Definitions and statistics

What are small arms and light weapons?

Although there is no universally accepted classification of these weapons, a report by a UN panel of experts in 1997 contained the most commonly used definition. Light weapons is a generic term which is used to cover a range of weapons portable by man, animal, or machine – from revolvers and machine guns to anti-tank and anti-aircraft missile systems. Small arms are a sub-set of the category of light weapons which includes only those weapons that can be fired, maintained, and transported by one person. In this handbook, small arms, light weapons, firearms, and weapons are generally referred to as SALW. Furthermore, unless the context dictates otherwise, no distinction is made between commercial firearms (such as hunting rifles) and small arms and light weapons designed for military use (such as assault rifles).

How many small arms are there?

According to the Small Arms Survey (Counting the Human Cost, 2002), there are estimated to be 639 million small arms and light weapons (SALW) currently in circulation around the world. Perhaps surprisingly, civilian possession accounts for almost two thirds of the global total, with at least 378 million firearms in private hands.

What are SALW transfers?

The definition of an arms transfer is relatively simple. A transfer is the reallocation of small arms from the possession of one actor to another. There are always at least two principal actors involved in any transfer, namely the originator and the recipient. These actors can be individuals, groups such as companies or armed opposition groups, criminal organisations, or States. However, other actors, such as arms brokering and transportation agents, are also often involved in facilitating transfers.

In general there are three main types of small-arms transfer:

• 'Legal' transfers: These occur with either the active or passive involvement of governments or their authorised agents, and in accordance with both national and international law. However, where the end use of the weapons transfers is in contravention of national and/or international law, then the transfer becomes illicit.

• 'Illegal' transfers: These are in clear violation of national and/or international laws such as United Nations arms embargoes. Without official government consent or control, these transfers may involve false or forged paperwork, or corrupt government officials acting on their own for personal gain.

• 'Grey-market' transfers: These are often the most problematic to define, because they are neither unarguably legal nor clearly illegal but may contain elements of both definitions. For example, a transfer of weapons that eventually reaches a destination covered by a UN arms embargo may have started its journey as part of a legal State-sanctioned deal, but it has been diverted from its stated destination during the export stage. Grey-market transfers often involve governments, their agents, or individuals exploiting loopholes or unintentionally circumventing national controls.

Some have sought to define such transactions as 'illicit', although there is no international legal definition of the term. However, international consensus is starting to emerge on this issue. For example, the UN Conference on Disarmament has itself put forward a wider definition of the illicit trade in conventional arms, which includes 'that international trade in conventional arms, which is contrary to the laws of states and/or international law'. Many non-government organisations (NGOs) have argued that those weapons that are transferred and used in violation of international legal norms should also be considered illicit.

Although certain governments believe that international action on the proliferation and misuse of small arms should be restricted solely to combating the illicit trade, without consideration of the State-sanctioned trade, many in the international community believe that this narrow approach is insufficient for tackling the problem, for two reasons. Firstly, numerous studies have shown that arms from State-sanctioned transfers (or the 'legal' trade) have been diverted into illicit markets, fuelling crime, terrorism, and the trafficking of illegal drugs. In order to effectively combat the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons, it is also important to implement strategies to control the State-sanctioned trade.

Secondly, although some governments have defined the illicit trade as covering only those transfers that were not sanctioned by the exporting or recipient State, many governments and civil-society actors believe that this definition is too narrow, since it does not take into account the legality of the ultimate use of the weapons.

Indeed, years of research by NGOs and the UN have shown that some small arms and light weapons legally exported by States have ultimately been used to violate international law, through their use in violations of human rights, and breaches of international humanitarian law, by fuelling conflict and violent crime, and undermining democratic governments.

The differing interpretations of the definition of the illicit small-arms trade came to a head as the international community began to make preparations to deal with small arms at the global level for the first time, at the UN Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects in 2001. In an attempt to reconcile these differing interpretations, the international community agreed that the conference would seek to 'prevent, combat and eradicate the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons in all its aspects'.

