Arms Brokers

Arms Brokers

The notorious gunrunner Victor Bout ( left) has supplied small arms to groups such as UNITA in Angola and the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Brokering Controls

Arms brokering may be understood as activities such as negotiating, arranging or otherwise facilitating the transfers of weapons that are neither necessarily in the ownership of the broker, nor necessarily originate in the country from which the broker operates. Such brokering activities are a legitimate and often integral part of the international arms trade. However, there is a significant lack of regulation on brokering activities which makes it very difficult to distinguish between legitimate and illicit activities. Moreover, unscrupulous

brokers have ruthlessly exploited the current lack of controls to facilitate arms transfers to regions of instability and governments and rebel groups under international arms embargoes. There is consequently an urgent need for the adoption of comprehensive controls around the world.

Some progress towards the establishment of common brokering controls on a regional level has recently been made by the European Union (EU). Member states committed themselves in June 2003, within the framework of their common arms export controls, to create certain basic controls which will mean that, for the first time, brokering activities from the territory of any EU country will require a license. There is a need for further such regional arrangements on brokering controls to facilitate the emergence of international momentum for an international treaty. Civil society organisations have promoted such an international treaty for several years by now, and there already exists a model convention that governments should take as a basis for international negotiations. Governments should be encouraged to engage in such negotiations with the aim of a legal international document to be adopted by the 2006 UN Conference on the Illicit Small Arms Trade in All Its Aspects.

Visit the Gallery of International Arms Dealers

Available material

Controlling Arms Brokering: Next Steps For EU Member States
EU common position on arms brokering (link to doc.)
Model Convention on Arms Brokering (Link to doc.)
Expanding the Net: A Model Convention on Arms Brokering (Briefing paper) (Link to doc.)
Arms Trafficking: Closing the Net (Briefing Paper)
Casting the Net? The Implications of the U.S. Law on Arms Brokering (Briefing paper) (link to doc)
Controlling arms brokering and transport agents (Briefing paper)
The Arms Fixers : Controlling the Brokers and Shipping Agents

See also Themes: Arms Brokering