Abstract
Genocidal violence has plagued Central Africa in this decade. Here, in July 1994, Zairean soldiers pick up weapons abandoned by defeated Rwandan troops at a border crossing in Goma, Zaire.
The signing of the Ottawa Convention in December 1997 was a public triumph for the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. The Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines, and on their Destruction was signed by 123 countries and has since been ratified by over 40.
Many observers believe the campaign forged a new role for nongovernmental organizations (NGOs)–demonstrating how they could mobilize international public opinion and push governments into making progress previously regarded as impossible. The campaign was also remarkably effective at capturing the hearts and minds of the general public and stimulating popular action.
The land mines campaign forged a new relationship between “like-minded” nongovernmental and governmental actors in pursuit of a common goal. The campaign not only began a process to rid the world of this weapon, it also provided the foundation for future consultation and cooperation between governments and nongovernmental groups, as well as an appreciation that common ground existed.
The success of this grassroots campaign in convincing governments to renounce a deadly weapon encouraged the NGO sector to tackle other issues of comparable concern. For years NGOs have worked in societies afflicted by both land mines and the widespread availability of light weapons. The extent of the damage caused by the proliferation and unlawful use of light weapons–an estimated 90 percent of fatalities in conflicts since 1990 have been among non-combatants–made this issue a major concern for NGOs working on development, humanitarian relief, human rights, and peace and security. The potential of the light weapons issue to galvanize a diverse range of interests in pursuit of common goals marks a key similarity with the land mines campaign.
But in spite of the enthusiasm among the NGO community for an initiative on light weapons, there was a recognition from the outset that the problem of light weapons proliferation was in some ways even more intractable than that of land mines. Two basic facts make a simple “ban light weapons” campaign impossible: first, the fact that civilian ownership of small arms–handguns, rifles, shotguns, and so on–is legal in countries throughout the world means that the need for controls on these weapons is not universally accepted; second, few would argue that light weapons do not have legitimate uses under some circumstances–for example, when carried by forces engaged in peacekeeping operations. To be effective, a campaign to counter the proliferation of small arms needed objectives with greater nuance.
Government initiatives
The desire to address the problem of light weapons proliferation has not been confined to nongovernmental circles. Before the Ottawa Convention, a number of governments gave clear indications that they saw tackling light weapons proliferation as a major priority on the domestic and international fronts. The European Union (EU) Programme for Preventing and Combating Illicit Trafficking in Conventional Arms was launched in July 1997 with the support of its 15 member states. Although the EU program sought to address illicit trafficking in all types of arms, it specifically cites the relevance of measures for addressing the problem of small arms. At the same time, the Organization of American States Convention on the Illicit Manufacture and Trade in Firearms of November 1997 secured the support of the United States, which had not been supportive of the objectives of the land mines campaign.
More recently there has been a flurry of government initiatives seeking to address the light weapons problem. In June 1998, EU countries agreed to a Code of Conduct on arms exports; in July a meeting of “like-minded” states organized in Oslo by the Norwegian government agreed to “Elements of a Common Understanding.” Three months later at a major international conference–“Sustainable Disarmament for Sustainable Development”–organized by the Belgian government, 98 governments issued a “Brussels Call for Action” on light weapons.
In addition, various initiatives have been developed within the United Nations framework. These have included the German-sponsored resolution on “Practical Disarmament Measures,” efforts by the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice to develop a legally binding convention to combat firearms trafficking, and the report of the U.N. Panel of Experts on Small Arms and follow-on Group of Experts.
These government initiatives have undoubtedly resulted from the mounting pressure and concern from civil society and non-government groups, but there is a real concern within NGO circles that the governmental approach is likely to remain piecemeal, not least because so many states are significant producers and exporters of arms, both light and heavy.
An independent agenda is required to challenge the limits of international action and to ensure that those measures which are advocated by governments are viewed objectively. This is particularly true of government initiatives to tackle only the illicit trade in small arms. Although the illicit trade is a significant part of the problem–particularly within regions of conflict–many in the NGO community insist that greater effort must be made to control “legal” sales of light weapons, which continually add to the vast quantities of light weapons in circulation around the globe.
Many governments see restrictions on the legal trade–whether government-to-government, business-to-government, or private civilian sales–as compromising their ability to make foreign policy, as well as possibly costing jobs. For the United States, sales and direct transfers of light weapons to allies are a major foreign policy tool, and a significant source of foreign exchange. Additionally, well connected arms manufacturers in the United States, Russia, France, and Britain, to mention only a few, are strongly resistant to the strengthening of controls in an increasingly competitive global market. Further complicating matters for backers of the light weapons campaign are politically powerful groups like the National Rifle Association of America, which has opposed controls on weapons possession both in the United States and abroad. [See “The NRA Goes Global,” page 61.]
