Currently there appears to be a semi-official code of conduct, common themes including :
--Not selling weapons to non-democratic regimes, or human rights violators
--Not selling weapons that might help fuel an internal or external conflict
--Not selling weapons that would impede nation-development; increasing poverty
These seem to be relatively positive and simple guidelines. However, the world's major arms dealers have continued to sell arms to human rights violators. Why is this? Some reasons include:
--No common set of accepted global standards
--Different interpretation of the codes of conduct
--Corruption and pressure
So who has profited the most from the arms trade? Interestingly enough, the big winners are the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, France, Russia, China, UK, and the USA. The 5 countries combined are responsible for nearly 90 percent of known and reported conventional arms exports.
This quote by former President Jimmy Carter sums up this paradoxical situation,
“We can’t have it both ways. We can’t be both the world’s leading champion of peace and the world’s leading supplier of arms.”
So what has the Arms Control Campaign found out? First of all, there are legal loopholes that arms dealers can easily bypass, such as end-use limitations. Other ways including manufacturing arms in another country that does not have a ban. This is so easy because of the relative lack of accountability (and financial transparency)
Here are the basic rules. (I'll explain how they are demolished latter on.) To ensure that Arms authorized for export are delivered to the stated end user, as opposed to a human rights violator, most governments demand to see an end use certificate confirming this (by identifying where the weapons are going and for what purpose).
How to arms dealers bypass this and get weapons to most [read : any] client they want? For one thing, the licensing body doesn't have much power or ability at all. It is increasingly hard to verify an end-use certificate. What's more certificates are often obtained through corrupt channels. Either that or the information that the certificates state are simply false, or else the final destination stated is in fact merely a transit stop.
The final way to bypass (and probably one of the bigger operations) is simply to shift arms production to another country, to avoid national laws. For instance, the US government permits arms manufacturers to license the production of their arms and ammunition to other countries. Some of these countries have even weaker arms export regulations, greatly increasing the possibility of the arms being used to carry out atrocities, destroy livelihoods, etc.
Indeed, the Arms Trade Code of Conduct seems positive. After all, it prohibits military assistance and arms transfers to countries that do not respect human rights, engage in acts of armed aggresion, don't promote democracy, and do not participate in the UN Register of Conventional Arms.
However, there are loopholes. For instance, the code allows presidential exemptions based on either US national security interests or an external situation that requires the US to provide military assistance, or transfer arms. Congress does have the option to vote down any presidential waiver, provided there is a 2/3 majority vote against it.
Oftentimes arms contractors will maintain that in order to foster good relations with other countries and create more jobs at home, arms sales are essential to the well-being of a country.
However... when developing new weapons, the rationale used is that other countries have sophisticated weapons, and those weapons are often the same ones that these arms manufactors sold to them. This makes for a very convenient circular argument supporting the devopment and manufacturing of newer and more technologically advanced weapons.
And in addition, here's another hard fact of life. Painting other countries in an unfavorable light so you can sell even more arms to others does not (contrary to the opinions of the arms industry) foster good relations.
Oftentimes, manufacturing operations required for the weapons are actually moved abroad, and manufacturers will often point out that sales help create jobs. Obviously true, just in another nation.
