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The EU's Role in Restraining the Unrestrained Trade in Conventional Weapons

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 March 2019

Zeray Yihdego

Extract

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The excessive availability of conventional weapons, small arms and light weapons (SALW) in particular, and the unrestricted trade which make them available raise serious security, humanitarian and social-economic concerns of international nature. These weapons are the major tools of contemporary armed conflicts, abuses of human rights and humanitarian norms, violence, terrorism and criminality. This has led many, including the former United Nations (UN) Chief, Kofi Annan, to believe that these arms are the real weapons of mass destruction of our time, causing half a million deaths annually. This is not to suggest that conventional weapons are not also useful for good causes. They are necessary for maintaining law and order and self-defence purposes. However, their proliferation and unrestricted transfer across borders, especially from the industrialized world to developing (and conflict-torn) countries, have not yet been addressed. In other words, their availability and supply have not been subjected to proper (legal and enforceable) restrictions.

Type
Developments
Information
German Law Journal , Volume 10 , Issue 3: Special issue - Germany's 1968 and the Law , 01 March 2009 , pp. 281 - 303
Copyright
Copyright © 2009 by German Law Journal GbR 

References

1 The paper is about the physical transfer of conventional armaments, both major and small and light weapons (SALW), with a focus on the latter. See The UN Register of Conventional Arms, GA Res. 46/36, Annex (Dec. 9, 1991) (describing major conventional weapons such as heavy mortars, tanks and war planes). See UN Report of Group of Governmental Experts on Small Arms, para. 25, submitted to the General Assembly, U.N. Doc. A/52/298 (Aug. 27, 1997) (GGE) (discussing small arms weapons as “those weapons designed for personal use, and light weapons are those designed for use by several persons serving as a crew”).Google Scholar

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3 Zeray Yihdego, The Arms Trade and International Law 9 (2007). It has to be noted that the 99 states and their 1000 companies which are involved in the manufacture and supply of conventional weapons by and large enjoy the freedom of arms supply to their favorite destinations, of course subject to permission from their respective governments.Google Scholar

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