The effects of small arms and light weapons

Small arms are used to kill and injure civilians and combatants alike. They are used in the commission of rape and other forms of sexual violence, to harass and intimidate, and to perpetrate other violent crimes; and they undermine the effects of post-conflict reconstruction and development. The problem of small-arms proliferation and misuse manifests itself in different ways in different places, and the causes and effects of this problem sometimes differ, depending on the context in which they are used.

Small arms facilitating conflict, human-rights abuses, and breaches of international humanitarian law

The growing availability of small arms has been associated with the increased incidence of internal conflicts. While accumulations of small arms may not alone create the conflicts in which they are used, their availability intensifies conflicts by increasing the lethality and duration of violence, and by increasing the sense of insecurity which leads to a greater demand for weapons. Some commentators consider the easy availability of small arms to be a 'proximate cause' of armed conflict, transforming a potentially violent situation into a full-scale conflict. While small arms are frequently associated with armed conflict, arms-related violations occur in many other contexts. These violations are especially prevalent as a result of post-conflict insecurity, crime and banditry, and the militarisation of refugee camps and camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs).

The presence of small arms aggravates patterns of forced displacement. With AK-47S in hand, for instance, bandits and criminals who in the past may have carried out livestock raids and looting in pastoral communities have resorted to increased levels of violence, including the use of systematic rape and killing, to drive people from their homes and communities. Not only are communities displaced by such violence directly threatened with death and injury, but the ongoing threat of violence from the availability of weapons obstructs their access to food, shelter, health care, education, and other basic services.

Indeed, the militarisation of refugee and IDP camps has become a serious problem for the international community. 'Safe havens' created to aid victims of war have instead become breeding grounds for armed groups. The insecurity in the camps may pose a threat to regional stability, as camps become marketplaces for arms that fuel civil wars, crime, and terrorism.

Civilians have become the deliberate targets of violence involving small arms during armed conflict. Such violence against civilians and non-combatants in situations of armed conflict is completely at odds with internationally recognised legal protections granted to non-combatants under international human-rights conventions and humanitarian law. Despite these legal protections, a disproportionately high percentage of small-arms casualties in war-time are civilians. A study in Croatia, for instance, determined that civilian deaths may have accounted for up to 64 per cent of the 4,339 fatalities surveyed during the war in 1991-92. Another study reported that at least 34 per cent of patients in field hospitals established by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Afghanistan, Rwanda, Chechnya, and the border regions of Kenya and Cambodia were civilians wounded by bullets. Surveys carried out in Sierra Leone showed that almost 60 per cent of all war injuries were gunshot-related, that 11 per cent of all victims were under the age of 15, and that 43 per cent were women.

Due to their increasing availability, small arms play a critical role in many abuses against personal dignity. Small arms are used to perpetrate an entire range of human-rights abuses, including rape, enforced disappearance, torture, forced displacement, and forced recruitment of children soldiers. Even in genocidal conflicts, where people have been hacked to death with machetes or other non-ballistic instruments, the victims are often initially rounded up with firearms. Heavily armed individuals create an environment in which atrocities can be committed at will by various other means. An increase in expenditure on SALW by governments in response to deteriorating security conditions may divert scarce resources away from expenditure on health care, education, and other support for economic, social, and cultural rights.

Children, especially, are victims of human-rights violations that result from the availability and misuse of small arms. UNICEF estimates that two million children were killed in armed conflict in the 1990s, many by small arms and light weapons. An estimated 300,000 children under the age of 18 are exploited as soldiers in armed conflicts. The simplicity of use of small arms turns even young children into deadly killers. A 19-year-old soldier in northern Uganda testified: 'I especially know how to use an AK-47 twelve-inch, which I could dismantle in less than one minute. When I turned 12 they gave me an RPG (Rocket Propelled Grenade), because I had proved myself in battle.'

Besides being killed and injured by firearms, children are often affected by the secondary costs of armed violence, including malnutrition, disease, and preventable illness.

