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Email this citationCIAO DATE: 10/05
Legal Controls on Small Arms and Light Weapons in Southeast Asia
Katherine Kramer
July, 2001
Abstract
The uncontrolled proliferation of small arms and light weapons in Southeast Asia threatens the security of both people and states, retards development, and contributes to increasing levels of violent crime. Porous borders coupled with weak and uncoordinated enforcement efforts ensure that the problems caused by small arms in one state are felt in neighbouring ones. Despite these effects, there is no accurate information regarding the number of legal and illegal small arms flowing into and out of the region, nor how many weapons are circulating internally.
Domestic controls are essential to combating the small arms problem. Most weapons are legally produced and/or imported, and then at some point diverted to illicit circuits. By studying national arms control laws, the weaknesses that facilitate this movement can be revealed and potentially addressed— limiting the extent to which legal small arms enter illicit markets.
The member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations have only recently begun to focus on the issue of small arms proliferation. This paper represents a first attempt at reviewing and comparing domestic arms control laws in the region. While the information presented here is not exhaustive, it gives some indication of the current state of legislation in each country and across the region as a whole.
