Accurate and reliable data on the scope, scale, and causes of all forms of armed violence is vital for shaping policy, developing responses, and monitoring progress.

Mechanisms for monitoring and analysing situations of conflict, crime and violence, such as observatories on crime and violence, or armed violence monitoring systems (AVMSs), have helped to improve the effectiveness of  armed violence reduction.

Countering the illicit trade in small arms lends itself to regional action. In many countries, small arms circulate widely beyond state control. National governments are challenged by cross-border demand for weapons, lucrative markets for traffickers, and ineffective national laws to regulate brokering and trafficking of small arms across state lines. These problems all call for regional approaches.

The UN Programme of Action on small arms and light weapons (PoA) was adopted in 2001 to provide a framework for activities to counter the illicit trade in such arms. At its Second Review Conference in New York—from 27 August – 7 September 2012— the PoA has brought together member states, expert advisors, and NGOs to review the progress made in its implementation.

This Briefing Paper examines future policy directions for the 2001 UN Programme of Action on the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons. It assesses the achievements and short-comings of the Programme of Action in its first ten years, noting the difficulties encountered in effectively supporting, monitoring, and assessing implementation, and the changing context in which it now exists.

Armed groups—such as insurgent organizations—rely on internal regulations to exercise control over fighters; these rules also affect the groups’ respect for humanitarian law and human rights, and on levels of armed violence. Certain types of regulations can provide detailed guidance on the use of arms, their storage, and their management.

Precedent in the Making: The UN Meeting of Governmental Experts, presents details of the discussions at the Open-ended Meeting of Governmental Experts (MGE) in May 2011. The meeting focused on the practical details of weapons marking, record-keeping, and tracing, specifically as dealt with in the International Tracing Instrument (ITI).

United Nations Member States will meet in New York this week for the UN Preparatory Committee for the Programme of Action to Prevent, Combat and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects (PoA PrepCom). The objective of this meeting is to prepare the agenda for the Second PoA Review Conference (to be held in August and September), which will assess progress made in meeting the wide-ranging commitments laid out by the PoA to address the problem of small arms proliferation and misuse.

Weapons Tracing and Peace Support Operations: Theory or Practice? (Issue Brief 4) examines the normative frameworks and practical mechanisms that could be used, specifically by Peace Support Operations (PSOs), to trace conflict weapons; and considers some of the reasons that have so far prevented PSOs from tracing weapons.

Also available in FRENCH.

Ammunition marking—including all the marks applied on individual cartridges and their packaging, containing information crucial for their identification—facilitates accounting for ammunition use, safe transportation, storage, and quality control. Within the international arms control community there is an ongoing debate about how useful marking is in helping to trace transfers of ammunition from one user group to another.

Since the adoption of the Programme of Action to Prevent, Combat and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects (PoA) in 2001, more than 80 per cent of UN member states have submitted at least one PoA national report on their implementation of the instrument. But many of these reports leave much to be desired.