Controlling Small Arms

This edited volume takes stock of the state of research and policy on the issue of small arms and light weapons, ten years after the UN first agreed to deal with the problem.

The end of the Cold War both lifted the ideological dampers on a number of increasingly pressing security issues sidelined by the superpower conflict and originated, in its own right, a series of phenomena that would subsequently come to dominate the political agenda. Perhaps most symptomatic of the ensuing environment is the marked escalation in the scale and dynamics of armed violence, driven by the proliferation of small arms and light weapons. Events in Rwanda, Somalia and Bosnia seared into global consciousness the devastating effects of this phenomenon, and of the necessity to engage actively in its limitation and prevention. A dual effect resulted: growing acceptance of a focus on human rights, embodied in the concept of 'human security' and humanitarian intervention, in turn facilitated efforts to tackle SALW proliferation and violence through multilateral means. These optimistic early efforts—initially driven by NGOs and academics, and fuelled by ongoing deterioration of the dynamics of violence—eventually culminated in a prominent place for the SALW issue within the various forums of the United Nations system, and in the promulgation of a series of international instruments aimed at controlling the proliferation and misuse of SALW.

More than a decade has now passed since the international community first agreed to tackle the issue of small arms in a comprehensive manner. The resulting UN Protocol against the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, Their Parts and Components and Ammunition (Firearms Protocol), which was adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2001 and entered into force in 2005, remains to date the only legally binding global instrument addressing the issue of SALW. Shortly after the adoption of the Firearms Protocol, the principal UN policy framework to address SALW was established with the UN Programme of Action to Prevent, Combat and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects (PoA). The implementation of the policy framework provided by the PoA has led to the negotiation of other agreements both at the regional and global level. A significant example is the International Tracing Instrument (ITI), a political instrument adopted by the UN General Assembly on 8 December 2005 to enable states to identify and trace, in a timely and reliable manner, illicit SALW.

This edited volume marks this series of important milestones with a collection of essays on research and policy on the SALW issue at this critical juncture. In addition to providing at long last a detailed telling of the genesis and evolution of SALW research and advocacy since the 1990s until the present, the volume features a series of essays from leading scholars in the field on both advances in research and action on SALW and incipient or future avenues for progress and innovation. It reflects on what has been achieved in terms of cumulative advances in data, methodology and analysis, and how the advances in research and analysis have helped to inform advocacy and policy making at national, regional and international levels. Alongside situating and integrating past and present advances in advocacy and international action, among them the recent 2012 PoA Review Conference, it outlines future directions for research and action.

This book will be of much interest to students of small arms, peace and conflict studies, peacebuilding, security studies and IR.