Topic: Combating the Illicit Small Arms Trade
Country: Denmark
Delegate Name: Jessica Dupree
School: Fishers High School
Topic page: background guide and all position papers All Denmark position papers GLIMUN 2012 committees
While the Kingdom of Denmark recognizes the importance of combating the small arms trade it is not a present issue in our country. Even though it is not present we still offer our assistance as part of the European Union in the effort of combating the illicit small arms trade. This appears to be a problem that is steadily growing in numbers and in severity.
Since as a nation the Kingdom of Denmark can offer no experience in this matter, it is difficult to formulate a solution. Although the Kingdom of Denmark pledges its allegiance with the European Union and any solution it or any of its members proposes as long as it does not interfere with a nation’s sovereignty. A nation’s sovereignty is very important to uphold particularly in matters of law and law enforcement. The small arms trade seems to be most affecting countries with heavy criminal activity. The way that Denmark has combated that issue is by imposing very harsh and strict laws against criminals, such as very strict weapons laws. This has worked very well seeing as a harsher punishment for crimes seems to keep the crime rate down. We don’t mean to suggest that our crime rate is low but it is only at a moderate level when compared to other industrialized nations.
It appears that the only way to combat this issue is to discuss and debate about the issue with the nations that it happens to affect. The Kingdom of Denmark would like to entertain the idea of enforcing stricter gun and weapons laws and regulations in order to take action against this issue seeing as we have this and the small arms trade is not a problem Denmark faces. Denmark feels that the only way to effectively combat this issue is to involve each and every nation in formulating a plan to put a stop to the small arms trade. The true way to handle this is to band together as the UN and put up a united front against the small arms and light weapons dealers in order to show that we are serious about ending this issue once and for all. In order to do this the UNODC needs to enforce strict punishments for breaking any regulation or law that is put in place. Only then will we be able to truly make a dent in ending this problem.
