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Reports
Reports in date order, most recent first. Click on a report title to go to a summary and a link to the full report.
Voices from Around the World: People's Consultation Global Report
A Global Arms Trade Treaty: What States Want
Full Report / Executive Summary
Assessing the feasability, scope and parameters of an Arms Trade Treaty: an NGO Perspective
Compilation of Global Principles for International Arms Transfers
Arms Without Borders: Why a Global Trade Needs Global Controls
Ammunition: The Fuel of Conflict
The AK-47: The World's Favourite Killing Machine
UN Arms Embargoes: An Overview of the Last Ten Years
The Call for Tough Arms Controls: Voices from Haiti
The Call for Tough Arms Controls: Voices from Sierra Leone
The Impact of Guns on Women's Lives
Guns or Growth: Assessing the Impact of Arms Sales on Sustainable Development
Lock, Stock and Barrel: How British Arms Components Add Up to Deadly Weapons
Shattered Lives: The Call for Tough International Arms Controls
November 2007
Voices from Around the World: People's Consultation Global Report
In 2007, the UN Secretary General consulted with all governments on the content and scope of a global Arms Trade Treaty. The Control Arms campaign ran a parallel 'People’s Consultation', to enable the voices of people around the world to also be heard. In more than 50 countries, thousands of people from all sections of society took part in events facilitated by Control Arms. This report provides a snapshot of some of the amazing People's Consultation events organised by civil society in every continent.
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November 2007
A Global Arms Trade Treaty: What States Want
As a first step towards an ATT, UN Resolution 61/89 requested the UN Secretary-General to “seek the views of Member states on the feasibility, scope and draft parameters for a comprehensive, legally-binding instrument establishing common international standards for the import, export and transfer of conventional arms and to submit a report to the General Assembly at its sixty-second session.” This paper provides an overview and analysis of the content of over 90 states’ submissions made during 2007 on an Arms Trade Treaty and a synthesis of what should happen next if the majority views are listened to by the big powers.
Executive Summary
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April 2007
Assessing the feasability, scope and parameters of an Arms Trade Treaty: an NGO Perspective
Under pressure from the Control Arms campaign since October 2003, Member States of the United Nations initiated a process in December 2006 to develop a global Arms Trade Treaty to regulate international transfers of conventional arms. The purpose of this paper in April 2007 was to argue for key recommendations by the non-governmental organisations involved in the Control Arms campaign on the feasibility, scope and draft parameters of a comprehensive global treaty.
Executive Summary
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March 2007
Compilation of Global Principles for International Arms Transfers
We want a global Arms Trade Treaty [ATT] that puts respect for international law, especially international human rights and humanitarian law, at its centre and this report highlights how those laws can be grouped into a set of Global Principles to form the heart of an ATT. Based on the views of a diverse group of non-governmental organisations, these Global Principles show how States' existing obligations of international transfers of conventional weapons and ammunition.
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October 2006
Arms Without Borders: Why a Global Trade Needs Global Controls
Globalisation is changing the way the arms trade is carried out. Arms companies, operating from an increasing number of locations, now source components from across the world. Their products are often assembled in countries with lax controls on where they end up. Too easily, weapons and munitions get into totally irresponsible hands. Each year, at least a third of a million people are killed directly with conventional weapons and many more die, are injured, abused, forcibly displaced and bereaved as a result of armed violence. Rapidly widening loopholes in national controls demonstrate how this globalised trade also needs global rules – hence the urgency of an effective Arms Trade Treaty.
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June 2006
Ammunition: The Fuel of Conflict
Hundreds of thousands of people are killed each year through the misuse of small arms and light weapons (SALW) in violation of international humanitarian law and human rights law. Small arms ammunition is the fuel that keeps many of the world’s conflicts raging. While small arms do not themselves cause conflict, they make it much deadlier, and a shortage of bullets can reduce or even stop fighting altogether. Despite the vital role ammunition plays in fuelling conflict, international controls over its trade are inadequate, often substantially weaker than those applied to other categories of weapons.
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June 2006
The AK-47: The World's Favourite Killing Machine
Kalashnikov assault rifles are the most widespread military weapons in the world. It is estimated that there are between 50 and 70 million of them spread across the world’s five continents. They are used daily by soldiers, fighters, and gang members to inflict untold suffering in many countries. The spread of these weapons continues largely unchecked by governments, threatening the lives and safety of millions as weapons fall into irresponsible hands.
