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Business and Human Rights: a resource website |
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Arms/weapons industry |
See also sections of this website entitled:
| NEW (recent additions to this section; top item is most recent addition) |
| Congress plans to aid gun makers [USA] -...Congressional Republicans have renewed their efforts to pass a bill that will grant gun companies immunity from prosecution in the courts...The legislation seeks to prevent victims of handgun violence from suing gun makers for not adding safety features to guns and for making their distribution too easy. (Steve Schifferes, BBC News, 4 Apr. 2003) |
International standards & codes of conduct:
Arms Transfers Codes of Conduct (Federation of American Scientists: Arms Sales Monitoring Project)
European Union Code of Conduct on Arms Exports
FIREARMS: [UN] General Assembly Adopts Protocol To Crime Convention [providing that the illicit manufacturing and trafficking of firearms, weapons parts and ammunition is a criminal act] (UN Wire, 1 June 2001)
International Code of Conduct on Arms Transfers
U.S. Arms Transfer Code of Conduct
Websites:
Arms Trade -- a major cause of suffering (Anup Shah, Global Issues)
Arms Trade and the Protection of Human Rights: Human Rights Watch Reports (Human Rights Watch)
Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade (COAT) [Canada]
Control the Weapons Trade (Project Ploughshares) [Canada]
Conventional Arms Transfer Project (Council for a Livable World Education Fund)
Federation of American Scientists: Arms Sales Monitoring Project
Human Rights Watch:
Industry Watch: Defense (Washington Post)
International Campaign to Ban Landmines
Small Arms and Light Weapons [including information about UN conferences on arms trade] (Global Policy Forum)
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI)
U.S. Arms Trade and Human Rights Abuses (Foreign Policy in Focus)
2003:
Congress plans to aid gun makers [USA] -...Congressional Republicans have renewed their efforts to pass a bill that will grant gun companies immunity from prosecution in the courts...The legislation seeks to prevent victims of handgun violence from suing gun makers for not adding safety features to guns and for making their distribution too easy. (Steve Schifferes, BBC News, 4 Apr. 2003)
Regulating weapons deals: The case for European Controls on arms brokers (Oxfam, Feb. 2003)
2002:
Making a Killing: The Business of War [11-part series] (Center for Public Integrity’s International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, 11-part series, chapter 11 issued 20 Nov. 2002, other chapters issued earlier)
chapter 11 of "The Business of War": The Merchant of Death [regarding arms dealer Victor Bout; refers to Angola, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Afghanistan] (Center for Public Integrity’s International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, 20 Nov. 2002)
Campaigners attack “meddling” with arms laws [UK] - A new law to stop British weapons fuelling misery around the world will be dangerously weakened if government ministers can change the rules at will, arms campaigners warned today [regarding Export Control Bill] (Amnesty International, BASIC, Christian Aid, International Alert, Oxfam, Saferworld, 22 July 2002)
Show the G8 the red card - G8's uncontrolled trade in arms and military aid undermines fundamental human rights -...too often, by exporting military and security equipment, the G8 are contributing to human rights abuses and undermining the prospects for social and economic development around the world. (Amnesty International, June 2002)
The question of the trade, carrying and use of small arms and light weapons in the context of human rights and humanitarian norms - Working paper submitted by Ms. Barbara Frey (Barbara Frey, document for U.N. Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights, 30 May 2002)
Saving Sudan -...But the great wild card is oil, which Sudan began exporting three years ago. The oil allows the government to shop for weapons in Moscow and drives it to massacre southern villagers around the oil fields on the theory that they may harbor rebels...For all the logic of peace, oil makes the logic of war even more compelling. (Sebastian Mallaby, Washington Post, 27 May 2002)
Globalization & Militarization - A national security exception protects countries’ subsidies for military production from international trade rules...By favoring arms sales over other forms of trade, the security exception fuels armed conflict. [includes discussion of U.S. policy on arms trade] (John Feffer, Foreign Policy in Focus, Feb. 2002)
Shining a Light on Small Arms Exports: The Record of State Transparency (Norwegian Initiative on Small Arms Transfers, Jan. 2002)
2001:
Oxford Business School funded by arms broker (Pippa Gallop, Corporate Watch [UK], 9 Nov. 2001)
