House of Commons - Defence - Minutes of Evidence

Select Committee on Defence Minutes of Evidence

APPENDIX 7

Memorandum submitted by Dr Neil Cooper, Department of Politics, University of Plymouth

INTRODUCTION

This paper argues that, contrary to the claims of the government, current declared policy on arms exports is not particularly ethical when assessed against a number of other criteria such as Labour policy in the eighties. In addition Labour has focused in particular on a pariah control agenda which has emphasised the restriction or elimination of pariah technologies such as landmines and the limitation of supplies to pariah states. Not only has this agenda been inadequately implemented but it depends for its success on strategies of technology restriction which are being undermined by the twin forces of globalisation and the technological revolution. This problem needs to be addressed by the adoption of structural arms control strategies designed to supplement (and to some extent replace) pariah strategies.

MORE ETHICS OR NANO-ETHICS?

Labour has claimed to be introducing a more ethical dimension to foreign policy in general and arms sales policy in particular. However, this is not borne out when policy is assessed against a number of different criteria. For instance, a comparison of Labour policy in the eighties with that of today highlights the way in which policy on arms exports has become more and not less permissive. Thus, Labour's 1983 general election manifesto declared "we will not supply arms to countries where the chances of international aggression or internal oppression would be increased. . . We are alarmed by the growth of the arms trade. Labour will limit Britain's arms sales abroad and ban the supply of arms to repressive regimes such as South Africa, El Salvador, Chile, Argentina and Turkey".[12] By 1989 and the production of Labour's policy review document, the list of countries to which arms sales would be banned had been noticeably reduced to just South Africa and Chile. Nevertheless, Labour was still committed to "stringently limiting the scope and scale of arms sales by Britain. . . We will refuse permission for arms sales to any country which might use them for internal repression or international aggression".[13] In contrast, Labour's 1997 election manifesto omitted any reference to specific countries that would be banned from receipt of arms or any suggestion that the Party would impose stringent limitations on arms sales. Instead, like the eight point pledges issued in February of the same year, the manifesto merely promised "Labour will not permit the sale of arms to regimes that might use them for internal repression or international aggression."

Moreover, Labour's declared policy on arms sales is more permissive than that of a number of other Western countries. For instance, both Germany and Sweden, and in some respects the US, have more restrictive arms sales policies than that of the UK, (even the Chinese provide more detailed information on their small arms exports than does a Labour government supposedly committed to transparency on arms sales[14]). Similarly, the EU arms sales code, which Labour cites as one of the main achievements of its ethical arms sales policy is, in large part, more restrictive than Labour's own national criteria upon which the EU agreement is supposed to be modelled. Just to give one example of the differences between the two codes. Under the UK criteria, the commitment not to export equipment for internal repression is qualified by a statement effectively exempting equipment judged to be for the legitimate protection of a country's security forces from violence, a qualification which has been criticised by the arms control lobby.[15] During the EU Code of Conduct negotiations a similar loophole was actually deleted from the final version[16] (for other examples of the difference between the two documents see Annex 1). Moreover, whilst the government recently informed the Trade and Industry Committee that consideration was being given to the adoption of single set of criteria based on the EU code, they also noted that, at present, officials are working on the basis of the more permissive UK criteria and not the EU code.[17]

Even when judged against the record of the previous Conservative administration the evidence for Labour's claim to be introducing ethics to arms sales is mixed. There have been some important changes to the terminology of the criteria used in judging applications for export licences. Most notably, the guidance booklet used by FCO desk officers prior to the publication of Labour's new criteria only emphasised that restrictions should be placed on the export of equipment likely to be used for internal repression. In contrast, Labour has lowered the standards of proof required on this issue by substituting the word "might" for "likely". Notwithstanding such changes however, the House of Commons Trade and Industry Committee could conclude that "comparison of the new criteria with their predecessors suggests... that the July 1997 criteria represent a rather less radical break with past policy than is sometimes represented to be the case".[18] Moreover, as well as developing new criteria for assessing export licence applications, the government has also produced a White Paper on strategic Export Control which aims, as recommended by the Scott report, to update and reform the legislation (originally passed in 1939) governing the application of strategic export controls. The White Paper however, was preceded by a Green Paper published in 1996 by the previous government. Furthermore, New Labour's White Paper tends, on the whole, to define the purposes of strategic export controls in less restrictive language than that proposed either by Scott or the Conservatives (although the latter's proposals were arguably drawn up by ministers who knew they were unlikely to ever have to implement them). For instance, both Scott and the Green Paper specifically addressed the need to avoid contributing to human rights abuses. The White Paper has dropped this reference, preferring instead a catch-all commitment "to avoid contributing to internal repression", a form of words that has come under criticism from NGOs concerned that the new language may permit exports that would otherwise fall foul of a human rights criterion. Similarly, the White Paper has dropped a reference to the need to avoid the diversion of goods to countries other than the stated recipient (see Annex three), an omission which stands in contrast to Labour's stated desire to improve controls on the end-use of equipment.

