The Legal vs. the Illegal Arms Trade - NYTimes.com

LONDON ? It?s hard to summon up much sympathy for Viktor Bout, the notorious Russian arms trafficker jailed for 25 years on Thursday by a U.S. federal court. The illicit arms trade is a global curse that fuels conflicts and inflicts misery on the lives of countless innocents.

But what of the much vaster and more lucrative legal trade, conducted by governments and companies whose products can also end up in the wrong hands?

Mr. Bout said in a recent interview from his jail cell: ?If you are going to apply the same standards to me, then you are going to have to jail all those arms dealers in America, who are sending the arms and ending up killing Americans?it?s a double standard. It?s hypocrisy.?

If that sounds like special pleading by a convicted felon, he may nevertheless have a point. It is not just illegally-traded weapons that end up in the hands of dictators and warlords.

Andrew Feinstein, a South African arms trade expert, noted that after the downfall of Muammar al-Qaddafi, Prime Minister David Cameron spoke of Britain?s pride in its role in his overthrow.

?But was he as proud of the almost ?120m-worth of weapons that Britain had sold to the dictator since 2005, which helped to keep his despotic regime in power?? Mr Feinstein asked.

In his article in Britain?s The Guardian, the author of ?The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade? described the formal arms trade and the grey and black markets as inter-dependent.

?They are, to a large degree, dependent on each other. With bribery and corruption de rigueur there are very few arms transactions that are entirely above board.?

As Damien Spleeters reports over at the At War blog, Belgium is currently embroiled in a debate over small arms sales to the Middle East. He writes:

?The uprisings in Libya and Syria have cast the Belgian small arms industry as a case study of the difficult balances within a Western arms-manufacturing community that seeks exports to preserve revenue and local jobs, but risks compromising European policies and human rights values.?

Activists say much more must be done to control the international trade, beyond national controls already in place. ?If there?s one thing we?ve learned from Mr. Bout, it?s that the world needs an Arms Trade Treaty,? according to Scott Stedjan of Oxfam America.

A global pact on regulating the international arms trade has been under discussion since 2006 and the next round of talks takes place in July. ?Many governments have voiced concern about the absence of globally agreed rules for all States to guide their decisions on arms transfers,? according to the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs. ?That is why they have started negotiating an Arms Trade Treaty.?

The Arms Trade Treaty Monitor, which is tracking the negotiations, acknowledged that the proposed ATT is not a panacea against all armed violence around the world, but it would be based on banning transfer of weapons likely to be used for violations of international law. ?This simple fact would help prevent the escalation in weapons transfers which has now pushed Syria to the brink for the last year.?

Not everyone is happy, including the U.S. National Rifle Association. It plans to attend the July talks and ?as we have for nearly two decades, will continue to fight against any U.N. treaty that undermines the constitutional rights of American gun owners.?

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