http://www.embassymag.ca/pdf/2005/060805_em.pdf EMBASSY CANADA’S FOREIGN POLICY NEWSWEEKLY OTTAWA, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 8, 2005 ISSUE 57 • $3.00 OPINION Small Arms A Big Deal I was very happy to accept the kind invitation to come to talk to you about this big issue in the light of the upcoming UN conference that I will chair. The conference will meet for a week (July 11-15) at the UN headquarters in New York. Officially, the conference is known as the United Nations Second Biennial Meeting of States to Consider the Implementation of the Programme of Action to Prevent, Combat and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects. That’s a bit of a mouthful, which is why everybody in the trade calls it BMS2, for short. In general, governments tend to entertain rosier views of their records of implementation of any commitments than non-governmental organizations. Small arms are no exception. What is exceptional in my experience is the close cooperation that has been achieved between many governments and NGOs, and not only in the developed world, on the issue of small arms. IANSA, the international action network on small arms, brings together more than 500 NGOs ranging in their interests from disarmament and development to human rights and humanitarian law. Many NGOs have a lot of knowledge and field experience, which is very relevant to implementing the program of action. Canada, by the way, has been a strong proponent of more NGO involvement in the UN process. In the short term, expectations for progress on implementation hinge largely on the outcome of the UN negotiations for an international instrument on marking and tracing illicit small arms, going on right now in New York. The purpose of this instrument (a wonderful diplomatic term, by the way, because it can be understood to refer to either a legally binding treaty or a political commitment - a matter of great dispute as I speak) is to enable states to identify and trace, in a timely and reliable manner, illicit small arms and light weapons in both conflict and crime situations. Agreed markings on exported and imported small arms, better record-keeping and better cooperation in tracing suspect weapons to their origins would represent a significant step forward. The outlook is still uncertain but I have full confidence in my Swiss neighbor in Rockcliffe, Ambassador Anton Thalmann, who is chairing the UN negotiations. Looking a bit further ahead, beyond the 2006 review conference, there is a strong wish, certainly on the part of the European Union and Canada, to begin negotiations for another international instrument, this time to regulate arms brokering. In the EU view, this instrument, too, should be legally binding. Brokers — middlemen — carry out a wide range of activities that are instrumental in diverting weapons from legal to illegal markets, such as arranging contact between a shady customer and an unscrupulous supplier, providing finance and transport etc. As of now, brokers can act almost entirely without oversight in much of the world. Only around 25 countries, Finland among them but not yet Canada, now explicitly regulate brokering. Controls on legal and illicit brokering are strongly linked; unless states regulate the first, they are unable to effectively prevent the second. The transnational nature of brokering activities makes treaty-based international cooperation indispensable in this area. In the EU view, the 2006 review conference should set the negotiating process in motion. Whatever the fate of particular initiatives or even the UN program of action itself, I believe that real and sustainable progress requires an approach that integrates, mainstreams, the various efforts to deal with small arms proliferation and misuse into broader efforts to promote conflict prevention and post-conflict peace-building, thereby reducing violence and improving human security. — Excerpted from remarks prepared by Finnish Ambassador Pasi Patokallio for an address to The National Press Club of Canada on June 8, 2005.