Conventional arms control in the post-cold war era and the successful campaign for an arms trade treaty

Abstract

The United Nations General Assembly adopted the Arms Trade Treaty on 2 April 2013, the first ever legally-binding instrument to regulate the global trade in conventional arms. Conventional arms are responsible for fuelling and sustaining conflicts that result in countless casualties in different parts of the world. Remarkably, the effects of these deadly weapons started to attract global attention only after the end of the Cold War, and before the ATT the trade in these weapons was largely unregulated at the global level. This study explores the two major international relations theory of realism and liberalism to explain the phenomenon of the arms trade, the anarchic nature of the international system and why states build up their military capabilities, while delving deeper into neoliberal institutionalism, an upgraded version of the liberal paradigm, to look at the prospects of cooperation and the role that international institutions play in facilitating the cooperation. This thesis also traces the developments made in the field of conventional arms control since the end of the Cold War, while attempting to find the links between each development in the form of arms control agreements at the regional or global levels. The constructivist theory of norm building traces and links these developments that paved the way for a normative change in contemporary arms control. It then goes on to explore how the campaign for an ATT was initiated and how the ATT was achieved through the formal process at the United Nations. The findings of this study support the neoliberal institutionalist propositions with regard to cooperation and the role of international institutions, in that international institutions have a significant influence in shaping state behaviour and facilitating international cooperation. The study also finds that the Security Dilemma, a major part of realism, hinders the establishment of a global treaty as certain elements such as the inclusion of ammunition in all aspects was compromised, making the ATT a potentially weak treaty. Despite the traditional disagreements between the realist and liberal schools of thought, the study gives perspective to the compatibility between these two realms and finds that despite the divergences, both realist and liberalist propositions can be observed from the same phenomenon, albeit neoliberal institutionalism providing a better understanding of the process due to its emphasis on institutions. The major international institutions consisted of civil society groups who were the key actors behind the campaigns for conventional arms control since the mid- to-late nineties, successfully exercising bottom-up power to reach their objectives.