Getting into gear
A light weapons campaign must also account for the relationship between North and South. Land mines were seen by most as a problem affecting only developing countries–there are no minefields plaguing the EU or United States. But a truly effective light weapons campaign cannot simply be seen as a way of “disarming the Third World.” A global campaign will require norms to be equally applicable to the northern countries that are often the point of origin for M-16s, AK-47s, and other small arms and that have fostered their own cultures of violence.
In order to urge governments to go further, a series of regional NGO meetings to discuss the development of an international campaign on light weapons was held at the end of 1997 and the beginning of 1998. Each of the meetings–held in the United States, Britain, Norway, and South Africa–recognized that coordinated action on small arms would require a more complex mix of strategies than that of the land mine campaign. The encompassing aim for the international campaign which arose from these meetings was “preventing proliferation and unlawful use of light weapons.”
These regional meetings coincided with a number of other significant developments including PrepCom (the Preparatory Committee for an International Campaign on Light Weapons), established at the Monterey Institute of International Studies in January 1998 (www.prepcom.org). The purpose of this initiative is to allow NGOs and individuals who are interested in the development of an international campaign on light weapons to exchange ideas and access information on the spread and misuse of light weapons. PrepCom now has more than 150 members and provides information on meetings, seminars, publications, and other activities related to tackling light weapons. At the outset, however, PrepCom founder Ed Laurance asserted that there would need to be a physical meeting of groups and individuals to develop the light weapons campaign and that the key role for PrepCom would be facilitating the preparatory work for such a meeting.
To try and give some cohesion and international momentum to these initiatives, NGOs in Europe and North America began to look for opportunities to build an international consensus on the scope and direction of a light weapons campaign. At a planning meeting in London in February 1998, an upcoming conference in Belgium was targeted as a way to jump-start the campaign. The “Sustainable Disarmament for Sustainable Development” conference, held in October in Brussels, was attended by representatives from more than a hundred NGOs from around the world.
At the same time, parallel moves to sustain the momentum behind NGO efforts on the light weapons issue were also under way in North America. This culminated in the decision to host a preparatory forum for discussion of ways forward on the international light weapons campaign in advance of the October meeting, with the intention of helping to ensure that the Brussels meeting provided concrete campaign steps.
The first international meeting was held in Canada in August 1998, and hosted by Project Ploughshares. The 33 NGOs from 18 countries from North and South who attended the meeting produced short papers proposing a focus for, and elements of, an international campaign on light weapons. A consensus developed around the need, not for one campaign, but rather for a network of campaigns under the umbrella of an International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA).
The network aims to tackle the complex nature of the light weapons issue by examining both the supply and the demand side of the problem. Efforts to control the legal trade in light weapons and to combat illicit transfers will thus be complemented by initiatives to tackle cultures of violence and to remove weapons from post-conflict societies. Communicating NGO concerns–the voice from the ground–to governments, and supporting grassroots initiatives will both be key elements of the IANSA strategy.
A preliminary structure for IANSA, developed at the Toronto meeting, includes a “Continuations Committee” which is managing the development of the IANSA network and the drafting of the founding document; a “Reference Group” of founding IANSA members; a “Facilitating Committee” which will take over responsibility from the Continuations Committee in the week-to-week management of the network; and a Secretariat which will be established to help provide services for network members.
The October 14 meeting–hosted by an EU coalition of NGOs (Amnesty International, British American Security Information Council, GRIP, International Alert, Oxfam, Pax Christi, and Saferworld)–was attended by more than 160 NGOs representing all regions of the world. In his plenary speech, Olara Otunnu, the U.N. Secretary General's Special Representative for Children in Armed Conflict, declared: “Small arms are causing misery and destruction all over the world. They are the weapon of choice in modern war where the majority of casualties are civilians, many of them women and children. This is the world upside down. The development of an International Action Network on Small Arms is an important initiative towards tackling one of the greatest humanitarian challenges of our times.”
The way ahead
The sense of common purpose generated by the October meeting must now be sustained and harnessed to ensure that IANSA can build support among the public and achieve movement by governments on measures to limit the supply and reduce the demand for light weapons. The process of developing IANSA continues, and a launch is expected in the spring of 1999. Immediate priorities include the finalizing of the IANSA Founding Document and the identification of initial campaign themes and priority areas for IANSA members in the first year.
Possible themes include a push for greater transparency in the arms trade, codes of conduct on arms exports, the destruction of surplus weapons in post-conflict societies, and efforts to address the wider justice and development issues that drive the demand for light weapons.
The key to the success of IANSA, in the medium and long term, will undoubtedly rest on two challenges: First, whether NGOs in the affluent North can engage, mobilize, and sustain the involvement of NGOs in the South whose daily experiences with the destruction caused by light weapons are most relevant to the aims and objectives of the campaign network; second, whether the unprecedented public support for the land mine campaign can be harnessed to tackle the scourge of that other deadly killer–small arms.