Labour ministers have given particular emphasis to a pariah agenda which emphasises restrictions on pariah technologies and on supplies to pariah states. However, as will be suggested below, the rigour with which this agenda has been implemented is debatable.

PARIAH WEAPONS

Labour has focused on four categories of pariah weapons: weapons of mass destruction (WMD), torture equipment, landmines and small arms/light weapons. I will concentrate here on the first of these three issues.

Labour's emphasis on the problem of WMD represents a continuation of the past practice of previous British governments and thus does not in itself represent a turn to ethics so much as a maintenance of the status quo. However, the tension has arisen for Labour where the definition of such weapons becomes muddied and where the issue overlaps with the aggressive pursuit of lucrative arms sales. To date this has been best demonstrated in Labour's approach to the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), a supplier based regime designed to limit the spread of missile technology. Labour, as part of its pariah agenda has given particular emphasis to the role of this regime. For instance, the paper produced by the government for a conference to mark the centennial of the international peace conference at the Hague in 1899 noted "international efforts to constrain the spread of missile technology are an important priority needing urgent attention". It went on to set out three reasons why this was the case:

At the same time however, Labour has been concerned to restrict its definition of such pariah technology to the absolute minimum required. Thus, for instance, the government (albeit against reported wishes of Robin Cook) has authorised the sale of the Black Shahine missile to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), despite protests from US that this breaches the terms of the MTCR. The debate between the US and the UK over this decision has centred on whether the missile is a category one system (with a range of over 300 km and a payload of 500 kilograms) or a category 2 system (with a range over 300 km's but a payload less than 500 kilograms). The former are automatically banned from export whilst the transfer of the latter remain at the discretion of national governments.[20] The point about this debate is not whether the missile actually falls into category one or two but that a government supposedly concerned about the uncontrolled transfer of missile technology and supposedly committed to an ethical arms sales policy should choose to abide by a debatable interpretation of the letter of its international commitments, rather than their spirit.

The second class of weapons to be targeted under Labour's pariah agenda has been torture equipment. The acquisition, purchase, possession, manufacture, sale and transfer of electric shock weapons was already regulated by the Firearms Act of 1968. However, as already noted, the government announced in July 1997 that it would extend the range of items banned. Specifically, it would take the necessary measure to prevent the export or transhipment from the UK of electro-shock batons, guns and lasers as well as leg-irons, gang chains, shackles and electro-shock belts.[21] At the same time as he made this announcement the Foreign Secretary also declared "any allegation that British companies are involved in such activities should be brought to the attention of the policy".[22] In addition, the government's 1998 White Paper on Strategic Export Controls outlined a commitment to "impose controls" on the trafficking and brokering of torture equipment.[23]

Clearly, in principle, such an extension can only represent a welcome improvement on past practice. At the same time however, it is worth placing the significance of this initiative in context. It will not lead to undue restrictions on Britain's existing arms trade. In particular, this is not a sector in which Britain's major arms companies have a significant stake.[24] Moreover, it is notable that when the issue of torture equipment has proved capable of embarrassing the UK's "legitimate" (for which read major) arms deals and "legitimate" (for which read largest) defence companies Labour has obfuscated its commitments on the issue. In particular, on coming to power Labour inherited an existing scandal over a Channel 3 TV documentary which filmed two BAe representatives offering electro-shock batons for sale and claiming that the company had supplied 8,000 of them as part of the huge Al Yamamah defence contract with Saudi Arabia. Despite the compelling nature of the evidence the Director of Public Prosecutions decided not to charge BAe on public interest grounds. In contrast, the Scottish Crown Office did charge the owner of a Glasgow-based company also seen in the programme offering to supply £1.5 million worth of electro-shock batons to the Lebanon (although the resulting £5,000 fine was arguably derisory). In a separate case, the black rap singer Mark Morrison actually received a three month prison sentence for threatening a policeman with a stun-gun.[25] It would appear that the government welcomes allegations regarding the use and sale of torture equipment only as long as they don't interfere with its conduct of "legitimate" arms sales.

