientific and technological information useful to law enforcement authorities in order to
enhance each other’s abilities to prevent, detect and investigate the illicit manufacturing
of and trafficking in firearms, their parts and components and ammunition and to
prosecute the persons involved in those illicit activities.
4. States Parties shall cooperate in the tracing of firearms, their parts and components and
ammunition that may have been illicitly manufactured or trafficked. Such cooperation
shall include the provision of prompt responses to requests for assistance in tracing such
firearms, their parts and components and ammunition, within available means.
5. Subject to the basic concepts of its legal system or any international agreements, each
State Party shall guarantee the confidentiality of and comply with any restrictions on the
use of information that it receives from another State Party pursuant to this article,
including proprietary information pertaining to commercial transactions, if requested to
do so by the State Party providing the information. If such confidentiality cannot be
maintained, the State Party that provided the information shall be notified prior to its
disclosure.
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Article 13
Cooperation
1. States Parties shall cooperate at the bilateral, regional and international levels to
prevent, combat and eradicate the illicit manufacturing of and trafficking in firearms,
their parts and components and ammunition.
2. Without prejudice to article 18, paragraph 13, of the Convention, each State Party shall
identify a national body or a single point of contact to act as liaison between it and other
States Parties on matters relating to this Protocol.
3. States Parties shall seek the support and cooperation of manufacturers, dealers,
importers, exporters, brokers and commercial carriers of firearms, their parts and
components and ammunition to prevent and detect the illicit activities referred to in
paragraph 1 of this article.
Article 14
Training and technical assistance
States Parties shall cooperate with each other and with relevant international
organizations, as appropriate, so that States Parties may receive, upon request, the
training and technical assistance necessary to enhance their ability to prevent, combat and
eradicate the illicit manufacturing of and trafficking in firearms, their parts and
components and ammunition, including technical, financial and material assistance in
those matters identified in articles 29 and 30 of the Convention.
Article 15
Brokers and brokering
1. With a view to preventing and combating illicit manufacturing of and trafficking in
firearms, their parts and components and ammunition, States Parties that have not yet
done so shall consider establishing a system for regulating the activities of those who
engage in brokering. Such a system could include one or more measures such as:
(a) Requiring registration of brokers operating within their territory;
(b) Requiring licensing or authorization of brokering; or
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(c) Requiring disclosure on import and export licences or authorizations, or
accompanying documents, of the names and locations of brokers involved in the
transaction.
2. States Parties that have established a system of authorization regarding brokering as set
forth in paragraph 1 of this article are encouraged to include information on brokers and
brokering in their exchanges of information under article 12 of this Protocol and to retain
records regarding brokers and brokering in accordance with article 7 of this Protocol.
III. Final provisions

Article 16
Settlement of disputes
l. States Parties shall endeavour to settle disputes concerning the interpretation or
application of this Protocol through negotiation.
2. Any dispute between two or more States Parties concerning the interpretation or
application of this Protocol that cannot be settled through negotiation within a reasonable
time shall, at the request of one of those States Parties, be submitted to arbitration. If, six
months after the date of the request for arbitration, those States Parties are unable to agree
on the organization of the arbitration, any one of those States Parties may refer the
dispute to the International Court of Justice by request in accordance with the Statute of
the Court.
3. Each State Party may, at the time of signature, ratification, acceptance or approval of
or accession to this Protocol, declare that it does not consider itself bound by paragraph 2
of this article. The other States Parties shall not be bound by paragraph 2 of this article
with respect to any State Party that has made such a reservation.
4. Any State Party that has made a reservation in accordance with paragraph
3 of this article may at any time withdraw that reservation by notification to the
Secretary-General of the United Nations.
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Article 17
Signature, ratification, acceptance, approval and accession
1. This Protocol shall be open to all States for signature at United Nations Headquarters
in New York from the thirtieth day after its adoption by the General Assembly until 12
December 2002.
2. This Protocol shall also be open for signature by regional economic integration
organizations provided that at least one member State of such organization has signed
this Protocol in accordance with paragraph 1 of this article.
3. This Protocol is subject to ratification, acceptance or approval. Instruments of
ratification, acceptance or approval shall be deposited with the Secretary-General of the
United Nations. A regional economic integration organization may deposit its instrument
of ratification, acceptance or approval if at least one of its member States has done
likewise. In that instrument of ratification, acceptance or approval, such organization
shall declare the extent of its competence with respect to the matters governed by this
Protocol. Such organization shall also inform the depositary of any relevant modification
in the extent of its competence.
4. This Protocol is open for accession by any State or any regional economic integration
organization of which at least one member State is a Party to this Protocol. Instruments of
accession shall be deposited with the Secretary- General of the United Nations. At the
time of its accession, a regional economic integration organization shall declare the
extent of its competence with respect to matters governed by this Protocol. Such
organization shall also inform the depositary of any relevant modification in the extent of
its competence.
Article 18
Entry into force
1. This Protocol shall enter into force on the ninetieth day after the date of deposit of the
fortieth instrument of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession, except that it shall
not enter into force before the entry into force of the Convention. For the purpose of this
paragraph, any instrument deposited by a regional economic integration organization
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shall not be counted as additional to those deposited by member States of such
organization.
2. For each State or regional economic integration organization ratifying, accepting,
approving or acceding to this Protocol after the deposit of the fortieth instrument of such
action, this Protocol shall enter into force on the thirtieth day after the date of deposit by
such State or organization of the relevant instrument or on the date this Protocol enters
into force pursuant to paragraph 1 of this article, whichever is the later.
Article 19
Amendment
1. After the expiry of five years from the entry into force of this Protocol, a State Party to
the Protocol may propose an amendment and file it with the Secretary-General of the
United Nations, who shall thereupon communicate the proposed amendment to the States
Parties and to the Conference of the Parties to the Convention for the purpose of
considering and deciding on the proposal. The States Parties to this Protocol meeting at
the Conference of the Parties shall make every effort to achieve consensus on each
amendment. If all efforts at consensus have been exhausted and no agreement has been
reached, the amendment shall, as a last resort, require for its adoption a two-thirds
majority vote of the States Parties to this Protocol present and voting at the meeting of the
Conference of the Parties.
2. Regional economic integration organizations, in matters within their competence, shall
exercise their right to vote under this article with a number of votes equal to the number
of their member States that are Parties to this Protocol. Such organizations shall not
exercise their right to vote if their member States exercise theirs and vice versa.
3. An amendment adopted in accordance with paragraph 1 of this article is subject to
ratification, acceptance or approval by States Parties.
4. An amendment adopted in accordance with paragraph 1 of this article shall enter into
force in respect of a State Party ninety days after the date of the deposit with the
Secretary-General of the United Nations of an instrument of ratification, acceptance or
approval of such amendment.
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5. When an amendment enters into force, it shall be binding on those States Parties which
have expressed their consent to be bound by it. Other States Parties shall still be bound by
the provisions of this Protocol and any earlier amendments that they have ratified,
accepted or approved.
Article 20
Denunciation
1. A State Party may denounce this Protocol by written notification to the Secretary-
General of the United Nations. Such denunciation shall become effective one year after
the date of receipt of the notification by the Secretary-General.
2. A regional economic integration organization shall cease to be a Party to this Protocol
when all of its member States have denounced it.
Article 21
Depositary and languages
1. The Secretary-General of the United Nations is designated depositary of this Protocol.
2. The original of this Protocol, of which the Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian
and Spanish texts are equally authentic, shall be deposited with the Secretary-General of
the United Nations. IN WITNESS WHEREOF, the undersigned plenipotentiaries, being
duly authorized thereto by their respective Governments, have signed this Protocol.
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APPENDIX C
The Wassenaar Arrangement at a Glance
The Wassenaar Arrangement, formally established in July 1996, is a voluntary export

control regime whose 39 members exchange information on transfers of conventional
weapons and dual-use goods and technologies. Through such exchanges, Wassenaar
aims to promote "greater responsibility" among its members in exports of weapons
and dual-use goods and to prevent "destabilizing accumulations." Unlike its
predecessor, the Cold War-era Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export
Controls (COCOM), which was created to restrict exports to the former Soviet Union
and Eastern bloc, Wassenaar is not targeted at any region or group of states, but rather
at "states of concern" to members. Wassenaar members also lack veto authority over
other member's proposed exports, a power that COCOM members exercised.
To promote transparency, Wassenaar calls on states to make a series of voluntary
information exchanges and notifications on their export activities related to weapons
and items appearing on the arrangement's two control lists.
For the Munitions List (Conventional Weapons):
Every six months, members exchange information on deliveries of conventional arms

to non-Wassenaar members that fall under eight broad weapon categories: battle
tanks, armored combat vehicles (ACVs), large-calibre artillery, military
aircraft/unmanned aerial vehicles, military and attack helicopters, warships, missiles
or missile systems, and small arms and light weapons. Members added the final
category in December 2003 after years of debate. The ACV, aircraft, and helicopter
categories include models designed to perform reconnaissance or conduct command
of troops missions.
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For the Dual-Use Goods and Technologies List:
Tier 1: Basic Items

