Making New International Norms: The Small Arms Case

Overview

This paper focuses on a significant puzzle in international security today: why did small arms control become prominent on the international agenda during the 1990s? And why did the international community attempt to regulate these weapons? This paper illustrates the emergence of small arms and light weapons on the international agenda and draws some parallels with the land mines case.1  Moreover, I outline how norm building processes is a fruitful research guide to examine these pressing questions of land mines and small arms proliferation management. The creation of international norms and the setting of widely agreed upon standards to control small arms and light weapons is central to the multilateral coordination of international responses to tackle the problems associated with their proliferation.

[1]According to the First Report of the Panel of Governmental Experts on Small Arms of 1997, part of the United Nations Resolution A/52/298, August 27, 1997, pursuant to paragraph 1 of General Assembly Resolution 50/70 B of December 12, 1995, small arms are: revolvers and self-loading pistols, rifles and carbines, sub-machine guns, assault rifles, light machine guns; and light weapons are defined as: heavy machine-guns, hand-held under-barrel and mounted grenade launchers, portable anti-aircraft guns, portable anti-tank guns and recoilless rifles, portable launchers of anti-tank missile and rocket systems, portable launchers of anti-aircraft missile systems, mortars of caliber of less than a 100 mm. Ammunition and explosives: cartridges (rounds) for small arms, shells and missiles for light weapons, anti-personnel and anti-tank grenades, land mines.