DISARMAMENT: Rights Group Seeks UN Code of Conduct for Small Arms

By Thalif Deen Reprint | | Print |

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 2 2000 (IPS) - A leading human rights organisation is urging the United Nations to formulate a mandatory code of conduct to curb the flow of small arms into the world’s war zones.

“Governments have talked about the need to stem the proliferation of small arms,” says Joost Hiltermann, Executive Director of the Arms Division of Human Rights Watch. But so far, he says, it has been all talk – and no action.

It is time, Hiltermann argues, to bar small arms sales to the world’s human rights abusers.

Addressing delegates who are meeting in New York this week to prepare for a major UN Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms, Hiltermann points out that small arms are the weapons of choice in virtually all of the ongoing armed conflicts in Asia, Africa, Europe, and Latin America and the Caribbean.

The Conference, which will focus on “all aspects” of the illicit trade in light weapons, is scheduled to take place in 2001. The venue is yet to be decided, although two of the strongest contenders to host the conference are South Africa and Switzerland.

Hiltermann says the conference is expected to approve a “plan of action” to curb the transfer of small arms, but the outlines of this plan are still unclear.

Human Rights Watch is not only calling for binding codes on arms transfers but also the establishment of transparency measures, including annual reporting of arms sales, and the creation of a UN Register for Small Arms.

Currently the only code of conduct governing arms sales is being implemented by the 15-member European Union. But critics have accused some of the European countries of exporting weapons to countries that are human rights abusers, in violation of the code.

The existing seven-year-old UN Arms Register, on the other hand, only records the import and export of fighter aircraft, combat helicopters, missiles, warships and heavy artillery – and excludes small arms.

A UN expert panel has identified “small arms” to include assault rifles, pistols, sub-machine guns, light machine guns, mortars, portable anti-aircraft guns, grenade launchers, anti-tank missile and rocket systems, hand grenades and anti-personnel land mines.

Hilterman also points out that many of the weapons on the black market at some point were legally transferred by governments or with government approval.

“And governments have failed to rein in unscrupulous arms traffickers or enforce arms embargoes imposed on human rights abusers,” he notes.

Michel Rocard, a former French prime minister and head of an Eminent Persons Group, told reporters Tuesday that small arms is a cancer growing on the moral conscience of the international community.

“They are responsible for 90 percent of war casualties,” he said, “And the majority of the casualties are civilian, and children account for a quarter of the casualties.”

With 200,000 deaths annually, he argued, the human toll is rising. “Yet, the international trade in small arms remains largely unregulated.”

Rocard said a UN Register on Small Arms, coupled with the marking of all equipment at the point of manufacture, would help maintain records on the movement of each weapon. An international code of conduct, he said, could set clear standards for arms transfer elilgibility.

“All nations would be required to participate in the small arms control regime,” he added.

The proposed code must also set stringent measures to curtail the black market, and trafficking must be punishable, even it occurs abroad. Additionally, he said, small arms trafficking should be made a treaty crime before the International Criminal Court.

In a report released here, the Eminent Persons Group, says the majority of small arms producers are located in the First World while the majority of victims of small arms are in the Third World.

The Group includes several world political leaders including Alpha Oumar Konare, Eduard Shevardnadze and Narasimha Rao, as well as the former head of the Iraqi arms inspection team Rolf Ekeus and former World Bank chief Robert McNamara.

The Group says that the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, namely the US, Britain, France, China and Russia, account for around 85 percent of the global arms trade. At the same time, about 40 percent of the worldwide flow of small arms is attributed to smuggling while the majority of illicit weapons originate in legal trade.

Since 1990, says the report, small arms have been the primary choice of weaponry in 47 of the 49 civil conflicts.

Meanwhile, the Washington-based Council for a Liveable World Education Fund said last month that the United States was one of the primary arms suppliers to some of the world’s human rights abusers.

A study released by the Fund said that the United States delivered numerous small arms to Colombia for its anti-drug efforts in the last decade, and licensed for sale about 5,500 pistols and revolvers, as well as riot control chemicals.

But Colombian security forces have been accused of committing “numerous, serious violations of human rights throughout the year”, including torture and over 20 cases of extra-judicial killings.

Turkey, which has received US F-16 fighters, helicopters and missiles, has also taken delivery of 200 armoured personnel carriers and riot control equipment. According to the State Department, Turkey is accused of widespread extra-judicial killings and torture. The US has also continued to train Indonesian troops who are cited by the State Department for “serious human rights abuses.”