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THE ARMS PROJECT

The Arms Project was organized in September 1992 with a grant fromthe Rockefeller Foundation. Its purpose is to monitor and seek to prevent transfers of weapons, military assistance, and training to regimes or groups that commit gross violations of internationally recognized human rights or of the laws of war. In addition, the Arms Project seeks to promote freedom of expression and freedom of information about arms and arms transfers worldwide.

The Arms Project is therefore a human rights undertaking that seeks to prevent the physical means of human rights abuse from reaching the hands of known abusers. It seeks accountability from both suppliers and recipients of weapons for the human rights consequences of their transfer. It is a human rights rather than disarmament organization; the touchstone of its activities is human rights, rather than broader agendas of peace, stability, security, proliferation, or arms control.

Two distinguishing features of the Arms Project in 1993 were its commitment to field research and its emphasis on the trade in small arms and other less than major weapons. With respect to the trade in less than major weapons, the Arms Project was particularly (although not exclusively) interested in those weapons most prevalent in human rights abuse-small arms, light weapons, and landmines. Although the Arms Project took into account any transfer of security material or training to a violator of human rights or the laws of war, including major weapons systems, dual-use technology, and training, much of its research program focused on transfers and abuse of less than major weapons.

The project's field research attempted to connect the documented abuse of weapons in the field to their supply. Thus, field research undertaken by the Arms Project began with the demand side of weapons transfers-their use and abuse-and worked from there to the supply side. By focusing on abuse, the Arms Project was able to bring to bear the traditional tools of the human rights movement, international denunciation and stigmatization for the violation of international standards. This emphasis on field research made the Arms Project nearly unique among groups researching arms transfers, which generally emphasized research among government and other public documents. Because transfers of less than major weapons have not been tracked in the way that major weapons are, however, field research was the best way of investigating this trade.

Regarding weapons of mass destruction, the Arms Project had an active program on the use of chemical and biological weapons that violated the current laws of war. The Arms Project committed itself to examining the question of whether to undertake the issue of nuclear weapons, but believed that its limited resources were best put toward weapons systems that had not received adequate attention in the international security field, but that most gravely threatened the developing world and produced the most severe violations of international human rights.

An area of special consideration were weapons which as a class were, or in the view of the Arms Project should be, prohibited by the laws of war. The Arms Project identified in this area chemical or biological weapons and anti-personnel landmines. The Arms Project sought to eliminate these weapons under the laws of war, without consideration of the human rights record of the country orgroup possessing them.

Field Research

Taking advantage of Human Rights Watch's extensive field operations, the Arms Project in its 1992-93 year sent researchers to Angola, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Georgia, India, Iraqi Kurdistan, Israel, Lebanon, Mozambique, Pakistan, Russia, Rwanda, and Uganda. The field missions typically focused on a particular question, such as where the parties to a conflict, who have been shown to be abusive of human rights or the laws of war, were obtaining their weapons. These field missions produced completely new information on arms transfers and the abuse of weapons that was not available in public documents in Washington or Western capitals.

In Angola, working with Africa Watch, the Arms Project began initial work on a study of weapons and violations of the laws of war in the renewed fighting that had left tens of thousands dead. The size of the conflict meant that this work would be completed and published in 1994.

In Brazil, Argentina and Chile, a mission was undertaken in April and May 1993 to research conventional arms transfers by countries of the Southern Cone. The purpose of this research was to inaugurate a series of reports on transfers of weapons to the developing world by countries of the developing world, in addition to the more usual investigation of transfers by "first-world" countries to the developing world.

In cooperation with Helsinki Watch, the project conducted a mission to Georgia and Abkhazia to investigate violations of the laws of war and abuses of weaponry in the Abkhazian separatist war in August 1993. The investigation focused on the role of Russian military forces and weapons in the conflict.

An Arms Project consultant visited India and Pakistan in March and April 1993 to conduct research on how weapons were reaching the hands of abusive armed groups in both countries. This research focused on small arms.

The Arms Project, following up on research conducted for Middle East Watch and Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), released with PHR the findings of tests conducted by the British Ministry of Defence on soil samples obtained by a HRW/PHR field research team from the site of a 1988 Iraqi army chemical weapons attack against a civilian village; the tests showed remnants of mustard gas and nerve gas in the soil. This marked the first time ever that the use of chemical weapons was proven by traces of the chemicals or their degradation products. The implications for arms control verification regimes were of considerable importance, as were the implications of being able to prove such massive violations of the laws of war as took place in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Arms project staff visited Israel in November 1993 as part of an Arms Project/Middle East Watch investigation into violations of the laws of war and abuses of weapons in the summer 1993 Israeli army and Hizbollah attacks in southern Lebanon. A Middle East Watch expert visited southern Lebanon in October 1993 and conducted extensive interviews among Lebanese refugees and documented physical destruction. The research from the two missions wasdirected toward publication of a single report, scheduled for January 1994.