The third, and arguably most prominent item on Labour's pariah weapons agenda has been the issue of landmines. Ministers have consistently emphasised their commitment on this issue and have repeatedly linked it with Labour's pursuit of an ethical arms sales policy.[26] This then is the arms trade issue on which Labour has been most committed to the pursuit of an ethical agenda. Even on this question however, Labour's policy did not mark quite as radical a departure as one might think. For instance, the previous government had already banned the export of all anti-personnel landmines to all destinations and had committed itself not to use anti-personnel mines that did not contain a self-destruct mechanism. Labour's achievement on the landmines issue was in its announcement of a complete ban on the use of all landmines (including those with a self-destruct mechanism), a commitment to destroy all UK stocks, greater support for the Ottawa process and the provision of £10 million a year in aid for landmine clearance. Labour's White Paper on Strategic Export Controls also appears to commit the government to banning the brokering of landmines, although the wording is not explicit.[27]

However, other countries have pledged far larger sums to demining (eg Canada £45 million, Japan £50 million, Norway £75 million).[28] Labour also qualified its commitment on the destruction of APMs by noting that this would not occur until 2005 and it qualified the ban on their use by only promising a moratorium until 2005 or until the Ottawa agreement entered into force, whichever came first. Up until this point the government retained the right to use them, albeit in exceptional circumstances. In addition, the White Paper on Strategic Export Controls has not yet been translated into legislation despite the fact that it is now over three years since the Scott Report asserted the need for a new legislative framework for arms export control, a delay heavily criticised by the Trade and Industry Committee.[29] Consequently, it is still currently legal for British arms brokers to arrange to supply landmines as long as these are sourced from a third country (as indeed is the case for instruments of torture).

Thus, as Bowers and Dodd have noted, initial government policy on landmines was such that until either 2005 or until the Ottawa Convention came into force "the essence of the Labour government's policy, an export ban and use only in exceptional circumstances, . . . (was) not altogether different from that reached by the Conservative Government in April 1996".[30] The Ottawa Convention came into force in February 1999 and in the same month the government annnounced that it had destroyed all its stocks of landmines. Consequently, this critique is arguably no longer relevant.

However, Labour has opted to proceed with the procurement of a vehicle launched scatterable anti-tank mine (ATM) ordered by the last government. The failure to include anti-tank mines in the Ottawa convention has come under criticism from NGOs who argue that this represents a loophole which can be exploited by arms manufacturers to get round the agreement.[31] Similarly, the UK continues to use cluster bombs such as the BL755 which was deployed in the Kosovo conflict.[32] Unexploded cluster bombs pose the same risks to civilians as landmines. Indeed, the US government has estimated that Kosovo is littered with some 11,000 unexploded NATO bombs, the vast bulk of which are the small "bomblets" released from cluster bombs.[33] Of course, Labour could justifiably argue that is has gone further than many governments (the US for instance) in actually signing up to the Ottawa Convention at all. However, a government committed to an ethical arms sales policy and one in particular which has given such prominence to the landmines issue might have been expected to pursue a more expansive agenda than implied by a minimalistic adherence to the Convention.

Second, the combined phenomenon of globalisation and the proliferation of weak states with porous borders means there is little guarantee that, for instance, explosives exported from the UK will not actually end up in landmines. This is particularly the case given the weakness of UK end-use controls and the presence in Whitehall of a culture which emphasises the maximisation of arms sales rather than their rigorous control.

