Armed Violence, Small Arms and the United Nations

The United Nations Charter commits nations to maintain international peace and security, and to collectively prevent and remove threats to peace.¹ To limit the proliferation of illicit firearms, the nearly-200 Member States of the United Nations have agreed to implement a range of measures to 'prevent, combat and eradicate' the harmful effects of small arms and light weapons around the world. These include the UN Firearms Protocol,^{2 3} the UN small arms Programme of Action,^{4 5} the UN Register of Conventional Weapons,⁶ and negotiations towards an Arms Trade Treaty.⁷

By consensus between states in 2001, the UN small arms Programme of Action (UNPoA), placed a politically, but not a legally binding commitment on national governments to implement the measures agreed upon, and to provide the UN with periodic national reports on their progress. These commitments have been summarised as: 'regulating small arms transfers and brokering activities; criminalising the illegal manufacture, possession, stockpiling and trade of small arms and light weapons; ensuring that weapons be marked and registered; enforcing arms embargoes; destroying surplus and confiscated weapons; raising public awareness; and implementing disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration programmes.'⁸

In 2009, 151 UN Member States voted to begin negotiations towards a legally binding Arms Trade Treaty (ATT). If it eventuates, an ATT could establish common international standards for the import, export and transfer of all types of conventional arms, including small arms.⁷

For the individual positions of each country on these and other initiatives, for votes cast, agreements signed and national reports submitted to the UN, first locate the country in the left hand column, then open its International Controls section.