Twice per year, members exchange information on all export licenses denied on
proposed transfers to non-Wassenaar members.
Tier 2: Sensitive Items and its subset of Very Sensitive Items

Within 60 days, members are requested to notify the Wassenaar Secretariat of any
export licenses denied on proposed transfers to non-Wassenaar members.
Twice per year, members exchange information on all export licenses issued or
transfers made to non-Wassenaar members.
For the subset of Very Sensitive items, such as stealth technology materials and
advanced radar, members are called on to "exert extreme vigilance" in exports.
Within 60 days, members are requested to notify the Wassenaar Secretariat of any
export license approvals of transactions that are "essentially identical" to transactions
that another Wassenaar member denied within the past three years. Wassenaar
members are not obligated to deny transfers previously denied by others.
Although Wassenaar has overcome a great deal of growing pains, problems persist.
Foremost among the arrangement's difficulties is that members continue to be divided
over Wassenaar's scope, primarily whether the arrangement should become more than
just a body for exchanging and collecting information. Because Wassenaar operates
by consensus, a single country can block any proposal. In earlier years, a few
members consistently refused to fully participate in voluntary information exchanges
and notifications on dual-use goods, though participation has reportedly improved. In
addition, there is no consensus among members on which countries are "states of
concern" or what constitutes a "destabilizing" transfer. Another limiting factor is that
some major arms exporters-such as Belarus, China, Israel, and South Africa-are not
members.
During the arrangement's nine years of operation, Wassenaar members have

reaffirmed their commitment to preventing terrorist groups and individuals from
acquiring conventional arms and dual-use goods and technologies, agreed to "exercise
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maximum restraint" in exports to the Great Lakes region of Africa, gradually
expanded the types of weapons exports that information is exchanged upon, and
agreed on the importance of "responsible export policies" on small arms and light
weapons. At its December 1998 plenary meeting, the members approved a paper of
non-binding criteria to help governments determine whether potential arms exports
could lead to destabilizing accumulations. Wassenaar members have also agreed on
non-binding criteria to guide exports of shoulder-fired, surface-to-air missiles,
formally referred to as Man-Portable Air Defense Systems (MANPADS), and
endorsed voluntary "best practices" for disposing of surplus military equipment,
enforcing national export controls, and controlling Very Sensitive dual-use exports.
They have also approved non-binding criteria to guide exports of small arms and light
weapons, agreed to exercise greater control on arms brokers, and committed to better
regulate exports of dual-use goods purchased by recipients subject to arms embargos
if the item is intended for a military end-use.
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APPENDIX D
The Ottawa Convention at a Glance
The Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer
of Anti-Personnel Mines and on Their Destruction, typically referred to as the
"Ottawa Convention" or "Mine Ban Treaty," seeks to end the use of Anti-Personnel
Landmines (APLs) worldwide. It was opened for signature on December 3, 1997, and
it entered into force on March 1, 1999. By December 1, 2005, 147 states had become
party to the accord, and another seven countries had signed but not ratified it.
However, major powers, such as the United States, [1] Russia and China, have not
signed the treaty, and few countries in key regions of tension, namely the Middle East
and South Asia, have opted to participate. Millions of mines are estimated to be
planted in the ground of roughly 60 countries and global APL stockpiles are thought
to total more than 170 million mines.
Prohibitions: States-parties commit to not using, developing, producing, acquiring,

retaining, stockpiling, or transferring anti-personnel landmines, which are defined by
the treaty as mines "designed to be exploded by the presence, proximity or contact of
a person and that will incapacitate, injure or kill one or more persons." APLs that are
remotely triggered, such as claymores, are not proscribed, nor are anti-vehicle mines,
including those equipped with anti-handling devices, which are designed to protect
anti-vehicles mines from being tampered with or moved.
APL Destruction: Each state-party is expected to destroy all APLs stockpiled in

arsenals, except those retained for demining training, within four years of becoming
bound by the treaty. Within 10 years of its entry into force date, each country is
required to destroy all APLs under its jurisdiction and control, including those planted
in the soil. A country may request renewable extensions of up to 10 years to complete
this destruction task. A majority of participants at a meeting of states-parties or review
conference must approve an extension request. States-parties are expected to mark
and monitor all suspected or known mined areas until they are cleared. As of
December 2004, states-parties have destroyed roughly 37 million APLs. More than
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140 states-parties have either completed their stockpile destruction or have never
possessed APLs.
Cooperation and Assistance: The treaty calls on any state-party "in a position to do
so" to assist other states-parties in aiding mine victims, providing demining
assistance, and helping with mine destruction. States-parties are expected to be as
helpful as possible in making sure all states-parties have access to equipment,
material, and scientific and technological information for implementing the treaty
without "undue restrictions."
Transparency: Each state-party is to provide the United Nations with a

comprehensive report on the numbers, types, and locations of all APLs under its
control as well as the status of all programs for destroying APLs. An initial report is
required 180 days after the treaty becomes legally binding for each state-party, and
thereafter reports are expected annually by April 30.
Compliance: The treaty did not create an implementation or verification body or

outline punitive measures for non-compliance. A state-party may question the
compliance of another state-party, and a special meeting of states-parties can be
convened to address the allegation. States-parties can establish a fact-finding mission
to investigate the alleged non-compliance and, if necessary, call on the state-party in
question to address the compliance issue.
Amendment and Withdrawal: Treaty amendments can be proposed, and then

approved by two-thirds of all states-parties attending a special amendment
conference. A state-party may withdraw from the treaty six months after submitting
an instrument of withdrawal, though it will not take effect if the country is engaged in
armed conflict.
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Note:
1. The George W. Bush administration announced February 27, 2004 that the United
States would not join the Ottawa Convention. U.S. landmine policy had been under
review since the summer of 2001. The Clinton administration had stated that the
United States would sign the Ottawa Convention by 2006 if the Pentagon could
identify and field suitable alternatives to U.S. anti-personnel landmines and mixed
systems, which are comprised of both anti-personnel and anti-vehicle components, by
that time.
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APPENDIX E
The Open Skies Treaty at a Glance
Signed March 24, 1992, the Open Skies Treaty permits each state-party to conduct
short-notice, unarmed, reconnaissance flights over the others' entire territories to
collect data on military forces and activities. Observation aircraft used to fly the
missions must be equipped with sensors that enable the observing party to identify
significant military equipment, such as artillery, fighter aircraft, and armored combat
vehicles. Though satellites can provide the same, and even more detailed,
information, not all of the 34 treaty states-parties1 have such capabilities, and the
treaty is also aimed at building confidence and familiarity among states-parties
through their participation in the overflights.
President Dwight Eisenhower first proposed that the United States and the Soviet
Union allow aerial reconnaissance flights over each other's territory in July 1955.
Claiming the initiative would be used for extensive spying, Moscow rejected
Eisenhower's proposal. President George H.W. Bush revived the idea in May 1989
and negotiations between NATO and the Warsaw Pact started in February 1990.
Treaty Status: The treaty entered into force on January 1, 2002. Of the original 27
treaty signatories, all but Kyrgyzstan have ratified the accord and are now states-
parties. Since the treaty entered into force, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Estonia,
Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovenia, and Sweden have become states-parties. Russia
conducted the first observation flight under the treaty in August 2002, while the
United States carried out its first official flight in December 2002.
Territory: All of a state-party's territory can be overflown. No territory can be

declared off-limits by the host nation.
Flight Quotas: Every state-party is obligated to accept a certain number of

overflights each year, referred to as its passive quota, that is loosely determined by its
geographic size.2 A state-party's active quota is the number of flights it may conduct
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over other states-parties. Each state-party has a right to conduct an equal number of
flights over any other state-party that overflies it. A state-party's active quota cannot
exceed its passive quota, and a single state-party cannot request more than half of
another state-party's passive quota. For the first three full years after entry into force,
each state-party only has to permit flights totalling up to 75 percent of its passive
quota.
Process: An observing state-party must provide at least 72 hours' advance notice

