Supply-side measures

Supply-side measures have been the main focus of international efforts to control the flow of arms. These include export and import controls, marking and tracing, reigning in brokers, and measures to take illegal weapons out of circulation. Each one of these measures aims to reduce the availability (supply) of weapons by affecting some or all parts of the chain from 'production' to 'end-use'. The chain can be described as follows: Production --> Stockpiles and stockpile management --> Brokering --> Trade and

transfer --> End-use365_.

The main international actor is the UN with its Programme of Action (PoA) on SALW process. There is currently a process in the UN to develop an international legally

binding arms trade treaty (ATT), which has the support of most member states366_{. The}

ATT is intended to give a global set of common standards for import, export and transfer of conventional arms. While opposed by some, the idea is to anchor the treaty in the states' obligation to respect and ensure respect for international humanitarian law (IHL) and human rights standards, as well as to prevent threats to global security. Effectively, transfer would not be allowed to parties or areas where there would be a

substantial risk of abuse, either with respect to irresponsible end-users or diversion367_.

Most of the world's SALW production is legal, that is, with the consent of the host- nation. Thus the diversion into illegal traffic happens at other points in the chain. In a small number of cases however, illegal production can also have a considerable effect

locally368_{. With respect to production, one of the central issues to counter proliferation is}

the transfer of technology. All major arms producers have licensed out production of weapons they have developed and also produce themselves. This poses two different problems: first it increases the global know-how to produce weapons (information is a good that cannot be retrieved), and it increases the risk of unlicensed, and thus illicit production. Proliferation of technology is significant. The Small Arms Survey (SAS) found that with respect to small arms, there were only 17 countries where the original

365 _{Atwood, David; Glatz, Anne-Kathrin & Muggah, Robert 2006. p.4-5.}

366 _{Amnesty International, Instituto Sou Da Paz, Oxfam, Project Ploughshares, Saferworld & Albert} Schweitzer Institute 2009.

367 _{Amnesty International 2008. p.4-11.} 368 _{smallarmssurvey.org : Producers.}

technology was developed, while production with or without a license was taking place in 52 countries. Taking into account countries and companies where the technology had been transferred, only 57% of these arms were being produced under a license. Often, production continues after licences have expired.

With respect to light weapons, there has also been a proliferation of technology and lethality. The ratio of licensed to unlicensed production is 31 countries to 26. Many non- state armed groups today produce their own unguided light weapons, such as rocket- propelled grenades, mortars, grenade launchers and IEDs, and have acquired guided

weapons369_{. Thus, proliferation of technology and diversion are key issues.}

Another factor increasing undesirable proliferation in addition to the diversion of technology, is irresponsible exports by producers who have received the technology. One response is tougher enforcement of intellectual property rights laws to stem unlicensed production. The SAS however estimates that the most effective way to prevent irresponsible exports is through tougher export control measures, namely by obliging states to grant licenses for production in the same manner as direct transfers of small arms. They should be: "refused if there is a significant risk that the transferred technology or weapons to be produced under licence would be diverted or misused by the recipient"370_.

According to Saferworld: "the great majority of illicit or unauthorised SALW have been sourced from diversion from authorised official or civilian holdings, through loss, theft, corruption or neglect". Diversion from stockpiles can occur at any stage of the process, be it waiting for shipment, during the transfer (the weakest point), or from stocks of an authorised end user (most common source for insurgencies). Key loopholes in the process are the lack of risk assessments by exporting countries on whether the receiving countries have the capacity to store weapons safely, and the low cooperation between the two actors on the issue. A 2009 Saferworld report estimates that there is a: "reasonably strong normative framework for international action to enhance stockpile

369 _{SAS 2008.} 370 _{SAS 2007.}

security issues", but that awareness amongst the relevant national officials is

disturbingly low371_.

There are both legal and illegal arms transfers. With respect to legal ones, the policies that are promoted focus on more responsible export policies and prevention of diversion to illicit markets. Capturing illegal transfers focuses on law-enforcement efforts.

