Public Interest Report

By James Bevan, Small Arms Survey What characterizes the small arms trade in Africa? For many it is the image of Antonov transport planes depositing their cargoes in failed states such as Liberia and Angola. The general view of this illicit trade is one of a complex network of corrupt officials, unscrupulous arms merchants, international [...]

By Pablo Dreyfus, Research Coordinator, Small Arms Control Project, Viva Rio, Brazil This article represents the personal views of its author. Widespread corruption, organized crime and weak states are conditions that facilitate and provoke the diversion of small arms and ammunition from military and police stockpiles to criminal organizations and illegal armed groups. The situation [...]

By Rachel Stohl, Senior Analyst, Center for Defense Information In 2001, the United Nations held a landmark conference on small arms. The UN had only begun working on the small arms issue six years prior, spurred on by the 1995 publication of Supplement to An Agenda for Peace. Authored by former UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, [...]

By Rachael Stohl, Matthew Schroeder and Dan Smith The Small Arms Trade provides a gripping overview of the global impact of nearly 640 million small arms and light weapons – pistols, carbines, assault rifles, light machine guns and surface to air missiles – in circulation around the world. In the hands of irresponsible government armies, [...]

New leadership in Congress creates possibilities for a new policy agenda of intense interest to FAS. Much of our most important work over the past few years has been easy to characterize by what we were against: blocking dangerous developments in nuclear weapons, new constraints on government information, and cuts in research spending. We now [...]