The Western Balkans SALW Control Roadmap - a global model for effective regional arms control

The Western Balkans SALW Control Roadmap deemed a global model for effective regional arms control at the United Nations Security Council Arria formula meeting on Building Peace through Effective Small Arms Control in New York.

8 April 2019, New York

Germany, France, the Dominical Republic and Equatorial Guinea organized on 8 April 2019 a Security Council Arria-Formula meeting on the Western Balkans SALW Control Roadmap as a model for effective SALW control at the regional level. The meeting aimed at exploring if the Western Balkans SALW Control Roadmap can serve as a model for effective SALW Control in other regions of the world.

Ms Bojana Balon, Head of UNDP SEESAC, presented the Roadmap in a panel including Ms Izumi Nakamitsu - Under-Secretary-General and UN High Representative for Disarmament, H.E. Pennelope Beckles, Ambassador of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, H.E. Fatima Kyari Mohammed, Ambassador/AU Permanent Observer to the UN. In her speech, Ms Balon stressed the importance of regional cooperation and local ownership as the foundation for the Roadmap’s success in the Western Balkans: “the Western Balkans is one of the most vibrant regions in terms of regional cooperation on small arms and light weapons control due to the awareness of the Governments in the region that the cross-border nature of illicit arms trafficking can only be addressed following a regional approach”... “local ownership is a precondition for the sustainability of results to be achieved through the implementation of the Roadmap”. Ms Balon’s intervention was followed by statements by Security Council members, Western Balkans partners and the European Union (EU).

Western Balkans SALW Control Roadmap envisages the Western Balkans as a safer region and an exporter of security where comprehensive and sustainable mechanisms, fully harmonized with the EU and other international standards, are in place to identify, prevent, prosecute, and control the illegal possession, misuse and trafficking of firearms, ammunition and explosives. The Roadmap was developed by the Western Balkans authorities with SEESAC’s technical support under the auspices of France and Germany and in consultation with the EU and all other relevant actors.

 

Statements delivered at the United Nations Security Council: Arria meeting on the Western Balkans Roadmap for the Control of SALW 

Delegation of the European Union to the United Nations, New York 

United States Mission to the United Nations, New York

Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the United Nations, New York

Permanent Mission of the Republic of Albania to the United Nations, New York

United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs

Permanent Mission of Belgium to the United Nations  (English and French)

Permanent Mission of the Republic of Indonesia to the United Nations, New York

 

Other

Kuwait calls for multidisciplinary approach to combat illicit trade of small arms, light weapons

UN Security Council, Arria-Formula Meetings, 1992-2019 (ref pg 19)

UN Security Council, May 2019 update, section on Small Arms and Light Weapons

Germany in the UN Security Council (ref pg 40)

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