Violence involving small arms has also had a devastating impact on the humanitarian aid community. Humanitarian workers, including UN civilian staff members, are increasingly at risk as targets of firearms-related violence including killings, hostage-taking, sexual assault, armed robbery, and arbitrary arrest and detention. The UN reported that 185 civilian staff members died between 1992 and 2000, most from firearms-related violence. Under threat of violence from armed militias, humanitarian agencies are often forced to surrender goods and materials that were intended for aid operations. Increasing threats to staff members have resulted in an increased focus on human security in UN field operations.

The UN Conference to Prevent, Combat and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All its Aspects was the first occasion when the international community came together to discuss the global crisis caused by the proliferation and misuse of these weapons. However, one major failing of the conference was the inadequate consideration given to the impact of SALW on human rights and international humanitarian law. Despite this, these two important topics are now being given increasing attention by governments, NGOs, intergovemment organisations, and UN agencies and structures. The devastating role of SALW in perpetrating human-rights abuses and breaches of international humanitarian law is highlighted in the following testimony from Afghanistan.

'First they [Taleban fighters] rounded up the people in the streets. They then went from house to house and arrested the men of the families, except for the very old men. Nothing could stop them, and they did not spare any of the houses. In one house, the mother of a young man whom the Taleban were taking away held on to him, saying she would not allow him to go away without her. The Taleban began to hit the woman brutally with their rifle butts. She died. They took away the son and shot him dead. They were our neighbours. When they arrested the people, they tied their hands behind their back and took them away. They took them to areas behind Bazar Kona and fired at them. They executed a lot of people.'

Small-arms controls and the 'War on Terrorism'

Extensive evidence gathered by law-enforcement agencies, journalists, NGOs, and the UN has shown how weaknesses in national, regional, and international arms controls have been exploited by arms brokers and irresponsible governments to facilitate the transfer of arms, including SALW, to criminals, human-rights violators, and terrorists.

Since the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in the USA on n September 2001, many arms-control experts have called for stricter controls on small-arms transfers as a crucial element in the international community's strategy to combat al-Qa'eda and other terrorist organisations. States should now be strengthening SALW controls and providing greater resources for their enforcement. Although certain initiatives in this regard have been taken, a number of leading arms-exporting States are actually relaxing controls on sales of arms to other State and non-State actors. This can be seen with regard to US policy.

According to NGO analysts, since n September 2001 the US government has requested nearly $3.8 billion in security assistance and related aid for 67 countries allegedly involved in some way in the 'War on Terrorism'. Of the countries currently selected to receive US military aid, 32 were named in the US State Department's 2000 human-rights report as having human-rights records that were 'poor' or worse.

The examples in the boxes illustrate clearly the dangers of supplying arms to government and non-government actors who have little regard for human rights and international humanitarian law. While the potential for such arms to be used to commit serious violations is clear, supplier governments are often powerless to prevent the resale of arms by unscrupulous regimes and insurgent groups to terrorists and others who pose a serious risk to international peace and security.

Small arms and cultures of violence

The proliferation and increasing availability of small arms and light weapons in many regions of the world encourage and perpetuate so-called 'cultures of violence', whereby traditional mechanisms of conflict resolution are eroded and the use of guns emerges as a norm within society. This is particularly the case in post-conflict States, where weapons remain in circulation and State security is weak or absent, leading to a reliance on weapons as a means of self-defence, with resultant increases in violence at the community level and a further erosion of human security.

Cultures of violence may also emerge in polarised societies where certain groups use violence as a consequence of, or reaction to, their oppression and marginalisation. The gang culture that exists in areas of the United States and Brazil, for example, represents a social context within which the use of violence is endemic, and where guns may come to be seen as a symbol of power and masculinity, a perception strengthened by the glamorous portrayal of guns in the media. This further polarises power relations among races, classes, and sexes and creates a demand for weapons that is met both legally and illicitly.