The reason why we are all here at the United Nations is our concern at the horror inflicted on millions of people by persons with small arms and light weapons. The misuse, and the deliberate or reckless encouragement of misuse, of such arms, underpins our concern about the lack of control over the trade.

Although we have heard something about the price people are paying, it is impossible to convey the full physical and mental suffering perpetrated with small arms around the world.

Human Rights Violations
The misuse of small arms and light weapons is not only manifested in the deliberate killing and physical wounding of people, but also facilitates the abduction, hostage taking, torture, rape, arbitrary arrest, forced displacement, robbery, intimidation and other abuse of children, women and men in many countries.

Abuse with small arms is wide-ranging. Freedom of expression and freedom of association have been greatly undermined in many states through small arms violence, for example, where journalists and human rights defenders have been attacked and threatened for carrying out their professional activities. Under the threat of gun violence, justice systems have failed to properly investigate and prosecute the perpetrators.

In February 2003, there was an assassination attempt on Michele Montas, a prominent journalist living and working in Haiti. She is the widow of Jean Dominique, a journalist and human rights activist, who was himself assassinated in Haiti by unidentified gunmen in April 2000. The investigation into Jean Dominique’s death has been repeatedly obstructed as judges, police officers and activists associated with it have received threats. The attack on Ms. Montas is clearly linked to the assassination of her husband.

State responsibility for misuse
It is therefore disappointing that the word “misuse” of small arms is not explicitly mentioned in the UN Programme of Action – actually that word was deleted from several paragraphs of the draft POA during the PrepComs. However, we all know that in order to curb the illegal trade in small arms and light weapons “in all its aspects”, states must establish rigorous controls on the use of such weapons.

Existing UN agreements, such as the Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials, stipulate that non-violent means should be applied as far as possible before any resort to the use of force and then only to the minimum extent necessary. In any event, the lethal use of firearms may is only tolerable, in international law, when there is a direct threat to life. But how many states have invested in the capacity to ensure that this basic international standard regarding the use of firearms is met? When you consider how widespread is the abuse of firearms by police and security agencies, the answer is alarmingly few.

That, in essence, is one of the main problems of small arms. The UN Programme and other UN agreements define “illegal transfers” of such arms as those which “violate national and/or international law”. Clearly, under international law it is the responsibility of all states to prevent the transfer of arms to anyone knowing that the recipient will most likely use such arms for serious crimes.

What kinds of crimes are committed with small arms? All of us recognize that uncontrolled small arms proliferation can greatly increase and prolong violent acts by common criminals and increasingly by organized criminal gangs, especially where states lack sufficient law enforcement capacity. For example, the growth in the availability to ordinary civilians of handguns, revolvers and semi-automatic pistols in many Caribbean countries has led to a greatly increased rate of violent crime, and this has been compounded by the appearance of assault rifles in Jamaica, and to a lesser extent in Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana.

However, many governments are in a state of denial about the record of misuse of small arms by their own security forces. For example, in Jamaica independent reports cite over 600 suspected unlawful killings of civilians by police. Such patterns of misuse of firearms vary in the degree of severity from country to country, but can be manifest in gross and systematic violations of human rights during “peacetime” and in grave breaches of the laws of war during armed conflict. These acts may or may not be defined as a crime in the national law of the country concerned, but may nevertheless be crimes before the international community. If they are allowed to persist, crimes by state actors may help trigger and drive up the demand for small arms by criminal gangs, alienated communities and disenfranchised political opponents. This also includes a responsibility by states to adopt measures to prevent abuses by private actors using small arms and to prosecute those responsible.

Misuse in Armed Conflict
Small arms are both readily available and widely misused in many areas of violent conflict. They are the weapon of choice in many conflicts and often have been used to illegally target civilians. Moreover, small arms are often supplied to untrained, undisciplined, and unaccountable actors, who are apt to misuse them against civilians. The humanitarian consequences of such misuse are catastrophic. In 1997, 13.2 million people were refugees and 4.9 million were internally displaced, disproportionately more of whom were women and children than in the source population.

