NEW: Small Arms Survey statement at CSP12

The following statement was presented to the President and all attending delegations of the Twelfth Conference of States Parties (CSP12) to the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) on Monday, 24th August 2026.

Read it here or watch it below:

'Thank you, Madame President. Allow me first to express my congratulations on your presidency of CSP12. It has been a real pleasure working with you over the course of the year.

The Small Arms Survey is a centre for applied knowledge based here in Geneva. Our vision is a world without illicit arms and armed violence. Our mission is to generate policy-relevant data, knowledge and authoritative tools; provide capacity support to regional organisations, governments and practitioners; and to support multilateral processes such as the ATT, translating international policy into regional and national implementation.

One of our core values is inclusive, evidence-based policy making. As discussed at this morning’s breakfast meeting with the gender focal points hosted by Mexico, we are happy to lend our support throughout CSP12 to delegates who may be new to the Arms Trade Treaty, and in particular those from countries who have only recently or have not yet joined the treaty. We also look forward to bringing the conclusions of this week’s discussions to the regional and national level through our future activities, including through our fruitful collaboration with Expertise France.

Madame President, this year the Small Arms Survey has been leading activities to support the work of the ATT in a number of areas. Thanks to support from the United Nations Trust Facility Supporting Cooperation on Arms Regulation, UNSCAR, we have been exploring maritime dimensions of both the ATT and the UN Programme of Action, which we will discuss in more detail under the next agenda item. You will find our working paper entitled, Integrating Maritime Dimensions to Ensure the Effective Implementation of Articles 9 and 11 of the Arms Trade Treaty, co-sponsored by Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, on the ATT website.

Through generous funding from Global Affairs Canada, we have also been undertaking activities towards ATT Universalization in the Indo-Pacific, which we will discuss further on Wednesday.

Finally, we welcome the ongoing discussions on the ATT’s 5-year strategy. We would like to underline the importance of this document for assistance providers like ourselves working to promote effective treaty implementation and universalization. Knowing the priorities of states parties ahead of time is critically important for us to be able to secure the necessary - ideally multiyear - funding to continue our work in supporting the ATT.'