before arriving in the host country to conduct an overflight. The host country has 24
hours to acknowledge the request and to inform the observing party if it may use its
own observation plane or if it must use a plane supplied by the host. At least 24 hours
before the start of the flight, the observing party will supply its flight plan, which the
host has four hours to review. The host may only request changes in flight plans for
flight safety or logistical reasons. If it does so, the two states-parties have a total of
eight hours after submission of the original flight plan to agree on changes, if they
fail, the flight can be cancelled. The observation mission must be completed within 96
hours of the observing party's arrival unless otherwise agreed.3
Aircraft: The treaty lays out standards for aircraft used for observation flights.
Aircraft may be equipped with four types of sensors: optical panoramic and framing
cameras, video cameras with real-time display, infra-red line-scanning devices, and
sideways-looking synthetic aperture radar. During the first three full years after entry
into force, the observation aircraft must be equipped with at least a single panoramic
camera or a pair of optical framing cameras. Additional sensors may be agreed to in
the future.
Data: A copy of all data collected will be supplied to the host country. All states-
parties will receive a mission report and have the option of purchasing the data
collected by the observing state-party.
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NOTES:
1. Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, the Czech
Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary,
Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland,
Portugal, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, Ukraine, the
United Kingdom, and the United States.
2. For example, Russia, which shares its quota with Belarus, and the United States
both have quotas permitting 42 flights per year, while Portugal is only obligated to
allow two flights annually.
3. This limit can be extended by 24 hours if the host insists that the observing party
use the host's aircraft and demonstration flight is conducted.
E-3
APPENDIX F
The Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty at a Glance
Negotiated and signed during the final years of the Cold War, the Conventional
Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty is often referred to as the "cornerstone of
European security." The treaty, signed on November 19, 1990, eliminated the Soviet
Union's overwhelming quantitative advantage in conventional weapons in Europe by
setting equal limits on the amount of tanks, armored combat vehicles (ACVs), heavy
artillery, combat aircraft, and attack helicopters that NATO and the former Warsaw
Pact could deploy between the Atlantic Ocean and the Ural Mountains. Designed to
prevent either alliance from concentrating forces for launching a blitzkrieg-type
offensive, the treaty employs a system of concentric zones mandating smaller
deployments of tanks, ACVs, and artillery the closer one moves toward the center of
Europe. While the threat of such an offensive all but disappeared with the break-up of
the Warsaw Pact and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the CFE Treaty's weapons
limits and inspection regime, which provides an unprecedented degree of
transparency on military holdings, continue to play an important role in Europe. CFE
states-parties overhauled the treaty in November 1999, replacing the bloc and zone
weapons limits with national and territorial arms ceilings (see The Adapted
Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty at a Glance), but the original CFE
Treaty will remain in force until all states-parties ratify the adaptation agreement.
Only Belarus has completed the entire ratification process.
Treaty Limited Equipment (TLE): NATO and the former Warsaw Pact were each
limited to 20,000 tanks, 30,000 ACVs, 20,000 heavy artillery pieces, 6,800 combat
aircraft, and 2,000 attack helicopters for the treaty's area of application. Member
states of each alliance then divided their respective "bloc" limit among themselves, in
effect creating national limits. (The Soviet Union's limits were subsequently parceled
out among eight of its successor states in May 1992.) To prevent any country from
amassing a significant asymmetrical stockpile of weapons, the CFE prohibits a single
state from possessing more than a third of the treaty's TLE total.
At the treaty's second review conference, held May 28-June 1, 2001, the 30 CFE
states-parties1 noted that they have reduced more than 59,000 TLE from their
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arsenals. (This does not include the more than 57,000 weapons that the Soviets moved
east of the Urals before signing the treaty. The Soviet Union made a 1991
commitment to destroy 14,500 of these weapons, an obligation assumed, and nearly
completed, by Russia, which must still destroy some tanks.)
As of January 2002, NATO's 19 members claimed holdings of 60,358 TLE versus a

cumulative limit of 88,986 TLE, while Russia reported holdings of 23,516 TLE
against limits of 28,216 TLE.2
Concentric Zones: The CFE Treaty has four concentric zones capping the
deployment of tanks, ACVs, and artillery radiating out from the center of Europe
(much like a shooting target). The innermost zone with the smallest limits
incorporates Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Germany, Poland, Slovakia,
Hungary, and the Czech Republic, while the fourth and largest zone encompasses the
entire treaty area. (There are no zone limits for combat aircraft and attack helicopters.)
The Flank Zone: To alleviate concerns that either alliance would launch a flanking
manοeuvre against the other, the treaty placed specific limits on the number of tanks,
ACVs, and artillery for Europe's southern and northern flanks, including portions of
Russia. Moscow has consistently sought to abolish the flank zone as it considers the
limits to be unfair because it is the only country (aside from Ukraine) that has specific
limits on where it can deploy TLE in its own territory. Russian concerns were
partially met in May 1996 when the CFE parties agreed that Russia's original flank
zone limits would apply to a smaller area, while Russia's original flank territory
would have larger limits. Moscow's total CFE limits, however, remained the same.
Though Russia has consistently been in non-compliance with its flank limits (even
with the higher May 1996 flank limits that entered into force on May 31, 1999),
Moscow has remained within its overall treaty limits and has repeatedly stated that its
non-compliance is only temporary.
Transparency: CFE states-parties have carried out more than 3,300 on-site
inspections and observation visits.
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Notes:
1. CFE States-Parties: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada,
Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland,
Italy, Kazakhstan, Luxembourg, Moldova, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland,
Portugal, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Spain, Turkey, Ukraine, the United Kingdom,
and the United States.
2. Crawford, Dorn. "Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE): A Review and
Update of Key Treaty Elements," Arms Control Bureau, Department of State, January
2002.
F-3
APPENDIX G
FED0403
FSC.DEC/3/04
Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe 26 May 2004
Forum for Security Co-operation
Original: ENGLISH
423rd Plenary Meeting
FSC Journal No. 429, Agenda item 3
DECISION No. 3/04

OSCE PRINCIPLES FOR EXPORT CONTROLS OF
MAN-PORTABLE AIR DEFENCE SYSTEMS (MANPADS)
The Forum for Security Co-operation (FSC),

