Illicit Gun Trade Flourishes Despite Government Pledges

The pressure being exerted on the U.N. and the global community by both the pro-gun control and anti-gun control forces is extraordinary.

The upcoming conference that will be held in July on Global Arms Trafficking will face opposition from many different countries who don’t want their own gun trades controlled, and countries like Israel and Iran clearly aren’t looking forward to any changes made about providing data to the U.N.

UNITED NATIONS – As the 2006 Smalls Arms Survey was being circulated at the United Nations on Monday, Secretary-General Kofi Annan accepted a photo petition from one million people worldwide calling for tougher controls over the global arms trade.

The circulation of the survey, by Geneva-based Graduate Institute of International Studies, and the delivery of the Million Faces Petition were not a coincidence. This week marked the start of a two-week Small Arms Review Conference aimed at evaluating progress since governments agreed on a programme of action to prevent, combat and eradicate the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons.

The Million Faces Petition symbolised the number of people killed by guns since the programme of action was launched at the last U.N. small arms conference in 2001.

“In a world awash with small arms, a quarter of the estimated four-billion-dollar annual global gun trade is believed to be illicit,” said Annan. “Their continued proliferation exacerbates conflicts, sparks refugee flows, undermines the rule of law and spawns a culture of violence and impunity.”

The survey says there are an estimated 200 million modern firearms owned by government armed forces worldwide, but only 16,360,000, or eight percent, have been formally…

Posted by senssensibilityr
Student of German and Russian culture, history and language, emphasis on post-Dark Age European History. German and Russian 20th century literature. Studying Arabic. Cannot wait to go to Freiburg to study @ Goethe Institut im Februar.