Killer Facts: The Impact of the Irresponsible Arms Trade on Lives, Rights and Livelihoods

The poorly regulated global trade of conventional arms and ammunition has an enormous human cost. Every day, thousands of people are killed, injured, raped and forced to flee from their homes as a result of armed conflict, armed violence and human rights violations and abuses perpetrated using conventional arms. Inadequate and loophole-ridden national regulations of international trasnfers of conventional weapons, munitions and associated material permit arms to be supplied to those flagrantly violating international human rights and humanitarian law: destroying lives and threatening livlihoods. As goverments prepare to meet in July 2012 for the Preparatory Committee for negotiations for an international Arms Trade Treaty, this short document is intended to provide some basic facts and figures on the impact of armed conflict, armed violence and human rights violations perpetrated using conventional arms.