Managing the global problems created by the conventional arms trade: An assessment of the united nations register of conventional arms

Global Governance

Volumn 11, Issue 2, 2005, Pages 225-246

  Laurance, Edward J ^a   Wagenmakers, Hendrik ^b   Wulf, Herbert ^c  

^a MONTEREY INSTITUTE OF INTERNATIONAL STUDIES   (United States)

^b Netherlands Foreign Service   (Netherlands)

^c Bonn International Center for Conversion (BICC)   (Sweden)

Author keywords

Confidence building; Conventional arms trade; Cooperative security; Register of Conventional Arms; Transparency; United Nations

Indexed keywords

EID: 20144385377     PISSN: 10752846     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1163/19426720-01102007     Document Type: Review

References (31)

1. This article uses the framework developed in a recent book by a team from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Managing Global Issues, which assessed sixteen global issues in terms of which actors participated, how the policy agenda was set, how policies were negotiated, and how noncompliance with global norms was addressed. These management elements serve as a guide to evaluating the performance of the UN Register. P. J. Simmons and Chantal de Jonge, eds., Managing Global Issues: Lessons Learned (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2001).
2. The authors are aware that since 2000 some of the WMD regimes are under attack by the United States and other states as being regimes that represent ineffective global governance. Their mention here is to provide a contrast to the comparatively limited global management of problems stemming from the conventional arms trade.
3. Although missiles can be used for the delivery of conventional weapons, the aim of the Hague Code of Conduct was directed at WMD delivery vehicles.
4. For a thorough treatment of this history, see Joanna Spear, "Warfare: Conventional Weapons," in Simmons and Jonge, Managing Global Issues, pp. 564-609. A special case is the mandatory arms embargo that falls in the category of export control, since it must be implemented at the national level.
5. Edward J. Laurance, Siemon T. Wezeman, and Herbert Wulf, Arms Watch: SIPRI Report on the First Year of the UN Register of Conventional Arms, SIPRI Research Report No. 6 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993).
6. UN General Assembly, Res. 43/75I, International Transfers (November 1988), par. 5.
7. UN General Assembly, Study on the Ways and Means of Promoting Transparency in International Transfers of Conventional Arms: Report of the Secretary-General, UN Doc. A/46/301 (9 September 1991).
8. This characterization is that of Ambassador Hendrik Wagenmakers (coauthor), the diplomat responsible for the negotiations on behalf of the EC.
9. UN General Assembly, Res. 46/36L (9 December 1991), Transparency in Armaments.
10. Ibid., preambular par. 3.
11. Ibid., preambular pars.
12. In addition to their extensive experience with the Register, the authors also use two recent evaluations of the Register after ten years: Siemon Wezeman, The Future of the United Nations Register of Conventional Arms, SIPRI Policy Paper No. 4 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, August 2003);
13. and UN General Assembly, Continuing Operation of the United Nations Register of Conventional Arms and Its Further Development, UN Doc. A/58/274 (13 August 2003) - hereafter referred to as UN 2003 Group Report. The latter document is the report of the fifth group of governmental experts convened to establish and evaluate the Register (1992, 1994, 1997, 2000, and 2003).
14. UN 2003 Group Report, Sec. IIB "Extent of Participation."
15. The UN Standardized Instrument for Reporting Military Expenditures received information from fewer than thirty states during its first two decades of operation, beginning in 1980. In 2002, seventy-seven governments submitted a report, up from sixty-one in 2001, and thirty-five in 2000; available online at disarmament.un.org:8080/cab/milex.html.
16. UN 2003 Group Report, pars. 46-47.
17. Wezeman, The Future of the United Nations Register of Conventional Arms, pp. 7-10.
18. Attempts to institute such forms fell short in 1992, 1994, 1997, 2000, and 2003.
19. For a background on this discussion, see UN General Assembly, Report on the Register of Conventional Arms: Report of the Secretary-General, UN Doc. A/47/342 (14 August 1992);
20. and Laurance, Wezeman, and Wulf, Arms Watch.
21. It should be noted that this background information is not accessible through the UN Register Internet database; access can be obtained only at the UN Department for Disarmament Affairs in New York.
22. Wezeman, The Future of the United Nations Register of Conventional Arms, p. 16.
23. See UN 2003 Group Report, Sec. III, "Regional Aspects."
24. Available online at www.wassenaar.org/welcomepage.html.
25. Available online at www.wassenaar.org/docs/criteria.html.
26. Antonia Handler Chayes and Abram Chayes, "Regime Architecture: Elements and Principles," in Janne Nolan, ed., Global Engagement (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1995), pp. 66-67.
27. Ann Florini. "The End of Secrecy," Foreign Policy 111 (summer 1998), pp. 50-64.
28. The quotations leading off this and each of the following paragraphs come from Florini, Ann Florini. "The End of Secrecy," Foreign Policy 111 (1998), pp. 50-64. ibid.
29. The economic cost of such weapons can have, of course, effects on the security and well-being of people.
30. The authors made extensive recommendations to the 2003 Group of Governmental Experts. While there is some evidence in their report that they considered some of these suggestions, in essence the group made few changes to the status quo.
31. One exception to this is the recent effort by civil society to promote a "framework" arms trade treaty, available online at www.controlarms.org. It is a follow-up to the Code of Conduct on Arms Transfers proposed by Nobel Peace Prize laureates in 1995. It has very little support among governments.