Third, the delay in the destruction of UK stocks was widely interpreted as a concession to the military who were worried that alternative weapons such as more advanced conventional bombs, would not be available earlier.[34] For instance, in 1996 the MOD ordered the Conventional Armed Stand-Off Missile (CASOM) to replace the JP233 airfield denial weapon (which is now banned under the terms of the Ottawa Convention) but this will only enter service in 2001. The delay thus reduced the gap between the phasing out of the JP233 and its replacement with CASOM. This illustrates one of the deficiencies in Labour's pariah weapons agenda, namely that given the inertia in the arms dynamic, the effect of banning the market in one weapon is simply to create a market in another, albeit one that has managed to avoid being labelled inhuman. Indeed, one of the ironic codicils to Labour's policy on landmines is that the UK will provide 100 Paveway III laser guided bombs along with the necessary training as a "gift" to Saudi Arabia so that it can replace the JP233s it received from Britain in the mid 1980s. the Saudi stocks will be returned to Britain where they will be destroyed.[35] The MOD estimates the total cost to the British taxpayer at £15-17 million.[36]

PARIAH STATES

At the heart of Labour's formal policy with respect to pariah states is its commitment, as expressed in Robin Cook's new arms sales criteria not to approve export licences for arms that might be used for internal repression, or where there is a clearly identifiable risk that the intended recipient would use the proposed export aggressively against another country. However, these commitments are shot through with qualifications which act to undermine them. As already noted for instance, the promise not to export equipment for internal repression is qualified by a statement exempting equipment judged to be for the legitimate protection of a country's security forces. The new code also asserts that "in some cases the use of force by a government within its own borders does not constitute internal repression" although force should only be used in accordance with international human rights standards. Similarly, the restrictions on exports to countries that might use them aggressively against another country are watered down by the assertion that a "purely theoretical possibility that the items concerned might be used in the future against another state will not of itself lead to a licence being refused". This does of course beg the question of what, short of a note from the buyer stating "we would like these weapons so that we can pursue an immoral, illegal, unjustified war of aggression" actually constitutes a non-theoretical possibility that arms might be used in this way!? In mitigation, the government does include a list of factors it will consider when making a judgement on this question (for instance, the existence of conflict or a claim against the territory of a neighbouring country which the recipient has in the past tried or threatened to pursue by means of force). However, it only promises to "take into account" such factors (see Annex one). This stands in stark contrast to the requirement in the export criteria to give "full weight" to factors such as the protection of the UK's defence industrial base.

Such qualifications would arguably be of little significance if there existed a real commitment on the part of government to allow arms sales to be constrained by a serious consideration of their ethical implications. The evidence for such a commitment however is weak. The UK does abide by international arms embargoes whether imposed by the UN, the OSCE or the EU. Indeed, Labour has actually resurrected the sanctions enforcement desk in the FCO abolished by the Conservatives in 1996. The impact of this initiative however, was somewhat undermined by the fact that it came in response to criticisms in the Legge Report onto the Arms To Sierra Leone affair that there was not a sufficiently high priority given to the enforcement of sanctions.[37]

Moveover, arms embargoes do not always apply to non-lethal or dual-use defence equipment, or to equipment for which contracts are already in place. Both of these exemptions for instance, apply to the UK's interpretation of the EU embargo on China applied after the Tiananmen square massacre in 1989. Consequently, pre-existing contracts such as that to provide heads-up displays, weapon aiming computers and fire-control radars for China's F-7M fighter aircraft have been honoured, and new contracts such as that to supply the "non-lethal" Searchwater Airborne Early Warning Radar at a cost of $62 million have been agreed.[38] Whilst both of these examples occurred under previous administrations, it is also the case that between May 2 and Dec 31 1997 Labour issued some 23 Standard Individual Export Licences for the export of goods on the Military List to China.[39]

Thus, the announcement of an arms embargo does not necessarily signify that the door to defence equipment sales has been totally closed. Moreover, even when the door has been closed the horse has often metaphorically bolted (or at least been supplied with the necessary equipment to blow up the stable). For instance, between 1989 and 1991 the UK supplied a range of equipment to Yugoslavia (the details of which took up nine columns of Hansard) including engine parts and spares for the Yugoslav air force and radar equipment and spares to support the civil/military radar system.[40] Despite the subsequent imposition of an arms embargo, George Robertson the Secretary of State for Defence could nevertheless note during the recent conflict with Serbia that "some UK supplied equipment is continuing to contribute to Serbia's remaining air surveillance capability".[41] Given Labour's support for the maximisation of arms sales these problems are likely to persist. Indeed, the House of Commons International Development Committee has already rebuked the DTI for approving two export licences to Eritrea despite objections from the Department for International Development.[42] Eritrea has subsequently become the subject of an arms embargo as a consequence of its conflict with Ethiopia. As with China, the embargo does not cover contracts already in existence.

