Arms trade treaty and implementation of arms trade regulation

The article deals with the implementation of the arms trade Treaty (ITT) and individual problems associated with it. The goal of this paper is to consider the ATT format efficiency and evaluate its prospects with the regard to potential amendments to be made. Issues of arms trade regulation and the ATT are widely covered by Russian and foreign researchers: R. Stohl, M. Brehm, N. Kalinina, V. Kozyulin and etc. The statistics on arms trade is mainly taken from SIPRI resources, the data on the ATT and related statistics - from the official sources of the ATT. The analysis of the ATT and format of arms trade regulation is performed on the basis of E. Haas regimes classification. Despite the fact that the ATT has some strong points (export control system, arms trade reports and etc.) and could be a milestone for arms trade regulation, it has failed to become inclusive: almost 70% of arms export and import is not covered by its effect. Main players (the USA, Russia, India and Egypt) criticized the Treaty for its inability to tackle problems of illicit arms trade and openness of humanitarian criteria for interpretation. Probably the main problem of the ATT is that it is aimed both on regulation of official and illicit arms trade, although these issues requires different formats of regulation. While it is easier for states to come to consensus on the necessity to prohibit illicit arms trade, their ability to shape their official arms trade into frames developed by other states and international organization is limited. One example of relatively efficient official arms trade regulation is Wassenaar arrangements that focuses on promotion of national export control system and does not interfere into states decision-making process. So with the regard to Haas classification the most adequate regime for illicit arms trade regulation is regime of “common interests”, but for the official arms trade - regime of “common aversion”. The author comes to the conclusion that the current format the ATT based on “common interest regime” is not enough efficient in regulation of arms trade (both official and illicit), but with the corresponding amendments focused on the prohibition of illicit arms trade it can make a bigger contribution to world security. Meanwhile official arms trade could be better regulated without opposition of some states in the form of Wassenaar arrangements based “common aversion” that covers not only exporters’ countries, but also importers’.

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