Topic: Combating the Illicit Small Arms Trade
Country: Italy
Delegate Name: Magda Hlavacek
School: Saginaw Arts and Sciences Academy
Topic page: background guide and all position papers All Italy position papers GLIMUN 2012 committees
The nation of Italy recognizes that illicit trade of small firearms is a huge global problem. In today's world, much violence is committed by illegal groups, and the main source of weapons for such groups is the illicit small arms trade, since it is unregulated and sells weapons for relatively low prices. Italy so far has attempted to prevent illicit gun trade by keeping track of guns in Italy by requiring all gun-owners to register their weapons.
In the past, the United Nations Firearms Protocol has been fairly successful in reducing illicit weapon trade. Thus, the nation of Italy recommends including small arms as a permanent category in the Unite Nations Register of conventional arms. Italy hopes that this will inclusion will contribute to the reduction of the illicit small firearm trade.
So far, the Programme of Action has been quite successful in impeding the illicit small arms trade, shrinking the trade considerably. However, Italy believes that this plan needs to be honed to be fully effective. Italy believes that with regards to this issue, time is of the essence. The faster we can reduce the illicit small arms trade, the more innocent lives will be spared from senseless violence. Thus, a focused, result-oriented plan is needed. One way to make this plan more focused is to state a clear definition for illicit small arms, since such a definition is not currently in place. Once a clear definition is in place, Italy believes that existing measures should be honed in a way that will ensure short term success.
