Arms Trade Talks Let Traffickers Off the Hook

Investigation Reveals Live Network While Current Treaty Language “Gives Comfort to Gunrunners”

With only three days to go in UN Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) negotiations, the lead investigator of a new report exposing a live trafficking ring slams the treaty language meant to regulate arms brokers. The Conflict Awareness Project has called the latest text released today, “so weak and watered down it will give comfort to illicit gunrunners.”

After a month of negotiations, current draft language on brokering is now limited to one sentence with no requirements for licensing or registration of brokers.

“Treaty negotiators are making a grave error by letting arms middlemen off the hook. The feeble treaty language means business as usual for traffickers who are filling the arsenals of the world’s worst human rights abusers,” said Kathi Lynn Austin of the Conflict Awareness Project. “To be effective, the Arms Trade Treaty must require licensing and registration of arms brokers, and the definition of brokers must include all relevant intermediaries, especially transporters.”

The investigation caught two former Viktor Bout associates in the act of gearing up trafficking operations on the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius. The Conflict Awareness Project report has triggered an official investigation announced today by the Prime Minister of Mauritius. Other nations implicated as platforms for the burgeoning arms smuggling network include the United States, Iran, South Africa, Finland, Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United Arab Emirates.

“Arms traffickers, like the clandestine network we exposed, are currently targeting the most vulnerable conflict zones in the world, such as Sudan, Congo, Somalia and potentially Syria,” stated Austin, a former UN arms investigator. “Without international standards, arms traffickers will evade law enforcement and bust UN sanctions as they have for years, by exploiting a Swiss cheese of loopholes from one national jurisdiction to another.”

Download the investigative report, "Viktor Bout’s Gunrunning Successors: A Lethal Game of Catch Me if You Can" 

Download Report updated: 13 August 2012