“The International Arms Trade Treaty is a bold initiative, which is ahead of its time. Today a lot of complicated issues are to be agreed on. It is noteworthy that the Russian position is undergoing a notable evolution. Russian experts have the opportunity to make a significant contribution to the project agreement. “
Director of the PIR Center Project “Prospects for the Arms Trade Treaty” Vadim Kozyulin
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Arms transfers are a tool of big politics. This is an area of domestic policy, where the ratio between defense exports and domestic consumption of arms reflects the attitude of the country’s leadership towards armed forces. This is an area of foreign policy, through which current and future alliances can be traced, changes in the balance of power become visible, challenges and threats are exposed.
In the modern world, effective management of weapons transfers becomes particularly important. One of the possible regulation mechanisms is the International Arms Trade Treaty (IATT). Today the UN is preparing an international conference on IATT in 2013. The PIR Center experts actively participate in the development of recommendations on such IATT aspects as the scope of regulation of the Treaty (controlling legal trade or preventing illegal trade), the issue of the Register, the need to incorporate the human rights issue in the Treaty.
According to the data available to the PIR Center experts, today the Russian exporters are losing some of the traditional regional markets due to the emergence of new arms producers. There is a significant price increase in the Russian defense production, which creates problems both for the Russian Armed Forces, and for Russian arms exports.
The PIR Center’s Project
The Aim of the Project on Conventional Arms and the prospects for the ATT is the study of defense production in the Russian Federation and arms exports from Russia; the development of international law on conventional arms control, with an emphasis on processes related to the discussion and adoption of the international Arms Trade Treaty.