Hermes denies supplying weapons to Sudan: Slovak arms exporter Hermes has never had dealings in Sudan, the company's director, Dusan Herda, told TASR news agency on Wednesday. He was responding to an article published in German daily Handelsblatt on Monday. It was alleged that Hermes, based in Dubnica nad Vahom near Trencin, in 1998 rerouted an export of explosives bound for Chad, to Sudan, a country subject to US and European Union sanctions and suspected of being a base for Usamah Bin-Ladin's terrorist network. Herda says Hermes had a licence to export the explosives to Chad but delivered the goods to the customer at Bratislava airport. "Our obligations towards the customer ended by the act of handing over the goods at the airport. We do not know anything about the alleged transport," he said. Herda would not specify which African countries Hermes has traded with since 1998, saying it was a business secret, but he stressed that all dealings have been in compliance with the law. (TASR-Slovakia [News Agency of Slovak Republic], 24 Oct. 2001)
Russia republic, Sudan seek deals on arms, oil - New wealth could tip long African civil war:...A delegation led by the Sudanese external trade minister, Abdel Hamid Mussa Kasha, was in the autonomous Volga River republic of Tatarstan over the weekend, talking oil with the Tatneft company and checking out Mi-17 helicopters, optical sighting devices, trucks and passenger planes...Sudan has extensive oil fields, which happen to lie on the front lines between the northern and southern forces. One joint venture has already gone to work there, a consortium of three companies: Talisman of Canada, Petronas of Malaysia and the China National Petroleum Corp. Since pumping began in August, the consortium has been producing about 220,000 barrels a day -- not much by international standards, but enough to double Sudan's military spending. That, plus the lure of a lot more oil, has caught the attention of the authorities in Tatarstan...One factor that has kept Sudan from crushing its rebels has been the country's extreme poverty. There were reports that crewmen tossed bombs out of planes by hand, without much expectation of accuracy. But the prospect of oil money could tip the balance; what was once a fight over the attempted Islamization of the largely Christian south has now become a fight over access to oil fields. With precision optical sights from the Kazan Optic Mechanical Factory, the advantage could soon lie with the Arabic north. (Will Englund, SunSpot [Maryland, USA], 23 Oct. 2001)
LANDMINES: Parties To Worldwide Ban Meet To Assess Progress (UN Wire, 19 Sep. 2001)
Report Details Positive Results on Landmine Ban, Despite Instances of Continued Use: The Nobel Peace Prize-winning International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) today released its third annual report on the global landmine situation, detailing substantial results in implementation of the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty and instances of continued use of the weapon. (International Campaign to Ban Landmines, 12 Sep. 2001)
Increasing Agreement To Ban Land Mines: More and more nations are signing on to the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty, according to the just-released third annual report of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) but continuing regional conflicts keep mines in use in parts of Africa. (Charles Cobb Jr., allAfrica.com, 11 Sep. 2001)
Preparing to Fight the Illicit Trade in Small Arms: More than 40 police and military personnel from Ghana, Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone took part in Freetown in the first training of trainers course on the control of small arms in West Africa. (UN Integrated Regional Information Network, 5 Sep. 2001)
Human rights anger over arms fair invitations [UK]: The government was sharply attacked yesterday for hosting a large arms fair and inviting countries with poor human rights records. (Richard Norton-Taylor, Guardian [UK], 1 Sep. 2001)
UN small arms conference: The first-ever UN Conference on Small Arms gave world leaders an historic opportunity to take action against the illicit arms trade. To their shame, they wasted it. (Jane Ramsey, in Oxfam Campaigner, Sep. 2001)
No surprise, 2000 was another record year for arms merchants: ...while critics were busily blaming Washington for torpedoing the recent UN talks aimed at curbing an expanding trade in easily portable weapons like pistols and submachineguns, unmentioned or forgotten were the contributions that every single one of the permanent members of the UN Security Council was making to the global proliferation of armaments of all sorts. (Michael Littlejohns, Earth Times News Service, 21 Aug. 2001)
U.S. "Supplier of Choice" for Weapons Sales: The United States remained the world’s leading arms merchant in 2000, with almost $18.6 billion in sales, according to a new report from the Congressional Research Service. Almost 70% of U.S. weapons were sold to the developing world. (World Policy Institute, 20 Aug. 2001)
UN Conference on Small Arms Achieves Mixed Results (World Policy Institute, 17 Aug. 2001)
UN Conference on Small Arms on the brink of failure: Since the beginning of the conference on 9 July, an estimated 25,000 people worldwide will have been killed by small arms. But as negotiations enter their final hours there is no prospect of agreement on concrete steps to stop the slaughter. (Amnesty International and Oxfam International, 20 July 2001)
Criticism as overseas arms sales rise to $2.4bn: The value of Britain's arms sales overseas increased last year to £1.7bn ($2.4bn), sparking criticism of the government for allowing weapons sales to countries embroiled in conflicts and to states with poor human rights records. The Department of Trade and Industry approved licences for military exports to Angola, Colombia and Sri Lanka, which have internal conflicts. It also granted licences for Bahrain, Indonesia and Turkey, which have been criticised over their human rights records. (Andrew Parker, Financial Times, 20 July 2001)