Recognizing the threats posed by unauthorized proliferation and use of man-portable air
defence systems (MANPADS), especially to civil aviation, peacekeeping, crisis
management and anti-terrorist operations,
Willing to complement and thereby reinforce the implementation of the OSCE Document
on Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALW), in order to enhance effective export control
of SALW in the OSCE area,
Determined to contribute to reducing the risk of diversion of SALW into the illicit
market,
Bearing in mind that the OSCE Strategy to Address Threats to Security and Stability in
the Twenty-First Century adopted at Maastricht in December 2003 notes that the OSCE
is using all the tools at its disposal to address proliferation of MANPADS, categorized in
the OSCE Document on SALW as portable launchers of anti-aircraft missile systems,
Taking into account FSC.DEC/7/03 of 23 July 2003 in which the OSCE participating
States, hereinafter referred to as participating States, undertook to promote the
application of effective and comprehensive export controls for MANPADS which was
endorsed in Maastricht Ministerial Decision No. 8/03,
G-1
Acknowledging the Wassenaar Arrangement’s efforts in developing principles on this
topic and willing to extend the application of the Wassenaar Arrangement’s “Elements
for Export Controls of Man-Portable Air Defence Systems”,
Decides:
— To adopt the following principles for export controls of MANPADS which have been
drawn from the Wassenaar Arrangement’s “Elements for Export Controls of Man-
Portable Air Defence Systems”:
1. Scope
1.1 These principles cover:
(a) Surface-to-air missile systems designed to be man-portable and carried and fired by a
single individual; and
(b) Other surface-to-air missile systems designed to be operated and fired by more than
one individual acting as a crew and portable by several individuals.
1.2 National export controls apply to the international transfer or re-transfer of
MANPADS, including complete systems, components, spare parts, models, training
systems, and simulators, for any purpose, by any means, including licensed export, sale,
grant, loan, lease, co-production or licensing arrangement for production (hereafter
“export”). The scope of export regulation and associated controls includes research,
design, development, engineering, manufacture, production, assembly, testing, repair,
maintenance, servicing, modification, upgrade, modernization, operation, use,
replacement or refurbishment, demilitarization, and destruction of MANPADS; technical
data, software, technical assistance, demonstration, and training associated with these
functions; and secure transportation, storage. This scope according to national legislation
may also refer to investment, marketing, advertising and other related activity.
1.3 Any activity related to MANPADS within the territory of the producing country is
subject to national laws and regulations.
2. Control conditions and evaluation criteria
2.1 Decisions to permit MANPADS exports will be made by the exporting government
by competent authorities at senior policy level and only to foreign governments or to
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agents specifically authorized to act on behalf of a government after presentation of an
official End-User Certificate (EUC) certified by the government of the receiving country.
2.2 General licences are inapplicable for exports of MANPADS; each transfer is subject
to an individual licensing decision.
2.3 Exporting governments will not make use of non-governmental brokers or brokering
services when transferring MANPADS, unless specifically authorized to on behalf of the
government.
2.4 In order to prevent unauthorized use, producer countries will implement technical
performance and/or launch control features for newly designed MANPADS as such
technologies become available to them. Such features should not adversely affect the
operational effectiveness of MANPADS for the legal user.
2.5 Decisions to authorize MANPADS exports will take into account:
— Potential for diversion or misuse in the recipient country;
— The recipient government’s ability and willingness to protect against unauthorized re-
transfers, loss, theft and diversion; and
— The adequacy and effectiveness of the physical security arrangements of the recipient
government for the protection of military property, facilities, holdings, and inventories.
2.6 Prior to authorizing MANPADS exports, the exporting government will assure itself
of the recipient government’s guarantees:
— Not to re-export MANPADS except with the prior consent of the exporting
government;
— To afford requisite security to classified material and information in accordance with
applicable bilateral agreements, to prevent unauthorized access or compromise;
— To inform promptly the exporting government of any instance of compromise,
unauthorized use, loss, or theft of any MANPADS material.
2.7 In addition, the exporting government will satisfy itself of the recipient government’s
willingness and ability to implement effective measures for secure storage, handling,
transportation, use of MANPADS material, and disposal or destruction of excess stocks
to prevent unauthorized access and use. The recipient government’s national procedure
designed to attain the requisite security include, but are not limited to, the following set
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of practices, or others that will achieve comparable levels of protection and
accountability:
— Written verification of receipt of MANPADS shipments;
— Inventory by serial number of the initial shipments of all transferred firing
mechanisms and missiles, if physically possible; and maintenance of written records of
inventories;
— Physical inventory of all MANPADS subject to transfer, at least once a month;
account by serial number for MANPADS components expended or damaged during
peacetime;
— Ensure storage conditions are sufficient to provide for the highest standards of security
and access control. These may include:
— Where the design of MANPADS permits, storing missiles and firing mechanisms in
locations sufficiently separate so that a penetration of the security at one site will not
place the second site at risk;
— Ensuring continuous (24-hours per day) surveillance;
— Establishing safeguards under which entry to storage sites requires the presence of at
least two authorized persons;
— Transport MANPADS in a manner that provides for the highest standards and
practices for safeguarding sensitive munitions in transit.
When possible, transport missiles and firing mechanisms in separate containers;
— Where applicable, bring together and assemble the principal components — typically
the gripstock and the missile in a launch tube — only in the event of hostilities or
imminent hostilities; for firing as part of regularly scheduled training, or for lot testing,
for which only those rounds intended to be fired will be withdrawn from storage and
assembled; when systems are deployed as part of the point defences of high priority
installations or sites; and in any other circumstances which might be agreed between the
receiving and transferring governments;
— Access to hardware and any related classified information will be limited to military
and civilian personnel of the receiving government who have the proper security
clearance and who have an established need to know the information in order to perform
G-4
their duties. Any information released will be limited to that necessary to perform
assigned responsibilities and, where possible, will be oral and visual only;
— Adopt prudent stockpile management practices that include effective and secure
disposal or destruction of MANPADS stocks that are or become excess to national
requirements.
2.8 Participating States will, when and as appropriate, assist recipient governments not
capable of executing prudent control over MANPADS to dispose of excess stockpiles,
including buying back previously exported weapons. Such measures are subject to a
voluntary consent of the exporting government and the recipient state.
2.9 Exporting governments will share information regarding potential receiving
governments that are proven to fail to meet the above export control guarantees and
practices outlined in paragraphs 2.6 and 2.7 above.
2.10 To enhance efforts to prevent diversion, exporting governments will share
information regarding non-State entities that are or may be attempting to acquire
MANPADS.
3. Participating States will ensure that any infringement of export control legislation,
related to MANPADS, is subject to adequate penalty provisions, i.e., involving criminal
sanctions.
4. Participating States agree to incorporate these principles into their national practices,
policies and/or regulations.
5. Participating States will report transfers of MANPADS using the OSCE SALW
document’s information exchange requirements and any MANPADS related information
exchange mechanisms that may be agreed in the future.
6. Participating States will review implementation of these principles regularly.
7. Participating States agree to promote the application of the principles defined above to
non-OSCE countries.
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APPENDIX H
OSCE Document on SALW

PREAMBLE
1. The participating States of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in

Europe (OSCE):
2. Recalling the Lisbon Document 1996, Decision No. 8/96, “A Framework for Arms
Control“, and Decision No. 6/99 of the OSCE's Forum for Security Co-operation,
endorsed by our Heads of State and Government at the OSCE Summit at Istanbul in
November 1999,
3. Recognizing the need to strengthen confidence and security among the participating
States through appropriate measures on small arms and light weapons* manufactured
or designed for military use (hereinafter referred to as “small arms“),
* There is not yet an internationally agreed definition of small arms and light
weapons. This document will apply to the following categories of weapons while not
prejudging any future internationally agreed definition of small arms and light
weapons. These categories may be subject to further clarification and will be reviewed
in the light of any such future internationally agreed definition.
For the purposes of this document, small arms and light weapons are man-portable
weapons made or modified to military specifications for use as lethal instruments of
war. Small arms are broadly categorized as those weapons intended for use by
individual members of armed or security forces. They include revolvers and self-
loading pistols; rifles and carbines; sub-machine guns; assault rifles; and light
machine guns. Light weapons are broadly categorized as those weapons intended for
use by several members of armed or security forces serving as a crew. They include
heavy machine guns; hand-held under-barrel and mounted grenade launchers; portable
anti-aircraft guns; portable anti-tank guns; recoilless rifles; portable launchers of anti-
tank missile and rocket systems; portable launchers of anti-aircraft missile systems;
and mortars of calibres less than 100 mm
Η-1
4. Recalling progress made in dealing with the problems associated with small arms in
other international fora and resolved to make an OSCE contribution to such progress,
5. Mindful also of the opportunity for the OSCE, as a regional arrangement under
Chapter VIII of the Charter of the United Nations, to provide a substantial
contribution to the process underway in the United Nations on the illicit trade in small
arms and light weapons in all its aspects,
6. Have decided to adopt and implement the norms, principles and measures set out in
the following sections.
SECTION I: GENERAL AIMS AND OBJECTIVES
1. The participating States recognize that the excessive and destabilizing accumulation
and uncontrolled spread of small arms are problems that have contributed to the
intensity and duration of the majority of recent armed conflicts. They are of concern
to the international community because they pose a threat and a challenge to peace,
and undermine efforts to ensure an indivisible and comprehensive security.
2. The participating States agree to co-operate to address these problems and to do so

in a comprehensive way. Reflecting the OSCE's concept of co-operative security and
working in concert with other international fora, they agree to develop norms,
principles and measures covering all aspects of the issue. These include manufacture,
the proper marking of small arms, accurate sustained record keeping, export control
criteria, transparency about transfers (i.e. commercial and non-commercial imports
and exports) of small arms through effective national export and import
documentation and procedures. All of these are essential elements of any response to
the problems, as are the proper national management and security of stockpiles
coupled with effective action to reduce the global surplus of small arms. They also
agree that the problem of small arms should be an integral part of the OSCE's wider
efforts in the fields of early warning, conflict prevention, crisis management and post
conflict rehabilitation.
Η-2
3. In particular, the participating States commit themselves to:
(i) Combat illicit trafficking in all its aspects through the adoption and implementation
of national controls on small arms, including manufacture, proper marking and
accurate sustained record keeping (both of which contribute to improving the
traceability of small arms), effective export control, border and customs mechanisms,
and through enhanced co-operation and information exchange among law
enforcement and customs agencies at international, regional and national levels;
(ii) Contribute to the reduction, and prevention of, the excessive and destabilizing
accumulation and uncontrolled spread of small arms, taking into account legitimate
requirements for national and collective defence, internal security and participation in
peacekeeping operations under the Charter of the United Nations or in the framework
of the OSCE;
(iii) Exercise due restraint to ensure that small arms are produced, transferred and held
only in accordance with legitimate defence and security needs as outlined in 3(ii)
above, and in accordance with appropriate international and regional export criteria, in
particular as provided for in the OSCE document on Principles Governing
Conventional Arms Transfers adopted by the Forum for Security Co-operation on 25
November 1993;
(iv) Build confidence, security and transparency through appropriate measures on
small arms;
(v) Ensure that, in line with its comprehensive concept of security, the OSCE
addresses, in its appropriate fora, concerns related to the issue of small arms as part of
an overall assessment of the security situation of a particular country, and takes
practical measures which will assist in this respect;
(vi) Develop appropriate measures on small arms at the end of armed conflicts
including their collection, safe storage and destruction linked to the disarmament,
demobilization and reintegration (DD and R) of combatants.
SECTION II: COMBATING ILLICIT TRAFFICKING IN ALL ITS ASPECTS:

