The United Nations Register of Conventional Arms: Limits of a transparency instrument
As a unique source of information on annual transfers of conventional arms, the United Nations Register of Conventional Arms is an important transparency instrument in the field of armaments. The introduction of Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALW) as a category in itself into the Register has been debated since the end of the 1990’s.
However, the group of governmental experts in charge of reviewing the Register and its further development did not agree on any substantial modification after their sixth meeting of 2009. The lack of progress in the field of SALW compromises the current relevance of the Register as an international transparency instrument and questions its capacity to adapt to the new regional and international security realities. ... Read more
The First Military Budgets of Barack Obama: Change in Continuity
According to the proposition submitted on the 1st of February 2010 by Robert Gates, the military budget of the United States is expected to exceed 700 billion dollars for the fiscal year 2011.
Despite this impressive figure, the first two budgets presented by the Obama administration represents a clear break with those of George W. Bush, and show a real commitment to curb financial excesses of several major weapons programs, previously considered as untouchable. However, it seems that this comeback to financial orthodoxy has been possible only through an under-estimation of certain expenses, and deferred necessary investments. ... Read more
The Common Position on the control of arms brokering: six years after
Six years after the adoption of a Common Position on the control of arms brokering, some European Member States still lack the national legislation to control arms brokering activities. Other States still have to ensure the conformity of their legislation with the Common Position.
Gaps remain in the quality and the effectiveness of the controls provided by the Common Position and implemented by European States. Yet several cases of arms trafficking have made the news in recent months. A few months before the 4th Biennal meeting of States to review the implementation of the United Nations Programme of Action on small arms and light weapons, States should consider reviewing the Common Position in order to strengthen brokering controls. ... Read more
A new portal for the EU crisis management missions
In January 2010, ISIS - Europe (International Security Information Service), in collaboration with some twenty European think-tanks, amongst which GRIP, launched a website (www.csdpmap.eu) on the European Union military and civilian crisis management missions. The aim of this initiative is to gather and streamline the relevant information in the framework of a user friendly tool. The Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) interventions in crisis areas have constantly increased in recent years. The new portal is designed to help anyone interested in the subject to move more easily into the intricacies of the Internet, especially those of the EU official website.
Military expenditure, production and transfers of weapons - Compendium 2010
This report summarizes the main statistics on global military expenditure, arms production and international transfers of conventional arms. The data in this report are essentially from databases of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), an international standard since 1966, possibly supplemented by socio-economic statistics extracted from the databases of Eurostat, the World Bank, UN agencies or the press.
In 2008, the world military expenditures amounted to 1 464 billion dollars which represents 2.4% of the world GDP and about 217 dollars per capita. The United States accounts for 41.5% of the total.
The combined turnover achieved in the arms production by the top 100 arms producers in the world is estimated at 388.1 billion dollars for 2008. ... Read more
During its 2009 Presidency of the European Union, Sweden re-launched the debate on the usability of battlegroups, a European military instrument conceived to facilitate the EU’s involvement in global security. Despite their full operational capability since 2007 and the different crises that arose in the past two years, the battlegroups were never deployed. The failure to use this tool stems from the lack of sufficient political will by Member States to act in a common way.
As a result, the analysis of this instrument reveals the difficulties to which European defence’s integration is confronted. The political debate on the use of battlegroups started a few months ago but is not finished yet. Some solutions to its improvement were found during the Swedish Presidency, but the subsequent Presidencies of 2010 should revisit the question. ... Read more
Arms Sales to Libya: GRIP’s Letter to the Members of the Walloon Parliament
Following the discussions which took place on November 10, 2009 within the General Affairs Committee of the Walloon Parliament on the issue of arms sales to Libya, GRIP sent a letter to the members of the Walloon Parliament. The purpose of this letter was to correct some statements made by representatives of the Federation of Trade Unions of Metalworkers FGTB (WSF / FGTB) Provinces of Liege-Luxembourg, in their letter sent on November 4, 2009 to the Walloon Parliament and to clarify some important concepts on small arms transfers. This Analysis reproduces the entire text of GRIP’s letter sent on December 4, 2009 to the members of the Walloon Parliament. ... Read more
“Operation Parabellum”: Investigation into arms trafficking at the highest levels of the Libyan State
In March 2006, an investigation into international drug trafficking allowed antimafia prosecutor from Perugia, Italy, to dismantle a vast arms dealing proceeding from China to Libya which involved several Italian intermediaries and high ranking Libyan government officials. The Italian authorities named the investigation “Operation Parabellum”. The transaction which was interrupted by the Italian investigation covered the acquisition of 500,000 SMG T-56 7.62mm assault rifles (a Chinese version of the AK-47 Kalashnikov) and 10 million pieces of ammunition. Telephone tapping however revealed that the negotiations initially covered the acquisition of a million Russian AK-47s. Some of the Italian intermediaries admitted the facts and negotiated their sentences, others will be remanded to court during the month of December 2009. ... Read more
Lisbon Treaty and European defense Diplomatic Battle behind Permanent Structured Cooperation
Permanent Structured Cooperation (PSC) is an enigma introduced by the Lisbon Treaty in the field of defence. Extremely technical and difficult to understand, it remained unperceived until now. The PSC is intended for “those Member States whose military capabilities fulfill higher criteria (…)”, which are willing to regroup on the basis, amongst other, of “approved objectives concerning the level of investment expenditure on defense equipment”.
If its contents still has to be entirely defined, the PSC nevertheless has three remarkable characteristics for an initiative related to defense. Firstly, it is singular: as its name indicates, the PSC will have to be unique and permanent. Secondly, it will be created through the qualified majority voting system. This same rule will be applied in case a participant is excluded (however it will usually work according to the unanimity principle). Thirdly, the treaty does not establish any minimum quota relating to the number of participating States. At first sight, these three characteristics seem to have been conceived with the aim of creating a mechanism encouraging Member States to increase their military expenditure, at least with regard to investments and research. Thus, the PSC would have the ambition to create a two‐speed Europe of defense. ... Read more
The directive simplifying the intracommunity transfers: Useful and necessary but unperfect and dangerous provisions
The European defence market always stayed out of the European community field. In order to integrate it into the European single market ensuring the competition, the European commission set out a directive about the intra-community arms transfers, inviting the member states to harmonize theirs conditions of transfers, in the final purpose of getting an European defence industry more stronger and more competitive. ... Read more
Unless otherwise indicated, the majority of our Analyses, Reports and Books are in French. English titles and abstracts are provided to indicate their content. Some of our publications are already translated into English or will be soon. Please contact us for more information.
2009/11/23 - Pamphile Sebahara gave a presentation related to “Stakes and challenges of Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) Programs in a post-conflict context” during a Symposium on « Water for Conflict Prevention » organized by Global Water Institute in partnership with the African Union in Brussels.
2009/11/09 - Pamphile Sebahara was interviewed by the Deutsche Welle radio about the sanctions taken on 29 October 2009, by the African Union Peace and Security Council against the President and the members of the CNDD as well as the members of the Government in Guinea Conakry.
Presentation
ABOUT GRIP
Peace and conflicts in Africa
Small arms (SALW)
Analyses
Presentation
GRIP ANALYSIS • 2010/02/23 (JIHAN SENIORA)
