The 2019 Report
Chapter 1 focuses on the obligation of States Parties to consider gender-based violence (GBV) during risk assessment, picking up the President of CSP 2019’s choice of gender and GBV as the priority theme for this year’s CSP. It gives an overview of gender representation in the ATT process in relation to wider moves in UN disarmament processes to prioritize gender equality. It then discusses challenges around the identification of the problem of GBV, which includes the spectrum of definitions of the term, acts that are considered to be GBV, weapons that need to be considered for a GBV risk assessment, the meaning of ‘commit’ or ‘facilitate’ with regard to GBV, and challenges to identifying the full extent of GBV. It examines the specific GBV provisions in the ATT and explores how States Parties can properly operationalize them. It illustrates existing practice by States Parties based on interviews with licensing officials from a range of states and considers two scenarios as illustrations of a GBV risk assessment process.
Chapter 2 takes an in-depth look at 2017 ATT Annual Reports. It includes an overall analysis of reporting practices, comparing 2016 and 2017 ATT Annual Reports. This identifies changes in reporting practices and assesses whether inconsistencies and gaps identified in the ATT Monitor analysis of 2016 ATT Annual reports were resolved in the 2017 ones. Chapter 2.2 includes country profiles for each State Party obliged to submit a 2017 ATT Annual Report. Each profile provides data on key reporting practice metrics (public reporting, timely reporting, withholding security information), as well as a summary of areas of good reporting practice and areas for improvement. The profiles also contain a summary of transfers reported by each State Party, focusing on basic comparable information such as number and status of export/import partners, and highlighting the largest transfers reported by that State in 2017.
Chapter 2.3 first provides an overall analysis on the extent to which reported exports and imports are comparable within these reports (for example, if one State Party reported an export of assault rifles to another, did the second State Party also report a matching import?). Second, it provides examples of reporting practices and different sources of information provided by States Parties within reporting templates that make it difficult to compare data from one report with another. Third, it provides recommendations drawn from the Stimson Center’s ATT Baseline Assessment Project (ATT-BAP) on steps that can be taken by States Parties to provide comprehensive, accurate and comparable information in Annual Reports that allow a bigger picture of the global arms trade to emerge.
Chapter 3.1 includes a summary assessment of Annual Reports submitted for arms exported and imported during 2018 before 31 May 2019.39 It is anticipated that more States Parties will submit their report in the window between the legal deadline of 31 May and the beginning of CSP 2019. As such, this analysis will be further expanded in next year’s ATT Monitor report.
Chapter 3.2 includes a summary assessment of Initial Reports and updates to them submitted by States Parties as of June 2019. From this assessment comes an analysis of reporting non-compliance, highlighting challenges States Parties face in fulfilling reporting obligations.