Many pariahs however, escape the imposition of a formal international arms embargo (partly of course, as a consequence of the influence their arms acquisitions allow them to exercise with the major arms sellers). In theory, this does not represent a problem given the constraints in the UK and EU codes against exporting arms that might be used for the purposes of internal repression or international aggression. In practice however, these provisions are predicated on the assumption that it is possible to make a distinction between, for instance, equipment capable of use in repression and that which is for "legitimate" defence needs. In reality, however such a distinction is difficult to uphold. For example, as Chalmers has noted with respect to Indonesia, even equipment thought to be purely for external defence—such as naval vessels and transport aircraft—have the capacity to play a role in repression. In this case by allowing the authorities to ferry troops and supplies to areas such as East Timor.[43] Indeed, even the government (implicitly) recognised the problems with such a distinction during the NATO action against Serbia when attacks on purely civil targets were justified on the grounds that they either represented important instruments of state repression and control, or contributed to the war-making capacity of the Serbs. Ministers however, seemed impervious to the irony involved in justifying the bombing of make-up ladies in Belgrade because of their role in government repression, whilst also insisting that the export of Hawk jets to Indonesia does not contribute to repression in East Timor.

This issue would be less problematic if the government's definition of repressive or destabilising equipment was an expansive one. In reality however, Labour has continued the practice adopted by previous British governments of adopting a restricted definition of such equipment. Indeed, the proportion of all export licence applications that have been refused has actually fallen from one per cent under the Conservatives to just 0.7 per cent under New Labour.[44] Even where pariah states have been concerned Labour's approach to arms exports has been largely permissive. For instance, Turkey's poor human rights record and the continuing tensions between it and Greece did not stop Labour approving 101 standard individual export licences to the country and rejecting just one in the period between the 2 May and 31 December 1997.[45] Moreover, Labour has continued to aggressively promote British arms sales to Turkey in a campaign which has included a visit to the country by the Defence Secretary George Robertson during which he signed a memorandum on defence industrial co-operation and noted "Turkey is a leading market and we definitely want to boost our co-operation". Indeed, DESO has reportedly targeted potential Turkish orders for artillery, armoured fighting vehicles, tanks, torpedoes and frigates and has a goal of achieving $200 million a year in defence sales to the country.[46] Whilst this target may not necessarily be realised, it is nevertheless worth noting that in the period 1994-96, only the UK's top six arms customers place a higher level of annual orders (see Annex 4).

Thus, Labour's rhetoric on the restriction of defence equipment to pariah states has been translated into formal commitments that are shot through with qualifications. In a bureaucratic milieu which places an emphasis on maximising arms exports, these qualifications have then been exploited to produce an export licensing process in which ethical concerns have been allowed to intrude only at the margins. There has been much discussion in the popular press about the potential of nano-technology. On the subject of arms sales, Labour would appear to have discovered the benefits of nano-ethics.

THE PROBLEMS OF TECHNOLOGY DENIAL IN A GLOBALISED WORLD

Labour's pariah agenda emphasises strategies of technology restriction. However, the globalising dynamic inherent in the contemporary international defence industry, the increasingly porous nature of national borders (particularly but not exclusively in weak states) and the commercial imperatives created in an industry suffering from reduced demand and over-capacity, all place question marks over the effectiveness of strategies of technology control. Moreover, the emphasis on technology denial in pariah strategies presumes a division can be made between categories of weapons or technology which can be used to promote internal repression or international aggression and those that are legitimate. As already noted, this distinction has always been a spurious one, but the growing role of civil and dual use technology in the military equipment of both state and non-state actors is making this distinction harder to operate at all levels of the technology spectrum. For instance, both US troops in Somalia and Russian troops in Chechnya found themselves confronted with warlords who used cellphones to warn each other of enemy movements;[47] insurgent and criminal groups have exploited the information revolution to launder digital money (from or for arms sales) through offshore banks which sometimes only exist in cyberspace;[48] traffic control camera systems have been used by the Chinese in the mass capture of students participating in pro-democracy protests (eg Tiananmen Square);[49] and remotely piloted vehicles designed for crop spraying are capable of being used as delivery or reconnaissance vehicles of the kind that proved so useful in the conflict in Kosovo.[50] Indeed, even the US military is now having to buy into civilian satellite projects whilst at the same time expressing concern that the prospective availability of commercial satellites with high resolution imaging systems will negate the military advantages the US currently enjoys as a function of its superior space capabilities.[51] The scale and intensity of the information revolution has also meant that the pace at which technology restrictions become obsolete has increased, whilst knowledge transfers have also become easier and more difficult to restrict. For instance, current US restrictions on the export of supercomputers set a maximum computing capacity which is similar to the operating capacity of some computer games[52] whilst the existence of the internet means it is no longer necessary to physically transport equipment abroad. Instead, designs can simply be downloaded by computer and transmitted anywhere in the world by internet. Indeed, the Iranians have reportedly paid money to Russian scientists working in Russia to solve problems related to their WMD programmes over the internet.

