Control Arms Campaign - Global

The campaign has two major lines of action. First, participants are calling for the adoption of far stricter controls across regions and in local communities (not for a ban of the practice of arms trade). To this end, campaigners are advocating action to support an international Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), which has grown out of a collaborative effort between representatives of several NGOs (Amnesty, Arias Foundation, Saferworld, the Quakers, and IANSA). The ATT would establish safeguards against illegal trafficking in weapons and require governments to halt the supply of weapons to human rights abusers. Second, the campaign is an effort to persuade governments to do more for community safety by urging them to take necessary steps to make people around the world safer from violence and abuse with light weapons and small arms (SALW). The report Shattered Lives: The Case for Tough International Arms Controls and the Control Arms campaign presents arguments to support both lines of action.

Mobilising public support for these aims is a central campaign strategy. Participating organisations are launching international, regional, and national campaigns to reach particular objectives, including public awareness raising campaigns and lobbying campaigns. Materials available on the official Control Arms campaign site are a video, a poster [PDF], screensavers for download, and tee-shirts for sale.

To cite one example of a global campaign, organisers are working to create a "Million Faces" petition - a large grassroots movement to pressure governments to address the misuse of arms. The petition is an effort to graphically illustrate demand from people (hopefully 1 million) around the world for international action on the arms trade. Instead of signing a petition, supporters are asked to email a photo of themselves or to chose a prepared image from an electronic photo gallery. Details and instructions are provided on a special registration page on the campaign website, which is available in English, Spanish, French, and Arabic. The pictures, which feature faces of people holding up signs with messages such as "Stop the terror trade", appear on the home page of the campaign site; they cycle each time the page is refreshed. Organisers will present these photographs to governments in what is hoped will be a statement of mass public antipathy to the arms trade. In addition, as part of the broad campaign launch on October 9 2003, people gathered on the North Terrace of Trafalgar Square to have their photos taken or to draw a self-portrait. Beginning November 15 2003, these faces were pasted over a 7m x 3m gun painted on a billboard. Also at the campaign launch, hundreds of gravestones representing those who die each year from armed violence were laid out across Trafalgar Square.

Conflict.

According to Amnesty International USA, more than 500,000 people are killed each year by guns - one person every minute. There are more than 600 million arms on the planet, with $839 billion spent worldwide on the arms trade. Most casualties of arms use are civilian and guns are increasingly ending up in criminal or untrained hands. In the last 4 years, the USA, the United Kingdom, and France earned more income from arms to developing countries than they gave in aid. Up to 90% of illegal small arms start in the state-sanctioned trade. BBC News reports that governments collectively spend more than £442bn ($700bn) on their armed forces every year; official annual arms sales are valued at up to £18.9bn ($30bn).

Organisers say that, whether delivered into the hands of armed groups or abusive regimes, the ready availability of illegal and unregulated arms fuels conflicts that cost lives, imperil livelihoods, and restrict liberty. They claim that national arms export controls are riddled with loopholes: "The easy availability of arms increases the incidence of armed violence, acts as a trigger for conflicts, and prolongs wars once they break out."