MANUFACTURING, MARKING AND RECORD-KEEPING
Introduction
1. Combating illicit trafficking in all its aspects constitutes a major element of any
Η-3
action needed to deal with the problem of the destabilizing accumulation and
uncontrolled spread of small arms. National control of manufacture is essential to the
combating of illicit trafficking. In addition, the proper marking of small arms, coupled
with accurate, sustained record-keeping and exchanges of information outlined within
this document, will help relevant investigative authorities to trace illicit small arms
and, if a legal transfer has been diverted into the illegal market, to identify the point at
which the diversion took place.
2. This section therefore sets out the norms, principles and measures covering
manufacture, marking and record-keeping of small arms.
(A) National control over manufacture of small arms
1. The participating States agree to ensure effective national control over the
manufacture of small arms through the issue, regular review and renewal of licences
and authorizations for manufacture. Licences and authorizations should be revoked if
the conditions under which they were granted are no longer met. The participating
States will ensure that those engaged in illegal production can, and will, be prosecuted
under appropriate penal codes.
(B) Marking small arms
1. While it is for each participating State to determine the exact nature of the marking
system for small arms manufactured or in use on its territory, the participating States
agree to ensure that all small arms manufactured on their territory after 30 June
2001are marked in such a way as to enable individual small arms to be traced. The
marking should contain information which would allow the investigating authorities
to determine, at a minimum, the year and country of manufacture, the manufacturer
and the weapon's serial number. This information provides an identifying mark which
is unique to each small arm. All such marks should be permanent and placed on the
small arm at the point of manufacture. Participating States will also ensure as far as
possible and within their competence that all small arms manufactured under their
authority outside their territory are marked to the same standard.
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2. In addition, participating States agree that, should any unmarked small arms be
discovered in the course of the routine management of their current stockpiles, they
will destroy them, or if those small arms are brought into service or exported, that
they will mark them beforehand with an identifying mark unique to each small arm.
(C) Record keeping
1. The participating States will ensure that comprehensive and accurate records of
their own holdings of small arms, as well as those held by manufacturers, exporters
and importers of small arms within their territory, are maintained and held as long as
possible with a view to improving the traceability of small arms.
(D) Transparency measures
1. As a confidence-building measure and to assist the relevant authorities in tracing

illicit small arms, the participating States agree to conduct an information exchange
by 30 June 2001 on their national marking systems used in the manufacture and/or
import of small arms. They will also exchange with each other available information
on national procedures for the control of the manufacture of small arms. Participating
States will ensure that such information is up-dated, as and when necessary, to reflect
any changes in their national marking systems and in their procedures for the control
of manufacture.
SECTION IV: MANAGEMENT OF STOCKPILES,

REDUCTION OF SURPLUSES AND DESTRUCTION
Introduction
1. Effective action to reduce the global surplus of small arms, coupled with proper
management and security of national stockpiles, is central to the reduction of
destabilizing accumulations and uncontrolled spread of small arms and the prevention
of illicit trafficking. This section sets out the norms, principles and measures through
which participating States will effect reductions where applicable and promote “best
practice“ in managing national inventories and securing stockpiles of small arms.
Η-5
(A) Indicators of a surplus
1. It is for each participating State to assess in accordance with its legitimate security
needs whether its holdings of small arms include a surplus.
2. When assessing whether it has a surplus of small arms, each participating State
could take into account the following indicators:
(i) The size, structure and operational concept of the military and security
forces;
(ii) The geopolitical and geostrategic context including the size of the State's
territory and population;
(iii) The internal or external security situation;
(iv) International commitments including international peacekeeping operations;
(v) Small arms no longer used for military purposes in accordance with national
regulations andpractices.
3. The participating States should carry out regular reviews and in particular in
connection with:
(i) Changes of national defence policies;
(ii) The reduction or re-structuring of military and security forces;
(iii) The modernization of small arms stocks or the acquisition of additional small
arms.
(B) Improving national stockpile management and security
1. The participating States recognize that proper national control over their stockpiles
of small arms (including any stockpiles of decommissioned or deactivated weapons)
is essential in order to prevent loss through theft, corruption and neglect. To that end,
they agree to ensure that their own stockpiles are subject to proper national inventory
accounting and control procedures and measures.These procedures and measures, the
selection of which is at the discretion of each participating State, could include:
(i) The appropriate characteristics for stockpile locations;
(ii) Access control measures;
(iii) The measures needed to provide adequate protection in emergency situations;
Η-6
(iv) Lock-and-key and other physical security measures;
(v) Inventory management and accounting control procedures;
(vi) The sanctions to be applied in the event of loss or theft;
(vii) The procedures for the immediate reporting of any loss;
(viii) The procedures to maximize the security of small arms transport;
(ix) The security training of stockpile staff.
(C) Destruction and deactivation

1. The participating States agree that the preferred method for the disposal of small
arms is destruction. Destruction should render the weapon both permanently disabled
and physically damaged. Any small arms identified as surplus to a national
requirement should, by preference, be destroyed. However, if their disposal is to be
effected by export from the territory of a participating State, such an export will only
take place in accordance with the export criteria set out in Section IIIA, paragraphs 1
and 2 of this document.
2. Destruction will generally be used to dispose of illicitly trafficked weapons seized

by national authorities, once the legal due process is complete.
3. The participating States agree that the deactivation of small arms will be carried out
only in such a way as to render all essential parts of the weapon permanently
inoperable and therefore incapable of being removed, replaced or modified in a way
that might permit the weapon to be reactivated.
(D) Financial and technical assistance

1. The participating States agree to consider, on a voluntary basis and in co-operation
with other international organizations and institutions, technical, financial and
consultative assistance with the control or the elimination of surplus small arms to
other participating States that request it.
2. The participating States agree to support, in co-operation with other international

efforts and in response to a request from a participating State, stockpile management
and security programmes, training and on-site confidential assessments.
Η-7
(E) Transparency measures
1. The participating States agree to share available information on an annual basis not
later than 30 June, beginning in 2002 on the category, sub-category and quantity of
small arms that have been identified as surplus and/or seized and destroyed on their
territory during the previous calendar year.
2. The participating States will, by 30 June 2002, exchange information of a general

nature about their national stockpile management and security procedures. They will
also submit updated information when necessary. The Forum for Security Co-
operation will consider developing a “best practice“ guide, designed to promote
effective stockpile management and security and to guarantee a multi-level safety
system for the storage of small arms taking into account the work of other
international organisations and institutions.
3. The participating States also agree to exchange information by 30 June 2001 on

their techniques and procedures for the destruction of small arms. They will also
submit updated information when necessary. The Forum for Security Co-operation
will consider developing a “best practice“ guide, of techniques and procedures for the
destruction of small arms taking into account the work of other international
organizations and institutions.
4. As a confidence-building measure participating States agree to consider on a

voluntary basis invitations to each other, particularly in a regional or subregional
context, to observe the destruction of small arms on their territory.
SECTION V: EARLY WARNING, CONFLICT PREVENTION,

CRISIS MANAGEMENT AND POST-CONFLICT REHABILITATION
Introduction
1. The problem of small arms should be an integral part of the OSCE's wider efforts in
early warning, conflict prevention, crisis management and post-conflict rehabilitation.
The destabilizing accumulation and uncontrolled spread of small arms are elements
which can impede conflict prevention, exacerbate conflicts and, where peaceful
settlements have been attained, impede both peace-building and social and economic
Η-8
development. In some cases, it may contribute to a breakdown in order, fuel terrorism
and criminal violence or lead to a resumption of conflict. This section sets out the
norms, principles and measures which the participating States agree to follow.
(A) Early warning and conflict prevention

1. The identification of a destabilizing accumulation or the uncontrolled spread of
small arms that might contribute to a deteriorating security situation could be a major
element in early warning and, therefore, conflict prevention. It is for each
participating State to identify potentially destabilizing accumulations or uncontrolled
spreads of small arms linked to its security situation. Each participating State may
raise within the OSCE at the Forum for Security Co-operation or the Permanent
Council its concerns about such accumulations or spreads.
(B) Post-conflict rehabilitation

1. The participating States recognize that an accumulation, and the uncontrolled
spread, of small arms can contribute to the destabilization of the security environment
in a post-conflict situation. It is therefore necessary to consider the value of small
arms collection and control programmes in these circumstances.
2. The participating States recognize that a stable security situation, including public
confidence in the security sector, is essential for any successful small arms collection
and control programme (combined with, as appropriate, amnesties) and other
important post-conflict programmes related to DD and R, such as those on the
disposal of small arms.
(C) Procedures for assessments and recommendations

