Kennis took take part in a side event at the Seventh Biennial Meeting of States (BMS) for the UN Programme of Action on Small Arms, on 28 July 2021. The event was hosted by the Permanent Mission of the Governments of Italy and Mexico to the United Nations in cooperation with the Alliance of NGOs on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice and Osservatorio sulla criminalità organizzata (CROSS).
Subject matter expert speakers took stock of the review processes of the main global small arms control instruments––the PoA, the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) and the Firearm Protocol (FP) of the UN Convention against Transnational Organised Crime. This theme was timely as 2021 marked the 20th anniversary of the PoA and 15th anniversary of the Firearms Protocol.
A flyer for the event with the speakers and their affiliations can be found here.
Despite some recent discussions of the synergies between the PoA, ATT and the FP, there has been little consideration of the connections between the implementation and monitoring processes of these instruments and how they might support each other. The PoA and the ATT have included review processes since their inception, but the Review Mechanism for the UNTOC and its supplementary protocols, including the FP, has just been launched, offering a unique opportunity to expose BMS audiences to its approach, strengths and weaknesses.
