ABSTRACT
At the beginning of 2013, the problems associated with the proliferation, availability and misuse of small arms and light weapons (SALW) remained a key issue on the global policy agenda. Loose weapons were leaking out of failed states, a variety of groups were creating armed violence, and deaths from crime using SALW were on the rise, espe-cially compared with deaths in conflict. So were the efforts to solve these problems at the local, national, regional, and global levels—the United Nations (UN) Programme of Action on Small Arms (PoA) (UN, 2001), the negotiations for an Arms Trade Treaty, the development of International Small Arms Control Standards, and the Geneva Declaration on Armed Violence and Development.
