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Moreau, Virginie, Cédric Poitevin and Jihan Seniora. 2010 ‘Transactions and Activities Covered - Imports, Exports, Transit and Brokering.’ Arms Transfer Controls: The Example of French-Speaking States in Sub-Saharan Africa, p. 9. Brussels: Groupe de Recherche et d'Information sur la Paix et la Sécurité (GRIP). 1 May

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Transactions and Activities Covered - Imports, Exports, Transit and Brokering

All of the national regulation analysed covers arms imports affected by legislation. This is not the case with exports, which are sometimes totally absent from national regulation.

There are two explanations for this. According to a very widespread but, nonetheless, misguided opinion, African countries do not manufacture weapons and therefore do not export them. Legal provisions on the subject would therefore be superfluous. Some of the legislation in these countries only focuses on arms for civilian use: due to socio-economic conditions, the latter would be even less likely to export arms than the state authorities. Little of the legislation covers the question of transit…

Any mention in regulation regarding transit, fails to define what transit actually is. It therefore remains difficult to distinguish between strictly transit or trans-shipment cases. The law in force in the DRC regulates transit but does not define what this is…

Finally, it should be noted that several states clearly use the term transfer (without providing any definition of what this entails) to tackle issues involving the flow of arms on national territory…

There are only two recent examples of legislation on brokering that also provide a definition of what this is. Questions involving temporary imports (or admission)/exports are sometimes tackled but not defined. One legislation focuses on "re-exports". None of the regulation analysed contains clauses regarding other activities and transactions that are likely to be raised during ATT negotiations, such as the loan, gift, intangible transfers, technical assistance or even licensed production.

[ATT = Arms Trade Treaty]

ID: Q5013

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