In other words the twin impacts of globalisation and the information revolution have meant that Labour's pariah control strategy, with its emphasis on the elimination or the restriction of technology, is becoming an increasingly ineffective tool with which to prevent the proliferation arms. For a Party which has made such play of the need to adjust to both the information revolution and the reality of globalisation this is particularly ironic.

TOWARDS A STRUCTURAL ARMS CONTROL AGENDA

What this implies then is a more innovative approach to the problems of weapons proliferation than has traditionally been operated by the international community, in particular the adoption of what might be termed "structural arms control" strategies. Such approaches are based on a recognition of the fact that the key constraint facing actors concerned to acquire arms is no longer the difficulty of obtaining them on the international market, but rather the availability of funding to pay for them. Structural arms control strategies therefore aim either to raise the costs of acquiring or retaining arms, or to enhance the economic benefits to be derived from the pursuit of non-military security strategies. Such strategies should be designed to supplement (and to some extent replace) pariah control strategies which focus on restricting the availability of particular technologies.

A key element in this approach is the need to reduce or eliminate the subsidies made available for arms exports by all suppliers including the UK, and also to take action against companies found guilty of bribing foreign officials to place arms orders. In particular, Labour should advocate meaningful international agreements designed to restrict or eliminate the use of export credits and offsets to lubricate arms deals. Concern in the US about the negative effects of defence offsets on the US economy has already led the US Department of Commerce to propose a US/European agreement to eliminate offset requirements for each others purchases. Such an initiative, if realised has the potential to be broadened to encompass other actors. Moreover, there are precedents in the civil sector which suggest that negotiating agreements to limit defence offsets may be possible. For instance, under a 1992 US and EU bilateral agreement, government mandated offsets are prohibited in connection with the civil aircraft trade. More recently, a Government Procurement Agreement (GPA), which came into force in January 1996 (and covers the EU, the US, Canada, Japan, Norway, Switzerland, Israel and Republic of Korea), precludes the imposition of offset requirements on purchases of civil goods.[53] Similarly, there have been agreements in the civil sector on the provision of export credits—for civil aerospace exports for instance.[54] Indeed, in September 1997 the British government did make a token gesture on the issue of export credits for defence when Gordon Brown committed the UK not to provide defence-related export credits to highly indebted poor countries, although this was only for two years. The significance of this gesture should not be overestimated as many HIPC's are likely to have poor credit ratings anyway, thus reducing their chances of receiving such credit. Indeed, between 1990 and 1997 the UK extended export credits for defence-related business to just three HIPC's (India, Pakistan and Zimbabwe) and in total these accounted for just 0.15 per cent of all export credits furnished to defence buyers in this period by the UK.[55] However, the government is also pressing for an agreement on this issue in the OECD. Such an agreement should be widened to include states other than the HIPC states and also be pursued within the framework of the Wassenaar arrangement. If meaningful agreements were to be achieved in these fora then this could significantly raise the economic and political costs of acquisitions for states.

