Reviewing Action on Small Arms 2006: Assessing the First Five Years of the UN Programme of Action.

Reviewing Action on Small Arms 2006: Assessing the First Five Years of the UN Programme of Action, by Biting the Bullet, in cooperation with the International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA), ISBN 1-898702-76-4, 288 pp. Available online at http://www.iansa.org/un/ review2006/redbook2006/ index.htm.

This report was prepared in advance of the United Nations Conference to Review Progress Made in the Implementation of the Programme of Action to Prevent, Combat and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects, held in New York in June and July of 2006.

More than 180 countries were evaluated. Among the findings:

* 90 states have mechanisms to coordinate action on small arms and light weapons (SALW) within government;

* 37 states involve civil society in the national coordination of action on SALW;

* 68 states have reviewed their legislation since the PoA was agreed in 2001; and

* 37 states have specific controls over SALW-brokering activities.

Progress has been particularly slow in North Africa, the Middle East, and much of Asia.

Chapters include the following:

* Progress towards implementation

* Progress towards establishing the capacity to implement the PoA

* Progress towards controlling SALW transfers

* Progress towards ensuring responsibility for all authorized small arms and light weapons

* Progress towards SALW disarmament, collection and destruction

* Implications of illicit proliferation and misuse of SALW.

From the conclusion:

   [T]he PoA remains important and full of potential to have
   significant impact in preventing, combating and reducing SALW
   trafficking, proliferation and misuse. In spite of inadequate
   and patchy implementation there are numerous signs of
   hope. While national, regional and global implementation of
   the PoA is very far from complete or adequate, and in many
   areas has been disappointingly slow and fragmented, it has
   not failed. The UN SALW process may be slow compared to
   many expectations, but it is fast and healthy when compared
   to many other UN processes developed in an arms control
   framework. Its implementation may be fragmented when compared
   with agreements related to narrower range of issues
   and priorities, but a wide variety of actions and approaches
   following national and regional priorities is both expected and
   appropriate in the early stage of implementation of such an
   agreement.

Members of the Biting the Bullet consortium are International Alert, Saferworld, and the Centre for International Co-operation and Security at the University of Bradford. Project Ploughshares is a member of IANSA.