Q&A: Small arms and light weapons

A major United Nations conference discusses the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons, beginning on Monday, 9 July 2001. Kate Joseph, OSCE expert on the issue, talks about the OSCE Document on Small Arms and Light Weapons, adopted in November 2000, and the impact it has had.

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Kate Joseph is an expert on arms control, particularly small arms and light weapons. She joined the OSCE in February 2000 and helped support the negotiations of the OSCE Document on Small Arms and Light Weapons, adopted by the Forum for Security Co-operation on 24 November 2000.

Previously she worked with the non-governmental organization BASIC (British American Security Information Council).

What are the key provisions of the OSCE Document on Small Arms and Light Weapons?

The Small Arms Document deals with different aspects of the issue.

First of all, it includes controls on manufacture and export, including export criteria, like human rights and international aggression.

It also includes some provisions for stockpile security and the destruction of surplus weapons, and a range of measures for conflict situations and pre-conflict situations, such as weapons-collection programmes, and so forth.

How does this help to fight the spread of small arms?

The Small Arms Document is aimed at cutting back on the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons. These are the weapons that are causing most of the problems. But the way to do that is to tighten legal controls, to make it more difficult for traffickers to divert weapons to the illegal market, from where they often end up in conflict situations.

How would you assess the progress in implementing the provisions of the document?

So far I think it has gone very well and the participating States of the OSCE are very keen to ensure that implementation takes place quickly. Implementation is mainly a national issue, so it is up to each State how to go about it, but we also have some multilateral aspects of implementation. We just had our first information exchange on some of the processes of implementation and the information that we gathered is very positive.

What problems or obstacles do you see?

There are still some issues that have been left open by the document, and it is up to participating States to make sure that they move forward on those issues. For example, we created the capacity in the document for OSCE missions to undertake work on small arms collection, but at the moment it is just that, just the capacity, and it is up to Delegations to decide whether or not they want to move forward. As far as I understand, there are different political sensitivities on this issue, so it is a matter of finding some agreement, some consensus.

What advantages does the OSCE have in fighting the spread of small arms and light weapons?

I think the field structure is one important element. The OSCE has field missions which have a presence that goes down to the most basic levels of authority and that gives us a tremendous advantage in conducting the types of practical initiative that happen on the ground: weapons collection, public awareness and so on. The missions can become more involved in that.

The other advantage of the OSCE is a lot of experience in arms control and disarmament, and a tradition of transparency in information exchange and these are all vital areas for the control of small arms and light weapons.

A UN conference will focus on small arms, how would you assess the OSCE's contribution?

The work of the OSCE has already had something of an impact on what has been happening at the United Nations. The UN has a programme of action that will be agreed at the conference, and certainly the OSCE document has influenced that programme of action and a number of participating States of the OSCE have proposed language from the OSCE document for inclusion, so I think the impact is quite great.

At the conference, the OSCE Secretary General and the Chairman-in-Office will both be talking about what we have done at the OSCE, so everyone will have a chance to hear how much progress we have made.