INTRODUCTION

Regulating the transit and trans-shipment of conventional arms covered by the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) is of considerable importance for the fulfilment of one particular goal that many States espoused during the Treaty negotiations: improving the prospects for control of trade that is either illegal or simply unregulated. This overall goal was eventually reflected in Article 1 of the ATT which describes the object and purpose of the Treaty as being, inter alia, ‘improving the regulation of the international trade in conventional arm’ and to ‘prevent and eradicate the illicit trade in conventional arms’. The importance of such a goal lies in the fact that a majority of the world’s States currently have only rudimentary controls on the transit or trans-shipment of conventional arms (Parker and Green, 2012, p. 244 and p. 365). By requiring States Parties, in Article 5(2) of the ATT, to put into place or improve the necessary legal and administrative means to exercise effective control over this trade, and by striving for universal adherence to the ATT, the hopedfor effect is to significantly narrow unregulated arms trading activities and to improve the detection and prosecution of instances of illegal trade in conventional arms.

States have developed practices and procedures to control the transit and trans-shipment of goods in general. Under Article 9 of the ATT, States Parties are specifically required to take ‘appropriate’ measures to control the transit and trans-shipment of the conventional arms covered in Article 2(1) of the ATT.

The transit or trans-shipment of conventional arms can be looked at in general from two angles – from a customs authority perspective and from a national arms trade control authority’s perspective. In technical terms for the international trade of goods, transit is defined in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) as a customs procedure under which goods are transported through countries from one customs office to the other without paying duties and taxes (GATT, 1994, Art. V(1) and Art. V(3)).