Small Arms Survey

The following statement was presented to the President and all attending delegations of the Twelfth Conference of States Parties (CSP12) to the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) on Monday, 24th August 2026. Read it hereor watch it below: 'Thank you, Madame President. Allow me first to express my congratulations on your presidency of CSP12. It has been a real pleasure working with you over the course of the year. The Small Arms Survey is a centre for applied knowledge based here in Geneva.

General Statement The following statement was presented to the President and all attending delegations of the Twelfth Conference of States Parties (CSP12) to the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) on Monday, 24th August 2026. Read it hereor watch it below: 'Thank you, Madame President. Allow me first to express my congratulations on your presidency of CSP12. It has been a real pleasure working with you over the course of the year. The Small Arms Survey is a centre for applied knowledge based here in Geneva.

Publications Co-publication Working paper presented by Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the Small Arms Survey to the Twelfth Conference of States Parties to the Arms Trade Treaty, August 2026.

'High-profile port seizures consistently disprove a long-held assumption regarding arms trafficking - demonstrating that the world's most destabilizing volumes of illicit weapons move not across land borders, but by sea. The Global Study on Firearms Trafficking 2020 by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) found that while interceptions from vessels constitute only 6% of global customs cases, they account for roughly 33% of all firearms seized by customs.

'On the afternoon of 26 January 2022, the Philippine Senate voted in favour of Resolution №960 - with 16 votes for, none against, and six abstentions. The vote saw the Senate give their formal concurrence (agreement) to the ratification of the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), thereby marking the end of a years-long legislative process.

Despite a 20-year international campaign to combat the threat from illicit man-portable air defence systems (MANPADS), acquisition and use of these weapons by non-state armed groups continues, especially in the Middle East and North Africa region.

Publications Briefing Paper Despite a 20-year international campaign to combat the threat from illicit man-portable air defence systems (MANPADS), acquisition and use of these weapons by non-state armed groups continues, especially in the Middle East and North Africa region.

Publications Other 2025 witnessed renewed geopolitical competition and ongoing conflicts fuel increased military expenditure and expansion of the global small arms market. Data collected proved that rising demand is accelerating the diffusion of weapons, including into the hands of non-state actors across multiple regions. At the same time, increasingly adaptive trafficking networks as well as technological and industrial shifts are compounding these challenges.

2025 witnessed renewed geopolitical competition and ongoing conflicts fuel increased military expenditure and expansion of the global small arms market. Data collected proved that rising demand is accelerating the diffusion of weapons, including into the hands of non-state actors across multiple regions. At the same time, increasingly adaptive trafficking networks as well as technological and industrial shifts are compounding these challenges. Traditional arms control approaches are being outpaced.

Civilian firearms circulation in borderland and peripheral areas is difficult to monitor and quantify. Existing approaches often struggle to capture how firearms move through informal systems over time, particularly in environments shaped by cross-border flows, mobility, and localized security dynamics.