Knowledge Centre : Peace and Conflict : Small Arms
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- It's time for global control of small arms
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The universal damage caused by the trafficking of small arms can be countered by effective measures at the UN, writes Nobel Memorial Prize winner Amartya Sen. (International Herald Tribune, 25 June 2006)
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/06/25/opinion/edsen.php
(Added: Tue Jun 27 2006 Hits: 164)
- 2003 Small Arms Survey (PDF)
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Oxford University Press. The 2003 edition of the Small Arms Survey presents the most complete assessment of the spread of small arms around the world and their effect on society. Stressing the link between small arms and global development, it includes special chapters examining the role of small arms in Africa (Congo), the Arab world (Yemen) and the former-Soviet Union (Georgia). The Small Arms Survey is now recognised as the principle international source of impartial and reliable information on all aspects of small arms. Its blend of information and analysis makes it an indispensable resource for policy-makers, officials and non-governmental organisations.
(Added: Tue Jul 22 2003 Modified: Thu Nov 30 2006 Hits: 318)
- AK-47: The World's Favourite Killing Machine
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The number one tool used for killing and injuring civilians today is small arms, including the Kalashnikov assault rifle. They are used to massacre, maim, rape and abuse, torture, and fuel violent crime all over the world. On 26 June 2006, the UN Review Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons begins in New York. At this conference, governments have an opportunity to agree effective and comprehensive controls to prevent the proliferation and misuse of small arms and light weapons, including assault rifles like the AK-47 towards a new global Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) to regulate international transfers of all conventional arms, including military assault rifles. This 18 page report explains why such a treaty is so necessary. (Control Arms Campaign: Oxfam/Amnesty/IANSA, 26 June 2006)
http://www.oxfam.org.nz/imgs/pdf/ak_47.pdf
(Added: Tue Jun 27 2006 Hits: 213)
- Arms without borders: why a globalised trade needs global controls
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Globalisation has changed the arms trade. 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 get into the wrong 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. This report argues that the time for an effective international Arms Trade Treaty is now. (Oxfam, Iansa, Amnesty International, October 2006)
(Added: Wed Oct 18 2006 Hits: 154)
- Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT)
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Set up in 1974 by a number of peace and other organisations who were concerned about the growth in the arms trade following the Middle East war of 1973. It is a broad coalition of groups and individuals in the UK working to end the international arms trade. This Trade has a negative effects on humans rights and security as well as on global ,regional and local economic developement. In seeking to end it CAAT's prorities are to: end government subsidies and support for arms exports; end exports to oppressive regimes; end exports to contries involved in an armed conflict or region of tension end exports to contries whose social welfare is threatned by military spending support measure, both in the UK and internationally, which will regulate and reduce the arms trade and lead to it eventually end.
(Added: Sat Feb 09 2002 Modified: Thu Jul 13 2006 Hits: 357)
- Control Arms
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The flow of arms to those who openly flaunt international human rights and humanitarian laws is being ignored by many governments and companies. Guns especially have never been so easy obtain. Their increased availability threatens life and liberty in communities and cities around the world. Including yours. Control Arms is a campaign jointly run by Amnesty International, IANSA and Oxfam.
(Added: Thu Mar 25 2004 Modified: Tue Apr 19 2005 Hits: 360)
- Data and information provided by States on the implementation of the United Nations Programme of Action to Prevent, Combat and Eradicate the Illicit T
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(UN Peace and Security through Disarmament) This webpage provides data and information provided by States on a voluntary basis, including national reports, on the implementation of the Programme of Action to Prevent, Combat and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects.