1. The participating States agree that an assessment by the Forum for Security Co-
operation or the Permanent Council in conflict prevention or a post-conflict situation
should include the role (if any) played in that situation by small arms taking into
account, as necessary, the indicators found in Section IV(A) paragraph 2, and the need
to address that issue.
2. As necessary, at the request of the host participating State, the participating States
could be invited to make available, including, if appropriate and in accordance with a
decision of the Permanent Council, through the Rapid Expert Assistance and Co-
Η-9
operation Teams (REACT) programme, individuals with relevant expertise in small
arms issues. These experts should work with national governments and relevant
organizations to ensure a comprehensive assessment of the security situation before
providing recommendations for action by the OSCE.
(D) Measures
1. In response to recommendations from experts, the Permanent Council should
consider a range of measures including:
(i) Responses to requests for assistance on the security and management of stockpiles
of small arms;
(ii) Assistance with, and possible monitoring of, the reduction and disposal of small
arms in the State in question;
(iii) The encouragement of and, as necessary, the provision of advice or mutual
assistance to implement and reinforce border controls to reduce illicit trafficking in
small arms;
(iv) Assistance with small arms collection and control programmes;
(v) As appropriate, the expansion of the mandate of an OSCE field mission or
presence to cover small arms issues;
(vi) Consultation and co-ordination, in accordance with the OSCE Platform for Co-
operative Security, with other international organizations and institutions.
2. In addition the participating States agree that the mandates of future OSCE
missions adopted by the Permanent Council and any peacekeeping operations
conducted by the OSCE should, as appropriate, include the capacity to advise,
contribute to, implement and monitor small arms collection and destruction
programmes and small arms related DDR measures. Such OSCE missions could
include a suitably qualified person tasked with developing, in conjunction with
peacekeeping operations, national authorities and other international organizations
and institutions, a series of measures related to small arms.
3. The participating States will promote stable security situations and ensure, within
their competence that small arms collection programmes and small arms related DD
and R measures are included in any peace agreements and, as appropriate, in the
mandates of any peacekeeping operations. Participating States will promote the
Η-10
destruction of all small arms thus collected as the preferred method of disposal.
4. As a supporting measure, the participating States could also promote sub-regional

co-operation, in particular in areas such as border control in order to prevent the re-
supply of small arms through illicit trade.
5. The participating States will consider sponsoring, on a national level, public

education and awareness programmes highlighting the negative aspects of small arms.
They will also consider providing within available financial and technical resources
appropriate incentives to encourage the voluntary surrender of illegally held small
arms. Participating States will consider providing support for all appropriate post-
conflict programmes related to DD and R, such as those on the disposal and
destruction of surrendered or seized small arms and ammunition.
(E) Stockpile management and reduction in post conflict rehabilitation

1. Because of the specific vulnerability of small arms storage and management in post
conflict situations, the participating State(s) concerned and/or the participating States
involved in a peace process will give priority to ensuring that:
(i) Safe storage and stockpile management issues are dealt with in peace processes
and are included, as appropriate, in peace agreements;
(ii) To enhance security, stockpile sites are concentrated in as few locations as

possible;
(iii) Where they are to be destroyed, collected and confiscated small arms are stored
for as short a time as necessary compatible with legal due process;
(iv) Administrative management procedures give priority to and do not delay the
small arms reduction and destruction processes.
(F) Further Work

1. The Forum for Security Co-operation will consider developing a “best practice“
handbook on small arms DD and R measures taking into account the work of other
Η-11
international organizations and institutions.
2. The requests for small arms destruction monitoring and technical assistance will be
co-ordinated through the CPC, taking into account the work of other international
organizations and institutions.
SECTION VI: FINAL PROVISIONS
1. The participating States agree to the establishment of a list of small arms contact
points in delegations to the OSCE and in capitals, to be held and maintained by the
CPC. The CPC will be the main point of contact on small arms issues between the
OSCE and other international organizations and institutions.
2. The participating States agree that the Forum for Security Co-operation will review
regularly including, as appropriate, through annual review meetings, the
implementation of the norms, principles and measures in this document and will
consider specific small arms issues raised by participating States. In addition, and as
necessary, they may convene meetings of national experts on small arms.
3. The participating States also agree to keep the scope and content of this document
under regular review. In particular they agree to work on the further development of
the document in the light of its implementation and of the work of the United Nations
and of other international organizations and institutions.
4. The text of this document will be published in the six official languages of the
Organization and disseminated by each participating State.
5. The Secretary General of the OSCE is requested to transmit the present document
to the Governments of the Partners for Co-operation Japan, the Republic of Korea,
and Thailand and of the Mediterranean Partners for Co-operation (Algeria, Egypt,
Israel, Jordan, Morocco and Tunisia).
6. The norms, principles and measures in this document are politically binding. Unless
otherwise specified they will take effect on the adoption of the document.
Η-12
APPENDIX I
The Inter-American Convention on Transparency in Conventional Weapons

Acquisitions At a Glance
On November 21, 2002, the Inter-American Convention on Transparency in

Conventional Weapons Acquisitions entered into force. Negotiated by the 34-member
Organization of American States (OAS) and opened for signature in June 1999, the
convention is an unprecedented, regional transparency regime that requires its states-
parties to annually report on their weapons exports and imports, as well as make
timely notifications of their weapons acquisitions, whether imported or produced
domestically. Twenty countries, including the United States, have signed the
convention and eight have ratified it. (States-parties are in bold and signatories are in
italics in footnote 1.)
Terms of the Convention
Annual Reports: No later than June 15 each year, states-parties will submit to the
OAS General Secretariat a report on their exports and imports of battle tanks,
armoured combat vehicles (ACVs), large-calibre artillery, combat aircraft, attack
helicopters, warships, and missiles and missile systems. These seven categories mirror
those of the voluntary U.N. Register of Conventional Arms, which calls on all
countries to annually submit reports on their import and export of these same weapons
to the United Nations. In their annual OAS reports, states-parties must identify the
type and quantity of weapons transferred and name the exporting or importing
country. Additional information, such as the designation or model of the weapon, may
be volunteered.
Notification of Acquisitions: No later than 90 days after incorporation of a weapon

system into a state-party's armed forces inventory, a notification must be submitted to
the OAS General Secretariat. This notification requirement applies to both imported
and domestically manufactured weapons in the same seven categories covered by the
Ι-1
annual report. The United States, a leading proponent of the convention, had sought
inclusion of a provision for advance notification, but Latin American countries
objected. States-parties are free to provide advance notification if they choose to do
so.
The OAS General Secretariat will transmit the annual reports and notifications
received to all states-parties, though the information will not be made publicly
available. States-parties are free to consult with each other on the shared information.
Background
The convention grew out of a June 1997 OAS General Assembly resolution calling on
members to consider a legal framework for advance notification of arms acquisitions.
Shortly thereafter in August 1997, the Clinton administration dropped a two-decade-
old policy of "presumption against" the export of advanced weapons to Latin
America. This policy change cleared the way for U.S. arms manufacturers to compete
for weapons sales to the region. Former President Jimmy Carter and several Latin
American heads of state, both past and those in office at the time, criticized the new
Clinton arms transfer policy as one that would divert scarce resources from more
important government investments, such as education, and lead to increased regional
tensions. Since the U.S. policy change, the United States completed a deal to sell 10
F-16 fighter jets to Chile and offered combat aircraft to Brazil. Citing other economic
priorities, Brazil postponed in January 2003 a decision on buying fighter jets.
In comparison with other regions, Latin America is a relatively small arms market.
The region's arms imports have generally accounted for roughly two to five percent of
the world arms market over the past decade. In recent years, there has been a decline,
particularly among Central American countries, in arms imports due to an economic
slump and reduced conflict in the region.
Ι-2
Note
1. The 34 members of the OAS are Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Bahamas,
Barbados, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominica,
Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Grenada, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti,
Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Saint Lucia, Saint
Vincent and Grenadines, Suriname, St. Kitts and Nevis, Trinidad and Tobago, United
States, Uruguay, and Venezuela. Cuba was excluded from OAS participation in 1962.
Ι-3
APPENDIX J
EU CODE OF CONDUCT ON ARMS EXPORT
The Council of the European Union
BUILDING on the Common Criteria agreed at the Luxembourg and Lisbon European
Councils in 1991 and 1992.
RECOGNISING the special responsibility of arms exporting states,
DETERMINED to set high common standards which should be regarded as the

