The Preparatory Committee (PrepCom) at UN Headquarters in New York (US) is part of the UN process on small arms.
The process began in July 2001, after years of lobbying by humanitarian organisations for the human cost of gun proliferation to be recognised. At that time, UN Member States unanimously adopted the Programme of Action on Small Arms and Light Weapons (PoA), a political agreement aiming to curb the illicit trade in guns.
Governments agreed to review the PoA after five years. The five years will be up in June 2006, when governments will meet again at the UN Review Conference on small arms.
The Review Conference will be an opportunity for much greater progress – if governments are prepared to take up the challenge. However, this opportunity may be lost, depending on the outcome of the preparatory meeting over the next two weeks.
What happens at the PrepCom?
At the PrepCom, UN Member States will decide the agenda of the high-level Review Conference in June, ie which solutions to the problem of gun violence are open for discussion.
A number of issues were dropped from the text of the PoA in 2001, including
- regulating civilian possession of guns,
- arms transfers to non-state actors,
- and tough regulation of arms brokers.
Experience over the last five years shows that these elements are vital to effective implementation of the PoA, and this must now be recognised.
Many governments would now like to see some of these issues discussed; others, opposed to further controls on gun proliferation, want to restrict discussion to the topics that are already covered by the Programme of Action.
More on the UN small arms process
In July 2003 and July 2005, governments reported on their implementation of the PoA at the Biennial Meetings of States (BMS) at UN Headquarters in New York.
Both meetings revealed that governments were making very slow progress on implementing the PoA.
Across the Middle East, North Africa and much of Asia almost no small arms commitments have been put into action. Some states in East Africa, East and Central Europe and the Americas had made progress, but there is still much to be done in order to save lives. |
