The availability of weapons for use by rebels, militias, warlords and insurgents threatens the national security of states and the security of millions of people. This paper, published by the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, discusses armed groups’ participation in the arms trade and the consequences of small arms misuse. While international measures address arms supply, strategies are needed to deal directly with armed groups in order to reduce violations of humanitarian law and human rights norms.
Armed non-state actors in contemporary conflicts vary enormously in size, behaviour, structure, motives, goals and resources. They are important participants in the trade in small arms and ammunition. They can be important military and political actors, controlling large areas of territory and people and operating as de facto governments.
In the past, acts of violence in internal conflicts were seen as domestic problems to be addressed only by the state concerned. Today, human rights organisations include non-state abuses as human rights violations. The international community is now engaged in developing instruments that address armed groups and hold them accountable for their actions.
The following factors characterise the current status of the issue of weapons use by armed groups:
- Armed groups acquire weapons through the patronage of foreign governments, which supply arms and funding to advance their political and economic agendas. Groups also acquire weapons through domestic procurement; some groups manufacture their own weapons.
- High-power weapons used by armed groups exacerbate conflicts by prolonging violence and increasing its lethality. While the level of weapons technology does not affect the risk of conflict, it does determine the scale and amount of destruction that will take place.
- Victims of internal conflicts include combatants, civilians and increasingly, peace keepers and humanitarian workers.
- Armed groups use small arms to commit egregious violations of human rights and humanitarian law. They also create mass displacement of peoples, use arms for sexual exploitation and to forcibly recruit new members, including children.
- Disarmament and demobilisation programmes often find it difficult to identify armed group members, verify weapons stocks and differentiate among different arms distribution patterns.
- Canada, the European Union and United Nations have created proposals and/or initiatives to address armed groups’ weapons use. However, these efforts are piecemeal and have met with mixed success.
The international community currently addresses the supply side of armed groups’ use of weapons. The following policy recommendations address the demand-side of the issue:
- Deal with the issue of unscrupulous brokers and arms dealers.
- Improve policing of UN sanctions, including multilateral arms embargoes.
- Restrict arms transfers to non-state actors.
- Raise awareness of humanitarian law among armed groups; bring the worst human rights violators to justice.
- Increase state support of peace keepers and humanitarian workers.
- Give some armed groups the opportunity to express their willingness to be bound by international law and humanitarian norms.
