The Forum on the Arms Trade is a network of civil society experts and a point of contact for strengthening public efforts to address the humanitarian, economic and other implications of arms transfers, security assistance, and weapons use. Managed from Washington DC, the Forum provides a venue for bringing its community's wide-ranging expertise together to amplify and strengthen its work, while also offering government and media members a one-stop resource for the latest information, analysis, and best contacts. Forum-listed experts are located around the world and work on diverse topics including human rights, development, arms control, humanitarian disarmament, cybersecurity, arms and the environment, anti-corruption, and related fields.

U.S. Conventional Arms Transfer Policy

Implementation fact sheet released on July 16 by the U.S. Department of State. Find it on our updated resource page.

Resource Page - Int'l Trade of Firearms & Ammunition: Move to Commerce Control

New proposed rule published on May 24 closed for public comment on July 9 -- transfer of some items on US Munitions List (USML) categories I-III to the Commerce Control List (CCL). See resource for concerns expressed and more information.

Experts' Publications

Highlighting publications in which Forum-listed experts were involved. Inclusion on the Forum on the Arms Trade expert list does not indicate agreement with or endorsement of the opinions of others.
William Hartung, “Donald Trump, Gunrunner for Hire,” The Nation, August 14, 2018.
John Lindsay-Poland +, “Gross Human Rights Abuses: The Legal and Illegal Gun Trade to Mexico,” Report, Mexican Commission for the Defense of Human Rights and Stop US Arms to Mexico, August 2018.
Rachel Stohl, "America Must Update Its Lethal Drone Policy—Here's How," The National Interest, July 29, 2018. 
Robert Muggah, "How Toronto can curb gun violence," The Globe and Mail, July 25, 2018; "A derrocada violenta da Nicarágua," O Globo, July 25, 2018.  
Nicholas Marsh, "The Availability Puzzle: Considering the Relationship between Arms and Violence Taking Place within States," History of Global Arms Transfer, No. 6, July 2018.  
Samuel Perlo-Freeman +, "Arms Trade Corruption and Political Finance," World Peace Foundation / The Fletcher School, July 9, 2018. 
Caroline Dorminey, "Selling American Weapons Overseas Is Risky Business," The Wall Street Journal, July 5, 2018.
Andrew Feinstein +, "The Anglo-Italian Job: Leonardo, AgustaWestland and Corruption Around the World," Corruption Watch UK, June 2018. 
Laura Boillot, “Explosive weapons in populated areas - key questions and answers,” International Network on Explosive Weapons (INEW), June 2018.
Third Review Conference on the Program of Action on Small Arms and Light Weapons - June 19-29
Natalie Goldring, "Reflections on UN Alliances," Small Arms Monitor, Reaching Critical Will, Vol. 10 No. 6, July 3, 2018.
Allison Pytlak, "Inside the Theatre of the Absurd—The Final Day of RevCon3," (No. 6), "Moving into the final," (No.5) Allison Pytlak and Ray Acheson, "The world deserves better than the lowest common denominator," (No.4), Allison Pytlak, "What are we doing here, the reasons for the Review Conference," (No. 3) "What does it take to make a difference?" (No.2), “Keeping the UNPoA relevant,” (No. 1), Small Arms Monitor, Reaching Critical Will, Vol. 10 No. 1-6,  June 18-July 3, 2018.
Jasmin Nario-Galace +, "A Call to Action by Civil Society on Gender and Small Arms Control," IANSA, June 2018.
See also "Small Arms: Big Harms...," in Small Arms Monitor, Vol. 10, No. 5, June 29
Elizabeth Minor +, "Targeting Legality: The Armed Drone as a Socio-technical and Socio-Legal System," Journal of the Oxford Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, June18 , 2018.
Robert Muggah, "How smart tech help cities fight terrorism and crime," World Economic Forum, June 15, 2018.
Patrick Wilcken, “Missing targets: the legal and ethical blind spots of arms manufacturers,” Amnesty Global Insights, June 13, 2018.
Caroline Dorminey +, "A New Framework for Assessing the Risks from U.S. Arms Sales," War on the Rocks, June 13, 2018.
Robert Muggah, "Brazil Spends Billions on Public Security: Why is Violence Getting Worse?," Americas Quarterly, June 12, 2018.
Kate Kizer, "Congress Must Stop UAE, Saudi-led Military Offensive in Yemen," Win Without War, June 12, 2018.​
Scott Paul, “If the US fails to stop the Hudaydah attack, it will own the consequences,” Politics of Poverty, Oxfam, June 11, 2018.
Rachel Stohl +, “An Action Plan on US Drone Policy: Recommendations for the Trump Administration,” Report, Stimson Center, June 7, 2018.
Jeff Abramson, “Firearm Export Rule Change Draws Criticism," Arms Control Today, June, 2018.
Jeff Abramson, “Trump Favors Arms Industry in Effort to Loosen Export Controls,” Issue Brief, Arms Control Association, June 7, 2018.
Mary Wareham, “The Killer Robots Ban Is Coming. What Will Belgium Do?,” Human Rights Watch, May 30, 2018.
Iain Overton, "When the bombs fall silent: the reverberating effects of explosive weapons," Action on Armed Violence, May 29, 2018.
Peter Asaro, "Google's March to the Business of War Must be Stopped" (with Lucy Suchman and Lilly Irani), The Guardian, May 16, 2018.
Colby Goodman +, "Major Trends in U.S. Counterterrorism Aid FY 2015-19," Security Assistance Monitor, May 16, 2018.
Daniel Mahanty +, "Reducing the Human Costs of 'By, With and Through'," DefenseOne, May 9, 2018. 
Caroline Dorminey, "Your Taxes at Work: Some Foreign Arsenal Assembly Required," Inkstickmedia.com, May 2, 2018. 
Jeff Abramson, "New Policies Promote Arms, Drone Exports," Arms Control Today, May 2018.
Peter Asaro, "Why the world needs to regulate autonomous weapons, and soon," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, April 27, 2018.
Robert Muggah +, "Citizen Security in Latin America: Facts and Figures," Igarapé Institute, April 26, 2018.
Daniel Mahanty, "Civilians and "By, With, and Through"" (with Melissa Dalton, Hijab Shah, Julie Snyder, Jenny McAvoy, and Kelsey Hampton), CSIS, April 25, 2018.
Rasha Abdul Rahim (contributor), "Deadly Assistance: The Role of European States in US Drone Strikes" Amnesty International, April 19, 2018.  
William Hartung, "Trump's arms sales policy puts contractors above common sense," The Hill, April 19, 2018.
Caroline Dorminey, "Arms Bizarre: Selling Weapons in the Age of Trump" (podcast), CATO, April 16, 2018
Iain Overton (editor), "The Burden of Harm: Monitoring explosive violence in 2017," Action on Armed Violence, April 12, 2018
Dan Gettinger, "Study: Drones in the FY 2019 Defense Budget," Center for the Study of Drones, April 9, 2018
Visit the archive of past publications featuring Forum on the Arms Trade-listed experts.