International humanitarian law supposed to impose constraints on all warring parties. It prohibits, for example, the deliberate targeting of civilians or other noncombatants, indiscriminate attacks, and attacks likely to disproportionately harm civilians. In addition, governments are required to uphold core human rights principles at all times, including the prohibition on torture. The same applies to rebel groups. The obligations of governments and rebel groups under international human rights and humanitarian law also extend to those acting on their behalf, such as paramilitaries or mercenaries.

Post-Conflict Armed Violence
There is also a failure to provide security in post war settings. Guns rarely go silent after wars end.

The human misery that is Afghanistan today tells the story. Most of post-war Afghanistan is in the hands of warlords and gunmen—fighters in Afghanistan’s past wars whom the U.S. armed, assisted, and enabled in the fight against Soviet occupation and in the civil war with the Taliban, and who continued to be relied upon for local security. These warlords use their military power, largely derived from vast quantities of small arms, to terrorize local populations under their authority, robbing houses at night, stealing valuables, killing people, raping young women and children, seizing land from farmers, extorting money, and kidnapping young men and holding them until their families can pay a ransom. The continuing instability has threatened human rights, hampered reconstruction efforts, prevented the return and reintegration of refugees, and presented obstacles to the building of Afghan civil society.

Even in countries nominally at peace, the misuse of small arms accounts for many serious human rights abuses. These abuses are perpetrated by agents of the government as well as private armed groups and individuals.

The period before Cambodia’s February 2002 local elections was marred by political killings and intimidation by armed men. In one province, two opposition party members were shot at point-blank range by men wearing military uniforms in November 2001. This was followed by a campaign of armed intimidation by assailants armed with AK-47 assault rifles. The prime suspects are law enforcement and military officers closely associated with local authorities. In a situation where some candidates feared that victory would bring violent retribution, it is clear that democratic processes are unable to function.

Conclusions
It is the clear that government agents—such as military forces, police, and government-sponsored militia—sometimes use small arms to carry out atrocities and not always held accountable. In other cases, governments fail to exercise control over private actors, allowing armed individuals and groups to commit small arms-aided abuses with impunity. Such failings fuel the demand for small arms by criminal gangs and disaffected civilians.

It is the duty of all governments to ensure respect for the rule of law. To achieve this, governments must put in place strict laws governing the use of force based upon relevant international human rights and humanitarian law. They also need to invest adequately in developing rigorous systems of training and accountability of state officials who may be allowed to use force so as to ensure compliance with those laws. Only in this way by building trust and legitimacy with civil society will governments and security forces be able to tackle violent and other serious crime.

Governments are required to provide basic security and to act against private actors who threaten rights, for example, the right to life and security of person. When governments fail to do so, whether out of complicity or negligence, this can lead to a breakdown in the rule of law which itself contributes to the emergence of private armed individuals and groups and an upward spiral of armed violence, even chaos.

Governments must take strong measures to halt and prevent the misuse of weapons, beginning with a focus on their own behavior:

· Fulfill existing government responsibilities to comply with international humanitarian and human rights law, including by exercising due control over private actors.
· Ensure that police and armed forces strictly uphold international standards.
· Apply strict norms of discipline and accountability regarding the use of arms to all security structures
· Implement the UN Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials through training and accountability systems
· Upgrade the training and accountability systems of armed forces to comply with international humanitarian law
· Ensure civilian oversight, include vetting procedures, provide appropriate training that includes training in human rights and international humanitarian law, and provide for effective accountability measures to hold violators responsible. Improve record-keeping and control over the use of firearms by security forces.
· Where needed, undertake security sector reform programmes.
· Bar the formation of civilian militias and do not permit local communities to take on or share in armed law enforcement functions without strict oversight, proper training, full adherence to legal standards that are consistent with human rights norms, and strong accountability measures.
· Stop all recruitment, training, and use of children under the age of eighteen for military service and ensure their disarmament, demobilization, and social rehabilitation.
· Ensure adequate laws are in place to punish the misuse of small arms by private actors, and that these are effectively implemented and enforced.

In addition, governments must cut off arms flows to abusers, both internationally and within their own borders, stop authorizing “legal” arms transfers to abusive recipients.