Field work on land mines in Mozambique was scheduled for publication in a December 1993 report.

An Arms Project consultant visited Pakistan in March 1993 in the course of researching a report, to be released in December 1993, on weapons transfers to abusive armed groups in India and Pakistan.

In July 1993 research was carried out in Russia on the role of the Russian military and Russian-supplied weapons in the Georgian-Abkhazian conflict. A report was planned for release in January or February 1994.

A consultant conducted field work in Rwanda for the purpose of determining the sources of weapons to each of the extremely abusive sides of the Rwandan civil war. His work also took him to Belgium, and resulted in the discovery of previously unpublicized South African and Egyptian arms connections. The resulting report was scheduled for release in French and English in December 1993. The same consultant also undertook research in Uganda in the course of investigating arms transfers to insurgent forces in the Rwandan civil war.

The purpose of these field missions was to develop new information not published elsewhere, to target specific instances of abuse, and to demand accountability from the suppliers of weapons by confronting them with the evidence of abuses.

Data Base Research

An ultimate aim of the Arms Project is to develop a systematic data base on transfers of weapons to and from regimes that violate human rights or the laws of war. To this end the Arms Project established a central data base, concentrating on less than major weapons systems. The Arms Project was the only organization in the United States attempting to monitor the trade in less than major weapons on a systematic basis.

The project undertook the collection of arms transfer information on an initially short list of countries of particular interest, for human rights reasons, to the regional divisions of Human Rights Watch. It was anticipated that over several years this data base would grow. Experts universally agree that no data base on transfers of less than major weapons can be exhaustive, given the lack of official information, the number of unofficial and black market transfers, resistance to sharing information, and general lack of monitoring of small arms transfers. Therefore, while the Arms Project is systematic in its collection of information, it makes no claim to be exhaustive with respect to transfers.

Advocacy

The Arms Project's advocacy program aims to provide policy makers, in the U.S. and internationally, with information about arms being transferred to human rights abusers. In addition to information about arms transfers and abuse in particular countries, by particular regimes and groups, the Arms Project also seeks to give information about how law and policy in the United States andelsewhere, including the United Nations, should be reformed to ensure that human rights are taken into account as an explicit consideration in the approval of arms transfers. The Arms Project also seeks to increase transparency concerning arms transfers worldwide, and to reform laws and regulations to that end.

Thus, for example, the Arms Project in 1993, in conjunction with other components of HRW, helped to develop proposals with respect how both U.S. human rights law and arms control law should be reformed. The Arms Project conducted a study in 1993 on how the United Nations Register of Conventional Arms should be expanded to cover less than major weapons systems. The Arms Project also undertook advocacy outside the United States; its Rwanda report, for example, was released in Europe in French. The project has also served as co-counsel to a Russian scientist, Vil Mirzayanov, who was under indictment in Russia for speaking out on alleged Russian government violations of U.S.-Russian chemical weapons treaties.

Antipersonnel Landmines

During 1993, the Arms Project undertook a special research and advocacy program on landmines. The research program involved the writing and publication, with Physicians for Human Rights, of a 500-page book on all aspects of landmines, including extensive, original research into the production and trade of landmines worldwide. This book, Landmines: A Deadly Legacy, is unique in its multidisciplinary approach to the issue of landmines and was a major source of new information in debates over landmines in the U.S. Congress and the U.N. General Assembly.

The Arms Project's advocacy program on landmines involved extensive work in 1993 on a worldwide nongovernmental organization campaign to ban the production, stockpiling, transfer, and use of landmines. The project participated in meetings sponsored by the International Committee of the Red Cross on landmines in Geneva in April 1993; it also co-sponsored a major meeting of nongovernmental organizations in London in May 1993 to formulate strategies for the ban campaign. It has taken an active role in educating U.S. lawmakers and administration officials, as well as U.N. officials and delegations, to the risks posed by landmines.

The staff of the Arms Project consists of director Kenneth Anderson, Washington director Stephen D. Goose, counsel Monica Schurtman, New York staff associates Barbara Baker and Cesar Bolaños, and Washington staff associate Kathleen Bleakley.

Members of the international advisory committee of the Arms Project are: Morton Abramowitz, Nicole Ball, Frank Blackaby, Frederick C. Cuny, Ahmed H. Esa, Jo Husbands, Frederick J. Knecht, Andrew J. Pierre, Gustavo Gorriti, Di Hua, Edward J. Laurance, Vincent McGee, Aryeh Neier, Janne E. Nolan, David Rieff, Kumar Rupesinghe, John Ryle, Mohamed Sahnoun, Gary Sick, and Tom Winship.

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