Notification Tracker

New FMS notifications: Aug 9 - Mexico $41 million for Seasparrow missiles Aug 3 - Latvia $200 million for Black Hawk helicopters Aug 2 - Kuwait $40.4 million for bombs July 31 - The Netherlands $169 million for MK 54 Lightweight Torpedoes, Denmark $152 million for SM-2 Block IIIA Standard Missiles; July 30 - Bahrain $80 million for ITAS launches, Kuwait $30.4 million for Hellfire missiles; July 26 - Bahrain $70 million for follow on support for Navy ship; July 10 - United Kingdom $650 million for 200 air-to-air missiles, Denmark $90 million for  28 air-to-air missiles; June 26 - Spain $860.4 million for 5 AEGIS systems; Australia $185 million for AEGIS equipment; June 12 - India $930 million for 6 Apache helicopters and 400+ missiles; 
Annual total for calendar year 2018 is now more than $30.5 billion; 2017 was $63.1 billion (all countries).  see resource 

Resource Page - Potential Precision-Guided Munitions Sales to Saudi Arabia, UAE

Invasion of Hodeidah is underway.  Earlier, a controversial precision-guided munition (PGM) sale to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates appeared to be imminent, but on June 28 Senator Menendez said he would oppose/block such a sale. See resource page for more details.

Addressing Non-State Actors: Multiple Approaches (Report)

(May 22) With the global community now more aware of conflicts other than those between states, there is a need to better understand approaches that do—or do not—work when addressing non-state actors. Taking a wide view of what they see in their respective work and an expansive definition of “non-state,” experts offer an array of recommendations. See report.

Annual Conference - May 22

Taking Aim: A Closer Look at the Global Arms Trade.
Watch the video 

Resource - US-Saudi Arms Sales ($110 Billion Proposed)

Trump announces $110 billion arms deals with Saudi Arabia on May 20, 2017, many details of which are unclear. However, more than $17 billion in foreign military sales (FMS) have been notified to Congress, including a $15 billion sale of THAAD systems on October 6. On June 13, 2017, Senate voted on legislation (S.J. Res 42) to block the precision-guided munition direct commercial sale that was notified to Congress; the legislation failed by just 3 votes. Go to resource page.

Experts

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