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Project Summary:

Project Description:

Since the end of the Cold War several multilateral initiatives aimed at better regulating the legal trade in conventional arms trade have been agreed. Although the language and wording of specific arms transfer agreements differs, the general principle underpinning such restraints is a concern to prevent transfers that are deemed to produce excessive and destabilising accumulations of arms. This project examines the principles and practices employed by Canada, the United Kingdom, Norway, and Switzerland in judging whether proposed arms transfers are excessive and/or destabilising; whether they have an unacceptable impact on three factors: development; actual or potential conflict in a recipient state, and regional stability. The study will then draw on this data to develop a methodology for identifying excessive and destabilising transfers based on these four states’ best practices and also test the methodology against a number of transfer decisions. The results of the study have the potential to influence current policy practice in the four case study states as well as within specific export control regimes more generally. The results of the study also have the potential to provide the basis for a second, larger study, which would include the subsequent development of an annual report that would expand the range of case study countries and regularly evaluate selected arms transfers against the model methodology.

Project Type:
Funded

Project Role:
Principal Investigator

Country 1:
Canada

Country 2:

Country 3:

Country 4:

Funder:
SSHRC Partnership Development Grant

Year Project Started:
2011

Collaborator:
Neil Cooper, Keith Krause, Nic Marsh

Collaborator Institution:
University of Bradford, Small Arms Survey, PRIO

Collaborator Role: