International Bulletin - August 1999
An international code of conduct
There seems little doubt that the countries producing and selling arms have not resisted the temptation to offset the fall in demand for military equipment from the industrialized countries with exports to the Third World, which is nowadays the scene of most conflicts. In 1997, imports of conventional weapons by developing countries came to almost $19 billion. And between 1993 and 1997 the five permanent member states of the United Nations Security Council together accounted for more than 80 per cent of arms transfers, according to SIPRI (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute).
In 1997, in an effort to reverse this trend, a Committee of Nobel Peace Prize Winners, on the initiative of Oscar Arias, former President of Costa Rica and winner of the 1987 Nobel Peace Prize, drafted an International Code of Conduct on Arms Transfers, which it will submit to the United Nations General Assembly in the hope that it will be adopted as a binding international treaty. "Our children urgently need schools and health centres, not machine guns and fighter planes," the Committee declared. In fact, the figure for arms imports by developing countries in 1997 was three times more than the extra investment needed to provide basic education for all those countries' children, and one and half times more than what it would have cost to provide the whole population with basic health services and adequate food. Considering that more than half the countries spend more on defence than on health, Article 10 of the International Code stipulates that "Arms transfers may be conducted only if the recipient state's expenditures on health and education combined exceed its military expenditures".
The states usually justify high military spending on the ground of its deterrent effect, and hence as a means of guaranteeing the security of their citizens. According to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), however, the probability in developing countries of dying from social neglect is 33 times greater than that of being killed in a war resulting from external aggression.
The International Code stipulates that any country that wishes to acquire armaments must meet certain requirements, including the promotion of democracy, the protection of human rights and the transparency of military expenditure. According to the Committee, international arms transfers "foster political instability and human rights violations, prolong violent conflicts, and weaken diplomatic efforts to resolve differences peacefully".
Similar codes of conduct either already exist or have been proposed within the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the European Union, the United States and South Africa. These mechanisms urgently need to be applied at international level, considering that conventional weapons, and light weapons in particular, continue to cause 90 per cent of the casualties in today's armed conflicts.
Last Modified: November 29, 2002