Small Arms Monitor, Vol. 10, No. 2

Editorial: What does it take to make the difference?

Allison Pytlak

20 June 2018

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In its statement to the general debate of the Third Review Conference of the UN Programme of Action on small arms and light weapons (UNPoA), the delegation of South Africa noted that this meeting takes place during the centenary of the birth of Nelson Mandela. The theme of the centenary is “Be the legacy” and in many places that are advertising this milestone his well-known words, “It is in your hands to make a difference” can be found.

Throughout the general debate we’ve heard numerous member states urging one another to have ambition, courage, or similar sentiments—all in the hope of making a difference. We’ve also heard startling and yet somehow all too familiar statistics about the impact of small arms and light weapons (SALW) and their ammunition on lives and livelihoods. Jamaica, for instance, shared that it witnesses a 23 per cent increase annually in homicide rates, the majority of which are committed through the use of a firearm. Mexico noted that nearly 500 people die daily from homicides with firearms and thousands more suffer indirect effects, most of which occurs in non-conflict zones. India stated that the illicit trade in SALW plays a “pernicious role” in adversely impacting national security along with terrorism, transnational organized crime, drug trafficking, and piracy.

So what does it take to make good on these nice words about making differences? What is the difference that needs to happen?

Over last 17 years the UNPoA has facilitated a good deal of action and activity ranging from the establishment of policy, to destruction of surplus stockpiles, to developing marking and tracing programmes and the International Tracing Instrument (ITI).  None of that should be detracted from. States such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Togo, Sudan, Cambodia, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic, among others, cited the positive impacts that the instrument has led to in a national context: helping to keep the issue on the radar of policymakers at a high level; enabling training, information exchange, or technology transfers; prompting destruction or collection programmes; securing stockpiles.

Yet it has its shortcomings, and the challenge for the review conference is to close the gaps in PoA implementation, and give this instrument viability in the present and the future.

One such shortcoming of the UNPoA is that it is politically and not legally binding. As such, it cannot exist in a vacuum. Other treaties and agreements have come about with the specific purpose of legally complementing the UNPoA at global and regional levels. The Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) is the most recent to do so, as New Zealand noted, yet hostility to the ATT on the part of those who do not endorse it has to date prevented those three words from appearing anywhere in a UNPoA document.  This is a hostility rooted in the political, although it’s not entirely impossible to see this from the perspective of Treaty opponents, given the hypocrisy of some ATT states parties. There are however some practical objectives to formalising the “synergy” between these two instruments; harmonising reporting practices and easing reporting burdens is often cited; and also the potential of the ATT to prevent diversion from legal to illicit markets—which is the purview of the UNPoA.

Mandatory reporting, or some review and interaction between states on their reports, could also rejuvenate the UNPoA and promote accountability and implementation. The Small Arms Survey has just published a comprehensive review of national reports submitted under the UNPoA and the ITI between 2012 and 2017.  It reports a general decline in reporting practices from UN member states; the majority of reports are submitted by developed nations and the possibility to match requests for assistance with resources has been underexplored. The call from developing states to improve methods of international cooperation and assistance throughout the general debate has been constant and represents a real area in which improvement could benefit overall UNPoA implementation.

What would also make a difference is for states to not pay lip service to the notion of women’s participation and gendered approaches in disarmament and arms control but to begin acting on these concepts. The Reaching Critical Will website tracks the sex of each person delivering a conference statement and even a quick look demonstrates the extreme gender inequality of this fora, which has worsened since the Preparatory Committee meeting in March. There is a growing number of states that support including language on gender in conference outcome document but only a small group of countries have so far shared examples from their national experience in acting on the language of their statements.

The benefits of correcting gender imbalance in decision-making bodies will influence the policy discourse on small arms. The recognition and participation of women as key stakeholders and experts in political processes related to small arms control, both at the international and national levels, would lead to the adoption of perspectives and policy outcomes that more accurately reflect the highly-gendered dynamics and effects of small arms.

As outlined in our earlier editorial, the draft outcome document is promising in its attempts to fill gaps and adapt to new challenges by establishing new mechanisms or outlining new commitments. Whether or not it stays that way remains to be seen, particularly as states now move into consultations on the draft outcome document and away from the generalities of the preceding days. Many have already shared views on some of the more traditionally controversial topics, such as ammunition, which give a glimpse into the scope and scale of support for and against maintaining such provisions.  If this was not a consensus-based process then undoubtedly proposals related to ammunition, as just one example, would hold. Some states have also expressed reservations about any kind of an “update” for the UNPoA and urge what might be described as a minimalist approach to this conference.

So for those who want to see this conference make a difference, it will require determination, boldness, and not accepting half-measures or watered down solutions. We look forward to seeing what the coming days bring. 

Preserving the First Committee’s global village and the edifice of international cooperation    

Forests are burning, droughts are devastating, storms are thrashing. We know why. We also know what we have to do to prevent it from getting worse and to mitigate and deal with what is already happening. But instead, the richest among us—in terms of individuals, in terms of governments—choose instead to invest in weapons. They choose instead to fuel war. To build walls. To construct and solidify surveillance states. To weaponise their security—their own security, not the security, or safety, or well-being of their fellow citizens or anyone else.

As we prepare for another round of First Committee, we would do well to bear in mind this reality. Some participants are working hard to create a future in which the 1% thrive while the rest of the world crumbles, in which weapons are used as the primary mode of order and control. They assert this power through their investments in technology of violence, through attempts to crush and criminalise resistance and revolt, and through their condescension to the rest of the world’s governments and people. This condescension will be on full display during First Committee. The majority of delegations will be told by the minority that they don’t understand the “international security environment” and that they are “politicising” issues or creating “divisions” whenever they speak up for disarmament. These same delegations will fight with each other vociferously, trying to score points—with whom we are not sure, because the schoolyard antics of name-calling and finger-pointing grow tiresome for the rest of us by the end of the first day. The informal back-and-forth of these end-of-day discussions would be most useful to figuring out how to eliminate weapons. But instead the time is spent reinforcing hostilities and tensions among the most weaponised.

While this theatrical performance goes on, the rest of First Committee would do well to recall the http://statements.unmeetings.org/GA74/VC_EN.pdf" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(145, 145, 145); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; color: rgb(255, 91, 22); text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer;">words of Prime Minister Ralph E. Gonsalves of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines during last month’s high-level debate at the UN General Assembly. “As the original builders of our global economic and political architecture descend into jingoistic isolationism, and succumb to the narrowest pursuits of short term self-interest,” he noted, “it is the small, the poor and the historically marginalised states of our global village that present the last, best chance to restore the crumbling edifice of international cooperation, and the principles on which that cooperation rests.”

The UN General Assembly was designed as a place for the governments of all member states to have an equal say, and it is this spirit that we urge First Committee delegates to uphold in 2019. The activists, survivors, and public that look to the UN for progress and change urge all delegates to speak up for humanity. The resolutions and agreements reached in this Committee can have meaning: they have led to great things in the past and can again. Do not let a handful of heavily militarised governments shut you down. What needs to be shut down are arms factories and arms fairs, not international discourse about disarmament. At a time when the nuclear-armed states are ripping apart arms control treaties, when they are more interested in the profits of the arms trade instead of the well-being of people, the rest of the international community has a vital role to play in putting forward alternatives for our collective security—security based on the rule of law, disarmament, equity, justice, and peace.