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March 2006
UN Arms Embargoes: An Overview of the Last Ten Years
This briefing summarises why the design, enforcement and monitoring of UN arms embargoes is so weak, and why such embargoes will not work until States commit to a global Arms Trade Treaty.
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January 2006
The Call for Tough Arms Controls: Voices from Haiti
The Control Arms campaign carried out several interviews in Haiti in November 2005 and records here the voices of at least some of the people who bear the cost of the world’s continuing failure to control the arms trade.
The Call for Tough Arms Controls: Voices from Sierra Leone
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July 2005
Towards an Arms Trade Treaty
There is an imperative need for a global Arms Trade Treaty, based on fundamental principles of international law, to reduce the human cost of arms proliferation, prevent unscrupulous weapons suppliers finding the weakest point in the supply chain, and ensure that all arms exporters are working to the same international standards to prevent persistent and known violators of international law from receiving arms to perpetrate their crimes.
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June 2005
The G8: Global Arms Exporters
Each of the G8 governments has a particular responsibility to control arms and to respect and ensure respect for human rights and international humanitarian law. However, as this report shows, inadequate controls and poor practice in implementing and enforcing those laws and regulations which do exist mean that arms are still being exported from the G8 to groups and governments that persistently abuse human rights and which exacerbate human suffering.
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March 2005
The Impact of Guns on Women's Lives
Countless women and girls have been shot and killed or injured in every region of the world. Millions more live in fear of armed violence against women. Two key factors lie at the heart of these abuses: the proliferation and misuse of small arms and deep-rooted discrimination against women. Armed violence against women is not inevitable. In many countries women have become powerful forces for peace and human rights in their communities. Their actions show how real change can be effected and women's lives made safer. Each of us can help put an end to the abuses highlighted in this report by joining the international campaigns to Stop Violence Against Women and to Control Arms. This report spells out the key steps you can take to help stop armed violence against women.
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December 2004
Tracking Lethal Tools
This report shows with illustrative cases why the marking and tracing of weapons and ammunition is a central piece of the arms control puzzle, and should be legally binding. This must form part of a global Arms Trade Treaty.
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June 2004
Guns or Growth: Assessing the Impact of Arms Sales on Sustainable Development
This detailed report shows how excessive or inappropriate arms purchases are a drain on social and economic resources which developing countries cannot afford. Both arms importers and exporters must ensure that arms transfers do not undermine sustainable development – a combination of economic growth and social progress that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. To protect the social and economic rights of people in developing countries, it is imperative that exporting governments apply an effective and systematic methodology to assess whether proposed arms transfers will affect sustainable development.
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February 2004
Lock, Stock and Barrel: How British Arms Components Add Up to Deadly Weapons
Since 1997, the UK has introduced robust criteria aimed at preventing the sale of weapons to countries where they could be used to fuel conflict, undermine development and violate human rights. But in today's global arms trade, weapons are increasingly assembled from components from many countries. The UK applie weaker standards when licensing arms components than it applies to complete weapons. This is a potentially dangerous loophole, which could allow UK components to contribute to suffering around the world. To prevent this, the UK should apply the same criteria in licensing components as it does to complete weapons systems.
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February 2004
Guns and Policing
States claim the right to acquire arms for self defence and law enforcement, yet the misuse of small arms by law enforcers often leads to armed conflict and sustained gun violence. This report focuses on what governments can do to improve the effectiveness of policing to help control firearms, without the police themselves resorting to the use of excessive and unjustified force. Using an illustrative selection of cases, it argues that adhering to existing internationally agreed professional standards in the use of force and firearms will improve policing and reduce the proliferation and misuse of small arms.
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October 2003
Shattered Lives: The Call for Tough International Arms Controls
This detailed report was published on the launch of the Control Arms campaign. It shows how millions of men, women and children are living in fear of armed violence. Every day, one thousand of them are killed. From the gangs of Rio di Janeiro and Los Angeles, to forgotten conflicts of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Indonesia, conventional arms are out of effective control. The challenge to all governments is urgent. They must co-operate now to control and limit the flow of arms transfers and the spread of arms production through the establishment of a global Arms Trade Treaty and by taking concrete steps to reduce the excessive demand for arms.
