TRANSPARENCY IN MILITARY MATTERS GROWS

TRANSPARENCY IN MILITARY MATTERS GROWS

 

NEW YORK, 30 July (Department of Disarmament Affairs) -- Significant progress was recorded this year in the level of participation by governments in the two global arms transparency instruments maintained and operated by the United Nations Secretariat -– the Register of Conventional Arms and the Standardized Instrument for Reporting Military Expenditures.  Encouragingly, the number of new participants in the two arms transparency instruments continues to grow, registering a significant increase over the past two years.  More submissions are expected this year, as some governments were not able to finalize their reports on time.

The Register of Conventional Arms received a record number of submissions by governments on the transfer of major conventional weapons for the calendar year 2000.  By 26 July, 94 governments had submitted returns.  This significantly exceeds the level of submissions received by such a date in all the previous nine years of the Register’s operation, the previous record being 84 for calendar year 1997.  So far, 156 governments have participated in the Register at least once since its inception in 1992. 

It has been estimated that the Register, in which almost all major producers, exporters and importers participate regularly, captures well over

95 per cent of the global trade in the seven categories of armaments on which information is exchanged.  Those categories encompass combat aircraft, heavy artillery, battle tanks, other combat vehicles, attack helicopters, naval vessels and missiles as well as missile launchers. 

Estimates of the value of the global arms trade vary.  According to the United States Congressional Research Service, the trade was worth more than

$30 billion in 1999, of which 68 per cent was absorbed by the developing world. The industrialized world is the main producer and exporter of major conventional arms. 

A promising upturn has also been recorded for the United Nations Standardized Instrument for Reporting Military Expenditures.  This year, by

26 July, the Secretariat had received submissions from 55 governments, as compared to fewer than 35 last year.  The standardized reporting format covers expenditure on personnel, operations and maintenance, procurement and construction, and research and development.

So far, more than 90 governments have participated in the military expenditure instrument one or more times.  These governments together constitute around 80 per cent of global military expenditure.

Sustained effort is being made by the Secretariat to increase familiarity with the procedures of these instruments, with a view to encouraging greater and more consistent participation.  A series of regional and subregional workshops, with the assistance of interested governments, is also being planned for later this year. 

These efforts will help to enhance and sustain the progress of these global transparency instruments towards fulfilling their respective confidence-building and arms-restraint objectives. 

The information supplied by governments to the United Nations Register (dating back to 1992) is openly available on the Department of Disarmament Affairs Web site at http://www.un.org/Depts/dda/CAB/register.htm.  The information is published in print form in a document of the General Assembly each year, as is the standardized reporting instrument.  Only the last two years of the latter

(1999 and 2000) are available in electronic format.

For further information, contact:  Nazir Kamal, Conventional Arms Branch, DDA, S-3170F, United Nations, New York.  E-mail: kamaln@un.org,

fax: (212) 963-1121.

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