More radically, the UNDP has called for a global tax on all arms sales.[56] The receipts from such a tax could be used to fund demobilisation, disarmament or conversion programmes. A more modified version of this proposal could actually be operated on a unilateral basis by the UK itself. The UK MoD currently places an export levy on the sale of arms which have been developed with government funds. Despite the fact that this levy is often waived or reduced by the MOD in order to facilitate UK exports, it nevertheless brings in an income of roughly £50 million per year.[57] Compared to the level of funding for defence R&D provided by government to British defence companies this currently represents a derisory sum. Thus, if the export levy were to be raised and if the receipts were to be hypothecated to fund demilitarisation initiatives, or alternatively to fund a rigorous end-use inspection regime, then the UK could at least argue that, even if it did not operate an ethical arms sales policy, it was at least putting the receipts from arms sales to an ethical purpose consistent with the polluter pays principle.

Of course, it can be objected that initiatives designed to raise the cost of arms exports would essentially represent a new form of neo-imperialism which would also serve to entrench the divisions in the world military order between the developed and the developing world, Restrictions on the provision of export credits, offsets and other forms of subsidy would thus have to be part of a wider deal in which developed states committed themselves to bringing down their own levels of defence expenditure and to pursuing conversion strategies designed to reduce the dependence of their national economies on defence production. In addition, Western states could commit themselves to rewarding states with low levels of militarisation. Indeed, some states have already undertaken, in principle at least, to make aid conditional upon low levels of defence expenditure—although to date the actual implementation of such commitments has been noticeably weak. Other incentives that could be offered might include agreements to transfer civil technology or offers of more favourable treatment in trade negotiations. Moreover, whilst such initiatives might appear to imply sacrifices on the part of the West, by promoting economic prosperity in the target countries they could actually make a further contribution to conflict prevention and thus reduce the burden placed on Western aid and defence budgets. For instance, the Multi-donor Evaluation of the Rwandan genocide has highlighted the extremely destabilising impact of the end of the International Coffee Agreement in 1989 which halved the export price of Rwanda's coffee. This effected some 70 per cent of rural households in the country with grave consequences for its subsequent stability.[58] The ensuing genocide led to a relief operation which cost $1.4 billion from April to December 1994[59] and which is still going on within Rwanda. The refugee flows from the country also precipitated a civil war in the Congo which has now drawn in a number of neighbouring countries. Clearly, conflicts such as the Rwandan genocide are multi-casual and it would be simplistic to suggest that all this occurred simply for want of a coffee agreement. However, greater flexibility with regards to such issues on the part of the West, in return for commitments on defence expenditure and good governance does, at its optimum, have the potential to create a virtuous circle of conflict prevention.

In addition, given that the key constraint on actors obtaining arms is their ability to obtain financing for them, arms embargoes should be extended to include restrictions on banks and countertrade houses designed to prevent them providing assistance in the financing of arms deals through the extension of export credits, or through the management of barter or offset deals associated with a banned export. Reinicke has also argued that such organisations should be required to furnish regular data on the arms deals they have provided financing for, thus opening up a further avenue by which government's can attempt to monitor and prevent illegal arms sales.[60] This is particularly relevant given that the provision of financing or offset brokering services may well be undertaken by companies resident in a country different to that which either the buyer, seller or arms originate from.

Moreover, in the current international climate, defence companies have every incentive to find ways round arms embargoes because the chances of detection are small and, given the symbiotic relationship that exists between governments and defence companies any breaches of formal policy are often overlooked. Even where they are not, the punishments awarded for illegal arms exports may not always represent a substantial deterrent (see Annex five). There is thus a requirement for mechanisms such as the tagging of arms at the point of export and import, and tighter end-use controls such as the imposition of regular checks to establish that equipment is being used for its stated purpose and not being re-transferred to unauthorised destinations. In contrast, New Labour appears to be backing off its commitments to introduce tighter end-use controls, arguing instead that the best way to reduce the diversion of arms is to restrict their export to legitimate end-users in the first place.[61] Given the abysmal record of the export licence machinery on this issue (eg the licencing of arms shipments ultimately diverted from Jordan and Saudi Arabia to Iraq, and arms diverted from Singapore to Iran), this is a particularly perverse conclusion.