http://disarmament2.un.org/cab/salw-nationalreports.html
(Added: Mon Mar 22 2004 Modified: Tue Dec 06 2005 Hits: 239)
- Dead on Time - arms transportation, brokering and the threat to human rights
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The report shows how increasingly sophisticated freight transport and brokering operations now deliver hundreds of thousands of tons of weapons around the world with an ever-greater proportion going to developing countries where they have fed some of the most brutal of conflicts. Chronically weak and outdated arms controls urgently need strengthening to stop an ever-expanding chain of arms brokers, logistic firms and transporters from fuelling massive human rights abuse around the world. Amnesty International's report illustrates the unregulated, secretive and unaccountable nature of many arms transporting and brokering operations with a series of shocking case studies including the sea freighting of large quantities of arms to Liberia from China by a Dutch arms broker in contravention of a UN arms embargo on Liberia and despite evidence of the widespread killing, rape and displacement of thousands of civilians. (Amnesty International and TransArms, 10 May 2006)
http://amnesty-news.c.topica.com/maaeMW1abqsXlckuuzKb/
(Added: Wed May 17 2006 Hits: 216)
- DFID Report on Tackling Poverty by Reducing Armed Violence (PDF)
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Recommendations from a Wilton Park Workshop, 14 16 April 2003. Although armed violence poses a significant obstacle to poverty reduction, few development agencies have addressed small arms issues in their policies or programmes. In April 2003, small arms experts and development agency representatives came together to discuss ways and means of integrating arms controls into development policy and programmes. This report highlights key findings and recommendations that emerged from that workshop (PDF 336 KB).
(Added: Fri Jan 30 2004 Modified: Thu Sep 14 2006 Hits: 690)
- Geneva Call
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Geneva Call is a new impartial international humanitarian organisation dedicated to engaging Non-State Actors (NSAs) - i.e. armed groups operating outside of government control - in a landmine ban and to respect humanitarian norms. Geneva Call was launched in March 2000 by members of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL). Its creation arose from the need to address the involvement of NSAs in the landmine problem and to provide a mechanism to hold such groups accountable for their commitments.
http://www.genevacall.org/home.htm
(Added: Thu Jun 26 2003 Modified: Thu Jul 13 2006 Hits: 297)
- Gun Policy News (small arms information)
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Aucklander Philip Alpers has launched www.gunpolicy.org hosted at the University of Sydney. Gun Policy News is now free every day on the Web, by E-mail and by RSS feed. Since 1997 Gun Policy News, the international bulletin of firearm injury prevention and small arms proliferation, has been delivered five days a week to core advocates. Now all subscribers can receive a free daily copy of Gun Policy News Links (GPNL), an E-mail digest of headlines, short abstracts, and links to small arms policy-related articles published in international, mainstream mass media. The GPNL firearm policy news digest is now also available as an RSS (XML) feed to your news reader, to your blog, or to a 'fresh news every day' page on your own Web site. Each Gun Policy News article-you can select from about 220 news items each month-is objectively chosen from a reputable source, and free of advertising. With our partners, contributors and supporters, gunpolicy.org and Gun Policy News promote the public health model of firearm injury prevention, and the United Nations Programme of Action on small arms. To read today's small arm-related news, to view the archive of recent bulletins, to see our list of information partners and sponsors, and to receive our free services , please visit: http://www.gunpolicy.org
(Added: Thu Sep 08 2005 Modified: Tue Dec 06 2005 Hits: 216)
- Gun-Running in Papua New Guinea: From Arrows to Assault Weapons in the Southern Highlands
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Small Arms Survey, Philip Alpers, 2005. In the volatile Southern Highlands Province (SHP) of Papua New Guinea (PNG), approximately 2,450 factory-made firearms are held by private owners. These include between 500 and 1,040 high-powered weapons, most of which are assault rifles. Very few of the guns in SHP were smuggled from foreign countries. Instead, police and soldiers within PNG supplied the most destructive firearms used in crime and conflict. Gun-running from other parts of PNG to the Southern Highlands is financed and facilitated by politicians and civil servants up to the highest levels of the educated elite. This report considers the human costs of armed violence and measures attempting to curb it.
http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/files/sas/publications/spe_reports_pdf/2005-sr5-papuanewguinea.pdf
(Added: Mon Jul 18 2005 Modified: Thu Nov 30 2006 Hits: 245)
- Guns or Growth? (pdf)
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Oxfam, 2004. Governments are breaking their promises to make sure that arms sales to poor countries are not harming the life of future generations by diverting resources and investments from areas like health and education. Countries in Africa, Latin America, Asia and the Middle East have bought more than half the world's heavy weapons and yet these same countries experience the greatest threat to human life from poverty and disease. The "Guns and Growth" report demands that exporter and importer governments keep their promises and pay as much attention to the future development of poor nations and the human rights and security needs of their people, as they do to buying and selling arms.