European Timber Trader Linked with Liberian Arms Trafficking: In an open letter sent to the DLH Group today in Denmark, environmental and human rights organizations called upon the company’s Chief Executive Officer to stop dealing with Liberian logging companies implicated by the United Nations in arms trafficking. (Greenpeace/Nepenthes/Global Witness, 16 July 2001)
'Uganda Major Point in Arms Trafficking': Uganda has been described as one of the major illicit arms trafficking centres for east, central and west Africa. According to a US government report on African arms transfers and trafficking released July 9, other countries identified as major trans-shipment points for illicit arms include Tanzania, Kenya and Burkina Faso. (Solomon Muyita, New Vision [Kampala], 15 July 2001)
SMALL ARMS: Different Approaches Advocated At UN Conference (UN Wire, 13 July 2001)
Plea for small arms curbs: A United Nations conference has heard an impassioned plea for weapons-producing countries to prevent light weapons falling into the hands of children. General Romeo Dallaire General Romeo Dallaire - Canada's representative at the conference on the small arms trade - said that child soldiers were becoming the dominant factors in wars in the developing world. (BBC News, 12 July 2001)
The Big Swoop On Small Arms: Unprecedented international attention is now being focused on the need to tackle the proliferation of small arms and light weapons. (Selby Makgotho, The Sowetan [Johannesburg], 11 July 2001)
Small Wars, Small Arms, Big Graft (Howard LaFranchi, Christian Science Monitor, 10 July 2001)
Global Effort to Stem Flood of Small Arms (U.N. Secretary-General Kofi A. Annan, in International Herald Tribune, 10 July 2001)
United Nations Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects - New York, 9-20 July, 2001 (United Nations)
Press Statement - U.N. Conference on Small Arms Trafficking, New York (Human Rights Watch, 9 July 2001)
Bush resists UN efforts to curb small firearms: The Bush administration rejected United Nations proposals to curb the illegal trade in small arms on Monday, saying the UN measures would restrict the legal use and manufacture of firearms. (Richard Wolffe and Andrew Parker, Financial Times, 9 July 2001)
Africa in the firing line: The United Nations is this week looking into how to limit the sale of small arms to Africa - and it comes not before time. A UN State Department document on arms proliferation in Africa is blunt: "It is far easier to buy a gun in Africa than to go to the movies, get a decent meal or a book." (Josephine Hazeley, BBC News, 9 July 2001)
The international dealers in death: The world is awash with guns - at least 550 million of them. An endless cheap supply of small arms has spawned an epidemic of killing. In a three-part series, Guardian writers hunt down the dealers, talk to the victims and ask what can be done to stop the trade. (Ian Traynor, Guardian [UK], 9 July 2001)
Small arms seen as the real mass killers: Small arms and light weapons kill half a million people a year, making them the world's "real weapons of mass destruction", according to an independent study published yesterday, before a United Nations conference in New York next week. (Frances Williams, Financial Times, 6 July 2001)
Let's Control the Small Arms Trade (Chris Patten [External Relations Commissioner, European Union] and Anna Lindh [Foreign Minister of Sweden], International Herald Tribune, 30 June 2001)
Small Arms Trade: Evolution of U.S. Policy on Small Arms (Center for Defense Information, 29 June 2001)
FIREARMS: [UN] General Assembly Adopts Protocol To Crime Convention [providing that the illicit manufacturing and trafficking of firearms, weapons parts and ammunition is a criminal act] (UN Wire, 1 June 2001)
Canada's Military Exports: Fuelling wars and abusing international human/labor rights (The Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade [COAT], 25 Apr. 2001)
How guns get to war zones - Techniques of clandestine arms delivery: Press briefing [United Nations 2001 Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All its Aspects] (Amnesty International, BASIC, International Alert, Oxfam and Saferworld, 21 Mar. 2001)
Govts, NGOs Urge UN to Remember Human Dimension of Arms Trade (Jim Wurst, Inter Press Service, 21 Mar. 2001)
Practical steps can curb small arms, say UNDP (U.N. Development Programme, 19 Mar. 2001)
Stopping the torture trade [report] (Amnesty International, 26 Feb. 2001)
The New Business of War: Small Arms and the Proliferation of Conflict (William Hartung, Ethics & International Affairs, vol. 15, no. 1, 2001)
2000:
South Africa - A Question of Principle: Arms Trade and Human Rights (Human Rights Watch, Oct. 2000)
Human Rights and Weapons: Records of Selected U.S. Arms Clients (Conventional Arms Transfer Project, Council for a Livable World Education Fund, 2000)
1999:
Arsenals on the Cheap: NATO Expansion and the Arms Cascade (Human Rights Watch, Apr. 1999)
Bulgaria - Money Talks: Arms Dealing with Human Rights Abusers (Human Rights Watch, Apr. 1999)
1998:
Sudan - Global Trade, Local Impact: Arms Transfers to all Sides in the Civil War in Sudan (Human Rights Watch, Aug. 1998)