Such initiatives also need to be coupled with the introduction of significant sanctions against those actors trading in pariah weapons or to pariah states. These are likely to be pursued with greater vigour if a right of redress is provided to the victims of illegitimate arms exports. For example, where companies or states are found to have knowingly breached an arms embargo then the government or the citizens of the state to which arms have been supplied should have the capacity in international law to sue the firm or state responsible and to claim substantial reparations which could be put towards the costs of demilitarisation and peacebuilding. Of course, it can be argued that such a proposal is unrealistic given that weapons often change hands a number of times before ending up in a particular conflict. However, the tagging of arms should make the monitoring of weapons flows easier. Moreover, it is not uncommon for other industry sectors to be fined for failure to implement government policy even where they are not at fault, the assumption being that the onus is on them to develop the systems necessary to ensure policy is implemented. Thus, for instance, in the UK, ferries, airlines and road hauliers face fines of £2,000 for every illegal immigrant they bring into the country even if the person discovered is a stowaway whose presence was not detected by the carrier.[62] Adoption of a similar approach to the discovery of illegal arms in an embargoed destination would also have the added benefit of encouraging firms to implement the rigorous end-use inspection regimes that are currently lacking.

States (and NGOs) should also examine both their own national legislation and the record of their courts in an attempt to determine whether the punishments meted out to offenders are appropriate to the severity of the crime. In the UK case, for instance, the evidence suggests that this is not always so, particularly where illegal arms exports are conducted for commercial reasons rather than for the purpose of individual crimes. Indeed, in some cases the deterrent would appear to be marginal. For example, one company prosecuted for attempting to export aircraft parts costing over £56,000 to Libya was fined just £4,500. In another case, two companies prosecuted for attempting to supply £120,000 of aircraft parts to Iran were fined £15,000 and £500 respectively. Moreover, once having paid their fines the companies could, in theory at least, have been back in business the next day. In contrast, British Airways was fined £4 million simply for breaching EU competition rules when it provided cash incentives to travel agents to encourage customers to purchase BA tickets (see Annexes five and six).

CONCLUSION

Labours ethical arms sales policy has given particular emphasis to pariah control strategies which focus on restricting exports to pariah states and/or restrictions on pariah weapons. At the same time, the language adopted in formal policy documents has meant that even this agenda has been framed in a manner that implies a largely permissive attitude to UK arms exports. Judged solely on its own language Labour's arms sales policy is actually less ethical than its own policy in the eighties, less ethical than that of a number of other states, less ethical than the EU code, less ethical than Scott and less ethical than the Green Paper on export controls produced by the Conservatives.

To pile irony on top of irony, Labour's pariah control agenda depends for its effectiveness on the ability to abolish or restrict the flow of technology. Yet this ability has been substantially undermined by the twin forces of globalisation and technological revolution, two phenomena Labour has made much claim to be embracing. Thus, existing control strategies need to be augmented (and in some cases replaced) by a structural arms control approach designed to raise the costs of arms and reduce the price of non-military security strategies.

August 1999

12 Labour party, New Hope for Britain, London, 1983, p 37, cited in Mark Wickham Jones, New Labour and Ethical Foreign Policy Paper presented at the Ethics and Foreign Policy, Workshop: University of Bristol 8 to 9 June, 1999 p 6. Back

13 Labour Party, Meet the Challenge, Make the Change, London: Labour Party, 1989, p 88. Back

14 Memorandum Submitted by Amnesty International UK, in House of Commons Defence Committee, Committees' Inquiry into the 1997 and 1998 Annual Reports on Strategic Export Controls, Fifth Special Report, HC 540, London: HMSO, 30 June 1999. See: http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/cm199899/cmselect/cmdfence/540/54002.htm. Back

15 See for instance, Malcolm Chalmers, British Arms Export Policy and Indonesia, Saferworld, London, May 1997, p 22. Back

16 Memorandum Submitted by Amnesty International UK, in House of Commons Select Committee on Trade and Industry, Strategic Export Controls. Back

17 House of Commons Select Committee on Trade and Industry, Strategic Export Controls, para 32. Back

18 House of Commons Select Committee on Trade and Industry, Strategic Export Controls, para 28. Back

19 Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Centennial of the First International Peace Conference. Comments of the United Kingdom Government on the Centennial Themes, May 1999, see FCO web-site. Back

20 Defence News, "Missile Puts UK on Spot", Sept 14-20, 1998, p 1 and p 50 Back

21 Amnesty International UK, UK Foreign and Asylum Policy. Human Rights Audit 1998, London: Amnesty International, 1998, p38. Back

22 FCO Daily Bulletin, 28 July 1997, see FCO web-site. Back