A prerequisite for preventing, combating and eradicating the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons is ensuring that law enforcement agencies – in particular customs, immigration and border police – coordinate and cooperate with one another. Both within their own countries and with their counterparts on the opposite side of the border.
Strengthening control measures at the border is especially challenging if a border is long, porous, remote, or difficult to access.
Inability to prevent illicit flows:
Even States that do have effective border controls in place can see their efforts neutralized if traffickers are not prosecuted and if criminal networks are not disbanded. An effective justice system is therefore a prerequisite for effective border controls.
The control of long, remote or difficult to access borders cannot succeed without. And the active support of communities living in the vicinity of the border, for whom cross-border trade may constitute a vital economic activity,is. The challenge is to implement targeted, risk-based border controls while facilitating the flow of legitimate trade.
Efforts to prevent illicit, cross-border movements of small arms and light weapons must be integrated into a broader strategy aimed at curtailing all cross-border criminality, since small arms and light weapons control represents only one part of a State’s border security strategy.
Disarmament in Review