Arms brokers are middlemen that can either find suppliers for their clients, buy

weapons from suppliers and then sell them onwards, or organize the transfers themselves. Evidence suggests that arms brokers have procured weapons to many irresponsible end-users that could not have obtained weapons from a government- authorised entity. Despite clear evidence of brokers often being involved in diversions to illegal markets, they are still fairly commonly used, because most states have no

effective legal and regulatory measures in this area372_{. Evidence suggests that most of}

the big dealing by arms traffickers is done by relatively few individuals, who combine

both licit and illicit trade373_{. While there are some regional agreements, most of these are}

voluntary (with the exception of the EU). Most of these agreements are based on a system of licensing individual transactions as well as national registries of the brokers used, which reflects a consensus on the kind of system needed. Saferworld estimates that, if implemented, such measures would considerably reduce the risk of diversion by

brokers374_.

End-user certificates (EUC) declare that the weapons are intended for the buyer only,

and they will not be reshipped elsewhere. In practice, these documents have often been copied, forged or provided by corrupt government officials. The fact that the system relies solely on paper end-user certificates, and that their authenticity is seldom checked, leaves the system open for abuse. As of January 2009, only 68 states reported having some kind of EUC-system, of which half were in Europe. While there seems to be an international consensus on the need for a system in general, this is not case for its

371 _{Saferworld 2009. p.71-73.} 372 _{Saferworld 2009. p.43-45.}

373 _{Griffiths, Hugh & Wilkinson, Adrian 2007.} 374 _{Saferworld 2009. p.43-45.}

possible content or procedures. Saferworld suggests that a risk assessment and licensing

system would be the best guarantees against misuse375_.

A further way to prevent the entry of arms to areas where they might be misused is through arms embargoes. Their effectiveness has however come into question - of the UN arms embargoes between 1990-2006, every single one has been violated. SIPRI estimates that only in a quarter of the cases did the embargo affect the behaviour of the target. Key factors were the level of support by the Security Council members for the embargo, the presence of U.N. peacekeepers, and the level of cooperation and border

control of the neighbouring states376_{. A report by Control Arms states that the main}

problems are the impunity of sanction busters, and lack of resources and mandate of the UN Sanctions Committee and UN Investigative teams. This lack of UN capability forces it to rely on Member States for monitoring, where national controls are often inadequate or inexistent. Additionally, Control Arms argues that arms embargoes are

often imposed too late, when conflict areas are already flush with arms377_.

Instruments aiming to make arms dealing more transparent include the Wassenaar

Arrangement, The UN Register of Conventional Arms, and the International Tracing Instrument (ITI)378_{. The Wassenaar Arrangement is a multilateral export}

control regime consisting of arms exporting countries and covering a range of different weapons, not just SALW. It is not however binding, in the sense that implementation is fully up to signatory states. The main focus is on providing transparency for arms

exports and to prevent diversion379_{. Its data is not public. The UN Register of}

Conventional Arms keeps track of arms exports on the basis of data submitted to them by Member States. In 2006, 50 states participated every year, 170 had participated once or more and 25 had never done so. In 2003, reporting SALW sales was also officially

recommended, but in 2004 for example, only 6 states reported such information380_{. One}

expert considers that even of the states that do submit data, many do so incompletely381_.

375 _{Ibid. p.36-39.} 376 _{SIPRI 2007.} 377 _{Control Arms 2006.}

378 _{Also known as the 'International Instrument to Enable States to Identify and Trace, in a Timely and} Reliable Manner, Illicit Small Arms and Light Weapons'.

379 _{wassenaar.org : Introduction.}

380 _{United Nations Register of Conventional Arms 2007. p.30-31.} 381 _{Wood, Brian 2006. p.4.}

The ITI is a result of the UN Programme of Action, adopted in 2005. It is a politically, but not legally, binding instrument, that sets out ways in which weapons should be marked. Ammunitions and explosives were excluded from the ITI, which has been considered one of its major deficiencies. Additionally, it only commits states to marking weapons at the manufacturing level, leaving import markings, and marking the use by government forces, on a voluntary basis. This leaves tracing highly dependent on

importers for accurate record-keeping382_.