minimum for the management of, and restraint in, conventional arms transfers by all
EU Member States, and to strengthen the exchange of relevant information with a
view to achieving greater transparency,
DETERMINED to prevent the export of equipment which might be used for internal
repression or international aggression, or contribute to regional instability,
WISHING within the framework of the CFSP to reinforce their cooperation and to
promote their convergence in the field of conventional arms exports,
NOTING complementary measures taken by the EU against illicit transfers, in the

form of the EU Programme for Preventing and Combating Illicit Trafficking in
Conventional Arms,
ACKNOWLEDGING the wish of EU Member States to maintain a defence industry

as part of their industrial base as well as their defence effort,
RECOGNISING that states have a right to transfer the means of self-defence,

consistent with the right of self-defence recognised by the UN Charter, have adopted
the following Code of Conduct and operative provisions:
J-1
Criterion One
Respect for the international commitments of EU member states, in particular the
sanctions decreed by the UN Security Council and those decreed by the Community,
agreements on non-proliferation and other subjects, as well as other international
obligations. An export licence should be refused if approval would be inconsistent
with, inter alia: the international obligations of member states and their commitments
to enforce UN, OSCE and EU arms embargoes; the international obligations of
member states under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the Biological and Toxin
Weapons Convention and the Chemical Weapons Convention; their commitments in
the frameworks of the Australia Group, the Missile Technology Control Regime, the
Nuclear Suppliers Group and the Wassenaar Arrangement; their commitment not to
export any form of anti-personnel landmine.
Criterion Two
The respect of human rights in the country of final destination Having assessed the
recipient country's attitude towards relevant principles established by international
human rights instruments, Member States will: not issue an export licence if there is a
clear risk that the proposed export might be used for internal repression. exercise
special caution and vigilance in issuing licences, on a case-by-case basis and taking
account of the nature of the equipment, to countries where serious violations of
human rights have been established by the competent bodies of the UN, the Council
of Europe or by the EU; For these purposes, equipment which might be used for
internal repression will include, inter alia, equipment where there is evidence of the
use of this or similar equipment for internal repression by the proposed end-user, or
where there is reason to believe that the equipment will be diverted from its stated
end-use or end-user and used for internal repression. In line with operative paragraph
1 of this Code, the nature of the equipment will be considered carefully, particularly if
it is intended for internal security purposes. Internal repression includes, inter alia,
torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment, summary or
arbitrary executions, disappearances, arbitrary detentions and other major violations
of human rights and fundamental freedoms as set out in relevant international human
rights instruments, including the Universal Declaration on Human Rights and the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
J-2
Criterion Three
The internal situation in the country of final destination, as a function of the existence
of tensions or armed conflicts Member States will not allow exports which would
provoke or prolong armed conflicts or aggravate existing tensions or conflicts in the
country of final destination.
Criterion Four
Preservation of regional peace, security and stability Member States will not issue an
export licence if there is a clear risk that the intended recipient would use the
proposed export aggressively against another country or to assert by force a territorial
claim. When considering these risks, EU Member States will take into account inter
alia: the existence or likelihood of armed conflict between the recipient and another
country; a claim against the territory of a neighbouring country which the recipient
has in the past tried or threatened to pursue by means of force; whether the equipment
would be likely to be used other than for the legitimate national security and defence
of the recipient; τhe need not to affect adversely regional stability in any significant
way.
Criterion Five
The national security of the member states and of territories whose external relations
are the responsibility of a Member State, as well as that of friendly and allied
countries Member States will take into account: the potential effect of the proposed
export on their defence and security interests and those of friends, allies and other
member states, while recognising that this factor cannot affect consideration of the
criteria on respect of human rights and on regional peace, security and stability; the
risk of use of the goods concerned against their forces or those of friends, allies or
other member states; the risk of reverse engineering or unintended technology
transfer.
Criterion Six
The behaviour of the buyer country with regard to the international community, as
regards in particular to its attitude to terrorism, the nature of its alliances and respect
for international law Member States will take into account inter alia the record of the
buyer country with regard to: its support or encouragement of terrorism and
J-3
international organised crime; its compliance with its international commitments, in
particular on the non-use of force, including under international humanitarian law
applicable to international and non-international conflicts; its commitment to non-
proliferation and other areas of arms control and disarmament, in particular the
signature, ratification and implementation of relevant arms control and disarmament
conventions referred to in sub-para b) of Criterion One.
Criterion Seven
The existence of a risk that the equipment will be diverted within the buyer country or
re-exported under undesirable conditions In assessing the impact of the proposed
export on the importing country and the risk that exported goods might be diverted to
an undesirable end-user, the following will be considered: the legitimate defence and
domestic security interests of the recipient country, including any involvement in UN
or other peace-keeping activity; the technical capability of the recipient country to use
the equipment; the capability of the recipient country to exert effective export
controls; the risk of the arms being re-exported or diverted to terrorist organisations
(anti-terrorist equipment would need particularly careful consideration in this
context).
Criterion Eight
The compatibility of the arms exports with the technical and economic capacity of the
recipient country, taking into account the desirability that states should achieve their
legitimate needs of security and defence with the least diversion for armaments of
human and economic resources.
Member States will take into account, in the light of information from relevant
sources such as UNDP, World Bank, IMF and OECD reports, whether the proposed
export would seriously hamper the sustainable development of the recipient country.
They will consider in this context the recipient country's relative levels of military and
social expenditure, taking into account also any EU or bilateral aid.
J-4
Operative Provisions
Each EU Member State will assess export licence applications for military equipment
made to it on a case-by-case basis against the provisions of the Code of Conduct.
This Code will not infringe on the right of Member States to operate more restrictive
national policies.
EU Member States will circulate through diplomatic channels details of licences

refused in accordance with the Code of Conduct for military equipment together with
an explanation of why the licence has been refused. The details to be notified are set
out in the form of a draft pro-forma at Annex A. Before any Member State grants a
licence which has been denied by another Member State or States for an essentially
identical transaction within the last three years, it will first consult the Member State
or States which issued the denial(s). If following consultations, the Member State
nevertheless decides to grant a licence, it will notify the Member State or States
issuing the denial(s), giving a detailed explanation of its reasoning. The decision to
transfer or deny the transfer of any item of military equipment will remain at the
national discretion of each Member State. A denial of a licence is understood to take
place when the member state has refused to authorise the actual sale or physical
export of the item of military equipment concerned, where a sale would otherwise
have come about, or the conclusion of the relevant contract. For these purposes, a
notifiable denial may, in accordance with national procedures, include denial of
permission to start negotiations or a negative response to a formal initial enquiry
about a specific order.
EU Member States will keep such denials and consultations confidential and not to
use them for commercial advantage.
EU Member States will work for the early adoption of a common list of military
equipment covered by the Code, based on similar national and international lists.
Until then, the Code will operate on the basis of national control lists incorporating
where appropriate elements from relevant international lists.
J-5
The criteria in this Code and the consultation procedure provided for by paragraph 3
of the operative provisions will also apply to dual-use goods as specified in Annex 1
of Council Decision 94/942/CFSP as amended, where there are grounds for believing
that the end-user of such goods will be the armed forces or internal security forces or
similar entities in the recipient country.
In order to maximise the efficiency of this Code, EU Member States will work within
the framework of the CFSP to reinforce their cooperation and to promote their
convergence in the field of conventional arms exports.
Each EU Member State will circulate to other EU Partners in confidence an annual

report on its defence exports and on its implementation of the Code.
These reports will be discussed at an annual meeting held within the framework of the
CFSP. The meeting will also review the operation of the Code, identify any
improvements which need to be made and submit to the Council a consolidated
report, based on contributions from Member States.
EU Member States will, as appropriate, assess jointly through the CFSP framework
the situation of potential or actual recipients of arms exports from
EU Member States, in the light of the principles and criteria of the Code of Conduct.
It is recognised that Member States, where appropriate, may also take into account the
effect of proposed exports on their economic, social, commercial and industrial
interests, but that these factors will not affect the application of the above criteria.
EU Member States will use their best endeavours to encourage other arms exporting
states to subscribe to the principles of this Code of Conduct.
This Code of Conduct and the operative provisions will replace any previous
elaboration of the 1991 and 1992 Common Criteria.
J-6
APPENDIX K
(Acts adopted pursuant to Title V of the Treaty on European Union)

