MARTHA MARIANA MENDOZA BASULTO

Mexico City, Mexico // Phone: + 52-55-2417-8191 // marthamarianamendozabasulto@gmail.com

Illicit Trade of conventional weapons - Compliance with existent instruments

Abstract:

The annual value of the world arms trade represents around 100,000 billion USD, which is
twice the annual total of the Official Development Assistance granted by the OECD members to
the less favored countries of the world.

According to the must updated statistics, the current volume of international arms trade has
continue growing since the early 2000s, reaching its highest level since the end of the cold war.
It is also known that the five largest suppliers of arms (United States, Russia, France, Germany,
and China) are responsible for around 75% of the global volume of exports.

According to different sources, on average, 1,500 lives are taken daily by conventional arms. It
is estimated by experts that there are currently 875 million small arms and light weapons and
that each year 8 million new weapons and 12 billion ammunition are produced which means
that there are at least two munitions for every inhabitant on the planet.

Those figures illustrate the urgent need to continue enhancing compliance with multilateral
instruments and national measures advocated to regulate transfers of conventional weapons in
order to foster transparency in arms trade and to stop illicit trade.

The existent instruments and legally binding agreements such as the United Nations Register
of Conventional Arms (UNROCA), Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), UN Protocol against the illicit
manufacture and trafficking of firearms of the United Nations Convention against
Transnational Organized Crime (Palermo Protocol), Program of Action to Prevent, Combat and
Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons (Poa) already establish a legal
framework in such matters.

For the Latin-American and the Caribbean region, but especially for Mexico, illicit trade of
conventional weapons is a critical problem that needs to be addressed. More than 200,000
small arms are illegally introduced to the country, in 2017 more than 26 thousand casualties
were recorded due to that reason.