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Canada and Small Arms Exports Workingpaper Project Ploughshares About This Paper By Ken Epps By Ken 06-2 Canada and Small Arms Exports workingpaper project ploughshares About this Paper This paper is the result of research for a project to engage civil society and governments in the Americas region in advancing international support for improved transfer controls in the UN Programme of Action to Prevent, Combat and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects. A central project objective was to provide research to inform and advance commitment to global principles, based on state responsibilities under international law, to govern national decisions on the export of small arms and light weapons. About the Author Ken Epps is Senior Program Associate with Project Ploughshares. Project Ploughshares Working Papers are published to contribute to public discussion and debate of peace and security issues. The views and policies presented in this paper do not necessarily reflect the policies of the churches and agencies that sponsor Project Ploughshares. First published March 2006 ISSN 1188-6811 ISBN 1-895722-51-9 Introduction In the international arena Canada has been an exemplary and consistent advocate of improved and restrictive controls on the transfers of small arms and light weapons (SALW). Quite apart from the leadership demonstrated by the Ottawa Process that led to the 1997 Landmines Treaty (and landmines, after all, are one very specific class of small arms), Canada has been active in proposing or endorsing common strict transfer principles to promote responsible transfers of SALW. In its own house, however, Canada has been less than thorough. As this paper will argue, Canada has demonstrated mixed standards in its own control of small arms exports. On the one hand, Canada has imposed restrictive and even innovative national procedures to control small arms transfers. On the other hand, Canadian guidelines and practice fall short of some of the emerging international standards to which Canada is committed through multilateral agreements. This suggests inconsistencies between domestic standards and procedures and those that Canada endorses at the international level. These differences are not insurmountable. By adopting a “best practice” approach to a small arms export approval process and fully reporting the results, Canada could bring coherence to its policy and enhance its advocacy of tighter international controls of SALW exports by citing its domestic practice. To this end, Canada would do well to draw on the “global principles” of the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) proposed by a group of legal experts, Nobel Peace Laureates, and non-governmental organizations. Indeed, as this paper will show, Canada is already committed to most of these principles via existing multilateral agreements. To establish a context for recommended amendments to Canada’s small arms export policies and practice, it is worthwhile to survey the details of Canadian participation in the international small arms trade. This paper reviews Canada’s export of small arms and light weapons and the annual export values, as reported by International Trade Canada (ITC) and Statistics Canada (StatsCan). Important information can be gleaned from these two sources. For example, Canada currently does not provide export figures for a category that includes all the small arms and light weapons in the United Nations definition.1 Nor does it appear possible to compile such figures from the data available. This paper also identifies the major manufacturers and suppliers in Canada that ship SALW and their ammunition to other countries. These companies include some that produce automatic weapons, components, and ammunition for foreign military forces; some that supply to military and non-military users; and others that export firearms primarily for non-military markets, that is, for civilians or police forces. As well, this study summarizes the key legislation that governs Canada’s small arms exports. The core legislation is undoubtedly the Export and Import Permits Act (EIPA), but other pieces of legislation—in particular the Firearms Act of 1995—make important claims on aspects of small arms export control. The influence of each is summarized. The criteria that govern the “case-by- case” processing of requests to export small arms are described, including the extra attention that has been awarded firearms since new instructions were issued in 1996. Canada is committed to several international conventions and agreements that affect small arms export decisions. These commitments range from legal obligations to prevent small arms shipments to UN-embargoed states to political commitments to ensure that small arms transfers do not Canada and small arms exports 1 Ploughshares Working Paper 06-2 adversely affect recipient states and populations. Many of these commitments correspond to the six “global principles” of the proposed international Arms Trade Treaty advocated for insertion in the UN Programme of Action. Although Canada does not explicitly include these principles in its export control criteria, its existing international commitments suggest that they could and should be acknowledged when reviewing small arms export applications. This paper concludes with recommendations to bring Canadian domestic practice in line with its international commitments and advocacy. Many recommendations suggest improvements to the transparency of Canadian small arms exports in particular, beginning with an effort to report a category of Canadian weapons that corresponds to the UN definition of SALW. Small Arms Exports from Canada According to the Small Arms Survey (2005), Canada is a “major” small arms exporter because it typically exports more than US $10-million in small arms and ammunition a year. At the same time, Canada is not among the “top exporters” identified in the 2005 Small Arms Survey (p. 100): the United States, Italy, Brazil, Germany, Belgium, the Russian Federation, and China. Canadian exports of military small arms are reported by the Canadian government in its Annual Report on the Export of Military Goods. To date the Annual Report has provided data on the export of goods specifically designed or adapted for military use, including a category—Item 2001—for military small arms. This item was defined in the most recent Annual Report as “firearms and automatic weapons with a calibre of 12.7 mm (0.5 inches) [or less], including firearms for sporting and competition purposes and their components and accessories.” 2 The category includes rifles, carbines, revolvers, pistols, shotguns, and machine guns. As illustrated by Figure 1, in the last decade of reported data (1993-2002) the value of these exports has fluctuated dramatically, from a low of less than $1-million in 1993 to a high of more than $30- million in 1995. The spikes in military small arms exports have corresponded to concentrated shipments of Canadian-manufactured automatic weapons to NATO countries, including the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, and the UK. The total value of shipments for the 10-year period is $143-million or an average of over $14-million per year. The totals of Figure 1 are incomplete, however, for two reasons. First, exports of military small arms and light weapons to the United States are not included because special military trade arrangements between Canada and the US do not require the usual government tracking and reporting of military goods. Second, the totals shown are for the firearms and automatic weapons category of Canada’s Export Control List (ECL Item 2001) and do not include the light weapons and small arms ammunition that are included but not reported separately in other military goods categories. Consequently, the true values of Canada’s annual military small arms exports are higher than the reported figures. Canada and small arms exports 2 Ploughshares Working Paper 06-2 Figure 1: Reported military small arms export totals 1993-2002 35 30 25 20 15 Current $Millions $Millions Current 10 5 0 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 Source: Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade Calendar Year The export from Canada of small arms and light weapons is also tracked by other organizations, including the Norwegian Initiative on Small Arms Transfers (NISAT), a government-backed agency that monitors global small arms trade policy, information, and analysis and maintains a database on the movements of small arms between countries. Although NISAT makes use of government reports on military trade such as Canada’s Annual Report, its major source for trade data is the Commodity Trade Statistics Database (Comtrade) of the United Nations. The Canadian Comtrade data used by NISAT is in turn based on export and import data provided to the UN by StatsCan; Comtrade codes used in compiling the NISAT small arms data are the same as those used by StatsCan.3 Largely because the Comtrade data provides comparative and worldwide information, the NISAT database has become a key source of small arms trade data for the Small Arms Survey and other small arms trade analysts. Figure 2 depicts annual values for the decade 1995-2004 of Canadian SALW exports as categorized by NISAT. The figure depicts the total value of such exports to all countries, the value of small arms exports to the US in particular, and the value of small arms exports to non-US recipients. Two major differences with the figures reported by the government’s Annual Report are immediately apparent. First, the StatsCan figures include Canadian small arms exports
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