COUNCIL JOINT ACTION
of 12 July 2002
on the European Union’s Contribution to Combating the Destabilising
Accumulation and Spread of
Small arms and Light weapons and Repealing Joint Action 1999/34/CFSP
(2002/589/CFSP)
THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION,
Having regard to the Treaty on European Union, and in particular Article 14 thereof,
Whereas:
(1) On 17 December 1998 the Council adopted Joint Action 1999/34/CFSP on the
European Union’s contribution to combating the destabilising accumulation and spread of
small arms and light weapons (1).
(2) The report of the Panel of Governmental Experts on Small Arms recognises
ammunition as a cause for concern in conflicts affected by small arms and light weapons.
(3) A new Joint Action should be adopted in order to include, where appropriate,
ammunition of small arms and light weapons and Joint Action 1999/34/CFSP should
therefore be repealed,
Κ-1
HAS ADOPTED THIS JOINT ACTION:
Article 1
1. The objectives of this Joint Action are:
— to combat, and contribute to ending, the destabilising accumulation and spread of
small arms,
— to contribute to the reduction of existing accumulations of these weapons and
their ammunition to levels consistent with countries’ legitimate security needs,
and
— to help solve the problems caused by such accumulations.
2. This Joint Action shall entail the following elements:

— building consensus on the principles and measures referred to in Title I,
— making a multifaceted contribution as referred to in Title II.
3. This Joint Action shall apply to weapons listed in the Annex.
TITLE I
Principles on preventive and reactive aspects

Article 2
The Union shall enhance efforts to build consensus in the relevant regional and
international forums (for example, the UN and OSCE) and among affected States on the
principles and measures set out in Article 3 and on those set out in Articles 4 and 5 as the
basis for regional and incremental approaches to the problem and, where appropriate,
global international instruments on small arms.
Κ-2
Article 3
In pursuing the objectives set out in Article 1, the Union shall aim at building consensus
in the relevant international forums, and in a regional context as appropriate, for the
realisation of the following principles and measures to prevent the further destabilising
accumulation of small arms:
(a) a commitment by all countries to import and hold small arms only for their legitimate
security needs, to a level commensurate with their legitimate self-defence and security
requirements, including their ability to participate in UN peacekeeping operations;
(b) a commitment by exporting countries to supply small arms only to governments

(either directly or through duly licensed entities authorised to procure weapons on their
behalf) in accordance with appropriate international and regional restrictive arms export
criteria, as provided in particular in the EU code of conduct, including officially
authorised end-use certificates or, when appropriate, other relevant information on end-
use;
(c) a commitment by all countries to produce small arms only for holdings as outlined in
(a) or exports as outlined in (b);
19.7.2002 EN Official Journal of the European Communities L 191/1

(1) OJ L 9, 15.1.1999, p. 1.
Κ-3
APPENDIX L
(Acts adopted pursuant to Title V of the Treaty on European Union)

COUNCIL COMMON POSITION 2003/468/CFSP
of 23 June 2003
on the Control of Arms Brokering
THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION,
Having regard to the Treaty on the European Union, and in particular Article 15 thereof,
Whereas: (1) In implementing the European Union Code of Conduct on Arms Exports
Member States have agreed to address the problem of control of arms brokering.
(2) Member States have continued and deepened their discussions on arms trafficking and
brokering activities and have reached agreement on a set of provisions for controlling
these activities through national legislation, as set out below.
(3) Most Member States already have in place or are in the process of adopting national
legislation on the subject.
(4) In the Fourth Annual Report according to Operative Provision 8 of the European
Union Code of Conduct on Arms Exports Member States have agreed to continue
deliberations in the area of arms brokering on the basis of the guidelines already
approved, with a view to adopting a Common Position on the subject.
(5) In the Wassenaar Arrangement Participating States agreed on a Statement of

Understanding to consider the adoption of national measures regulating arms brokering
activities.
L-1
(6) The United Nations Programme of Action on Small Arms and Light Weapons
(SALW) commits States to develop adequate national legislation or administrative
procedures to regulate small arms and light weapons brokering activities, and undertake
further steps to enhance international cooperation in preventing, combating and
eradicating illicit brokering of small arms and light weapons.
(7) The United Nations Protocol against the illicit manufacturing of and trafficking in
firearms, their parts and components and ammunition, supplementing the United
Nations Convention against transnational organised crime requires States Parties to
establish a system for regulating the activities of those who engage in brokering,
HAS ADOPTED THIS COMMON POSITION:
Article 1
1. The objective of this Common Position is to control arms brokering in order to avoid
circumvention of UN, EU or OSCE embargoes on arms exports, as well as of the Criteria
set out in the European Union Code of Conduct on Arms Exports.
2. In order to achieve this objective, Member States will ensure that their existing or
future national legislation on arms brokering is in conformity with the provisions set out
below.
Article 2
1. Member States will take all the necessary measures to control brokering activities
taking place within their territory. Member States are also encouraged to consider
controlling brokering activities outside of their territory carried out by brokers of their
nationality resident or established in their territory.
L-2
2. Member States will also establish a clear legal framework for lawful brokering
activities.
3. For the purposes of paragraph 1, brokering activities are activities of persons and
entities:
— negotiating or arranging transactions that may involve the transfer of items on the EU
Common List of military equipment from a third country to any other third country; or
— who buy, sell or arrange the transfer of such items that are in their ownership from a
third country to any other third country.
This paragraph shall not preclude a Member State from defining brokering activities in its
national legislation to include cases where such items are exported from its own territory
or from the territory of another Member State.
25.6.2003 EN Official Journal of the European Union L 156/79
L-3

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CRANFIELD UNIVERSITY

DEPARTMENT OF DEFENCE MANAGEMENT AND SECURITY

GLOBAL SECURITY DISSERTATION

LIEUTENANT GEORGIOS CHRYSOCHOU

Supervisor: Professor Christopher Bellamy

This dissertation is submitted in partial fulfilment of requirements for the

 Cranfield University 2006. All rights reserved. No part of this

CHAPTER 2 – THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK 19

CHAPTER 3 – HISTORICAL AND RECENT BACKGROUND 40

CHAPTER 4 – THE SECURITY CHALLENGES AND IMPLICATIONS

CHAPTER 5 – EVALUATION OF CONVENTIONAL ARMS CONTROL

CHAPTER 6 – CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS 115

APPENDIX – A: UN Programme of Action to Prevent, Combat and Eradicate

Table 1.1. World and regional military expenditure estimates 1995-2004…………2

Table 2.2 Relationship between weapons levels and the probability

Table 2.3. Matrix of Arab-Israeli Arms Control Initiatives

Table 3.1. Additional International and Regional Initiatives/Agreements on the field

Table 4.2. Seized weapons and ammunition by the Slovenian Police

Table 4.4. South-Eastern European (SEE) Countries commitments

Table 5.1 Limitations under the Florence Agreement………………………………97

Figure 2.2. The Place Called Reconciliation………………………………………..28

Figure 2.3. The Progression of Conflict……………………………………………29

Figure 2.4. A Security Problem……………………………………………………31

Figure 2.6. A schema of cultural influences on multilateral arms control, non-

Figure 3.2. Imports of major weapons by region, 1971-1985………………………46

Figure 3.3. Military Expenditures for the period 1989-1999……………………….47

Figure 3.4. Top 15 Arms Exporters, 2000-2004……………………………………48

Figure 3.5. Top 15 Arms Importers, 2000-2004……………………………………49

Figure 4.1. Mikhail Kalashnikov at the Small Arms UN Conference

Figure 4.2. The spectrum of conflict and defence, diplomatic

Figure 4.3. The concept of a new mainstream framework in the conventional

ACVs Armoured Combat Vehicles

Table 1.1. World and regional military expenditure estimates 1995-20048

1.2. Reasons for undertaking the study

In addition, countries identified by many western governments as poor implementers of

1.6 Scope and Limitations

1.7. Research Methodology

Consequently, primary research material was reviewed in the form of conference

1.8. Study Structure27

1.9. Literature Review

Table 2.1. World’s top 15 individual arms exporters for 19997

Top Arms Exporters (current billion dollars)

2.2. Useful definitions and caveats

According to the Oxford Companion To Military History a broad definition of arms

‘Arms control involves measures of international agreed restraint in arms

‘The transfer (by sale, exchange, or gift) of ‘conventional weapons’ - such

‘They are generally considered to be weapons that can be used by one or

Expanding the above purposes it is important to mention one sub-discipline of arms

Characteristically, although the consensus between EU and USA that counter-

2.4. Conceptual principles for arms trade

2.5. Conventional arms control and the relevant security theories

2.5.1. The theoretical framework between arms control and security

Medium High Medium Very

γΑ=fA[1-exp(-αθΑ)], fA=number of B weapons destroyed per A counterforce weapons

2.5.2. Modern theoretical framework of conventional arms control and

Figure 2.2. The Place Called Reconciliation29

Figure 2.3. The Progression of Conflict30

UNPEACEFUL RELATIONS PEACEFUL

2.6.1. The theoretical framework

Figure 2.4. A Security Problem36

Protector p/r Threat

Consequently, a possible international, legally binding, arms trade treaty, including

2.6.2 Problematic cases and the issue of SALWs in a theoretical perspective