Part II Crimes, 13 Firearms Trafficking

Subject(s):

Weapons

Small arms and light weapons (SALW) are critical to the violence implicit and explicit in much transnational crime yet the trafficking in these weapons is difficult to suppress because of the largely unregulated parallel legal trade in these weapons. This chapter explores the back to front approach of international society beginning with the development of the Firearms Protocol in an attempt to criminalise certain SALW trafficking activities, and then shifts its attention to more recent attempts to prevent diversion from the licit trade which culminated in the Arms Trade Treaty.