http://www.controlarms.org/the_issues/guns_or_growth.htm
(Added: Tue Jun 22 2004 Modified: Mon Aug 14 2006 Hits: 362)
- Guns Out of Control: the continuing threat of small arms
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The subject of small arms and light weapons has been covered in great detail in numerous studies and is an issue of concern for the United Nations, as well as a wide range of international nongovernmental organisations, think-tanks and government agencies. This brief provide the reader an overview of the critical issues. It also includes 13 frontline reports from IRIN journalists, interviews with experts in the field and those who have directly experienced the human impact of small arms, and links to further information. (IRIN, May 2006)
http://www.irinnews.org/webspecials/small-arms/default.asp
(Added: Thu Aug 17 2006 Modified: Fri Sep 29 2006 Hits: 150)
- He gets guns to play song of peace
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Guns for peace may sound like an oxymoron, but Colombian Cesar Lopez has a vision. Why not transform a tool of war into an instrument for peace? So was born the "escopetarra" - a combination of the words for rifle (escopeta) and guitar (guitarra) - a symbol of civilization overcoming destruction. (The Boston Globe, June 11, 2006)
(Added: Thu Jun 15 2006 Modified: Thu Jan 18 2007 Hits: 187)
- Holding up development: The effects of small arms and light weapons in developing countries
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(id21) This special feature by Robert Muggah considers some of the relationships between small arms misuse and development - and what the development community is, or isn't, doing about it.
http://www.id21.org/id21-media/arms.html
(Added: Wed Jul 09 2003 Modified: Tue Dec 06 2005 Hits: 285)
- IANSA Report: Implementing the Programme of Action 2003 (PDF)
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International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA), 2003. A new IANSA report published on Monday July 6th finds that two years after a UN agreement on stopping gun proliferation, few governments have made much progress. The report comes as member states meet in New York to review progress towards implementing the UN Programme of Action to combat illicit trafficking in small arms.
http://www.iansa.org/documents/03poareport/index.htm
(Added: Mon Jul 14 2003 Modified: Tue Dec 06 2005 Hits: 244)
- In the Line of Fire: Surveying the Perceptions of Humanitarian and Development Personnel of the Impacts of Small Arms and Light Weapons, (PDF)
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By Ryan Beasley, Cate Buchanan and Robert Muggah, Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, 2003. Though not a new revelation, the study confirms that civilians are frequently the victims of small arms use and abuse, and that most staff feel personally threatened by small arms on a regular basis. According to these workers, humanitarian and devel-opment interventions are also adversely affected by the prevalence and misuse of small arms. The study also finds that irrespective of the security context, responding personnel overwhelmingly report a large number of groups to be in possession of weapons.
http://www.hdcentre.org/datastore/ILOFeng.pdf
(Added: Wed Nov 17 2004 Modified: Tue Dec 06 2005 Hits: 240)
- International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA)
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An international network of over 340 organisations from 71 countries working to prevent the proliferation and misuse of small arms and light weapons. It was set up in 1998 at an international NGO meeting in Orillia in Canada and was officially launched at the Hague Appeal for Peace in the Netherlands in May 1999. The network helps co-ordinate activities and campaigning by bringing together a wide range of organisations such as human rights groups, relief and development agencies, gun control groups, religious and public health groups. IANSA also provides a framework within which organisations can support and learn from each other.
