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Download this SIPRI Background Paper
Summary
States have been invited to
report on international
transfers of small arms and
light weapons (SALW) to the
United Nations Register of
Conventional Arms (UNROCA)
since 2003. After a slow start,
the rate of reporting increased
significantly in 2006 and 2007.
However, several of the most
significant SALW exporters
have never reported on
international transfers of
SALW to UNROCA.
The level of reporting on
international transfers of
SALW is now high enough that
the 2009 UNROCA Group of
Governmental Experts (GGE)
should reconsider the
establishment of a new, eighth
UNROCA category on SALW.
The creation of a category for
SALW could simply involve the
formal transformation of the
current ‘virtual’ eighth
category into a full category.
For submissions to be of use
for monitoring international
transfers of SALW, they must
include information on units
transferred, the importing and
exporting states, and the type
(subcategory) of SALW. States
should also be encouraged to
use the ‘Comments’ column of
the standardized reporting
form to give information on a
specific end-user or -use, and to
state if transfers to civilians are
included. The German practice
of using export licences in lieu
of delivery information merits
further discussion within the
GGE for those states that are
currently unable to provide
information on actual
deliveries.
This paper updates SIPRI Policy Paper no. 22, which covered the years 2003–2006.
Contents
I. Introduction
II. Participation
III. An analysis of reporting for 2007
IV. Conclusions and recommendations
About the author
Dr Paul Holtom (United Kingdom) is a Senior Researcher with the SIPRI Arms
Transfers Programme. He is the author of several journal articles on the Baltic states,
Kaliningrad and the Russian Federation and Ukraine, as well as Arms Transit Trade in
the Baltic Sea Region (Saferworld, 2003), Turning the Page: Small Arms and Light
Weapons in Albania (Saferworld, 2005), Small Arms Production in Russia (Saferworld,
2007) and Transparency in Transfers of Small Arms and Light Weapons: Reports to the
United Nations Register of Conventional Arms, 2003–2006, SIPRI Policy Paper no. 22
(July 2008). He was lead author of the joint SIPRI/Uppsala University report United
Nations Arms Embargoes: Their Impact on Arms Flows and Target Behaviour (2007).
Publisher: SIPRI
8 pp.
February 2009
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