Arms Control

An exclusive article for the montlhy newsletter “En la mira – The Latin American Small Arms Watch.” Click here for subscriptions and for previous issues.

In writing this piece I was asked to share my thoughts on what I had learned in working with Pablo over the years. Quite a difficult question as I looked to Pablo as a peer and much of the learning was probably implicit and part of a process of giving and receiving feedback on ideas, research and hypotheses about the nature of public security illicit arms trafficking in Latin America.

The authors cross information between the data declared by two regional exporters (Brazil and Mexico) with the data declared by importing countries. The results show that these two countries, which are important regional providers of this product, do not notify all of their ammunition transactions.

During two days, specialists, diplomats, military personnel and members of the security forces of several countries had the chance to exchange their experiences, not only their successes but also the difficulties and the problems faced in implementing the norms and international principles regarding arsenal and stockpile management.

Swefor and the Permanent Parliamentary Forum on Small Arms and Light Weapons organized in August a seminar on the role played by Sweden in the ATT process. Representatives from the CLAVE network (Latin American Coalition Against Armed Violence), civil servants from the Swedish Ministry of External Affairs and of the International Swedish Authority for International Development (ASDI) were present, as well as representatives of the Association of Swedish Defence Industries.