http://www.iansa.org/index.htm
(Added: Sat Feb 09 2002 Modified: Tue Dec 06 2005 Hits: 357)
- New Zealand to Co-Sponsor UN Resolution on Arms Trade Treaty
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New Zealand will co-sponsor a new United Nations resolution led by the United Kingdom, backing the establishment of a treaty to regulate trading in conventional arms. Conventional arms are used every day in conflicts around the world, exacting large-scale suffering - taking hundreds of thousands lives a year - and violating human rights and international humanitarian law. (Phil Goff, Beehive, 28 November 2006)
http://www.beehive.govt.nz/ViewDocument.aspx?DocumentID=27243
(Added: Fri Sep 29 2006 Hits: 188)
- No Relief: Surveying the Effects of Gun Violence on Humanitarian and Development Personnel (PDF
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By Cate Buchanan and Robert Muggah. 2005. Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue and the Small Arms Survey. This report is based on interviews with more than 2,000 people working for 17 agencies in nearly 100 countries. Some 100 aid workers deployed by the United Nations and other agencies died between July 2003 and July 2004 and their deaths were described as violent. Almost one in five participants in the survey reported having been involved in a security incident ranging from assault to kidnapping to sexual violence in the previous six months. The occupied Palestinian territories, Uganda and Iraq appear to be "the most dangerous places to work. It urged governments to clamp down on handguns and other small weapons, which are rife in hotspots such as Afghanistan, Iraq and Nepal. The report called on donors and agencies to "quickly adopt concrete measures to better protect their staff".
(Added: Thu Jun 30 2005 Modified: Thu Nov 30 2006 Hits: 216)
- Organising civil society campaigns for small arms action: a manual for NGOs
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This manual highlights how disarmament issues have traditionally been focused almost exclusively on state actors and governmental organs, whereas civil society action has often been ignored. Using a clear, descriptive language, it provides concrete steps on how to organise campaigns for small arms action. (Bonn International Center for Conversion, 2005)
(Added: Tue Oct 03 2006 Hits: 171)
- Shattered Lives: The Case for Tough International Arms Control
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The uncontrolled proliferation and misuse of arms by government forces and armed groups takes a massive human toll in lost lives, lost livelihoods, and lost opportunities to escape poverty. The five permanent members of the UN Security Council - France, Russia, China, the UK, and the USA - together account for 88 per cent of the world's conventional arms exports; and these exports contribute regularly to gross abuses of human rights. In this report Amnesty International and Oxfam propose urgent and interlinked action, from community level to international level, to control the proliferation and misuse of arms more effectively. (2003)
http://www.controlarms.org/downloads/shattered_lives.htm
(Added: Fri Jun 16 2006 Hits: 181)
- Silencing Guns: Local Perspectives on Small Arms and Armed Violence in Rural Pacific Islands Communities (807 KB)
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Small Arms Survey 2005. Edited by Emile LeBrun and Robert Muggah. This pilot study documents the perspectives of rural communities regarding the effects of small arms. It generates some important insights which could also be relevant to policy-making into how insecurity is seen and experienced in three Pacific regions: the Southern Highlands of mainland Papua New Guinea (PNG), Bougainville PNG, and the Solomon Islands. Insecurity is examined here in the context of existing inter-tribal conflicts (in the Southern Highlands) and in relation to the challenges of post-conflict reconstruction and development efforts (in Bougainville and the Solomon Islands). Although each context is unique, small arms availability remains a cause for concern in these Pacific regions.
http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/files/sas/publications/o_papers_pdf/2005-op15-pacific_islands.pdf
(Added: Wed Aug 17 2005 Modified: Thu Nov 30 2006 Hits: 249)
- Small Arms in the Pacific (pdf)
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The Small Arms Survey, occasional paper No. March 2003. Authors Philip Alpers and Conor Twyford. This study examines a wide range of small arms-related issues in 20 nations of the southern Pacific. It investigates the status of existing firearm legislation, the extent of legal stockpiles and illicit trade, and the socio-economic impacts of armed conflict on Pacific communities. Case histories examine more closely the disarmament process in Bougainville and the Solomon Islands, along with the widespread disruption wrought with small arms in Fiji and Papua New Guinea. Current initiatives to combat small arms trafficking in the region are also examined.
http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/files/sas/publications/year_b_pdf/2004/2004SASCh9_summary_en.pdf
(Added: Thu Jun 26 2003 Modified: Thu Nov 30 2006 Hits: 451)
