A/HRC/35/8 The three pillars of the United Nations (peace and security, human rights and development) are closely intertwined, and the existence of peace and security is an important enabling condition for the promotion and protection of human rights. 6. However, arms transfers and their subsequent potential or actual use can also have a negative impact on the enjoyment of human rights. In its resolution 32/12, the Human Rights Council acknowledged that millions of people around the world are affected by serious human rights violations and abuses committed or facilitated by the irresponsible use of arms. In their contributions to the present report, some States have noted that the trade in and the excessive and uncontrolled proliferation of arms have a direct negative impact on the enjoyment of human rights.5 7. The Office of Disarmament Affairs of the Secretariat has cautioned that the irresponsible transfer of arms can destabilize security in a region, 6 which has serious ramifications for human rights protection.7 The diversion of arms and illicit or unregulated arms transfers can contribute to the widespread and uncontrolled availability of arms, and raise the risk that the arms will be directed to or come into the hands of those who use, threaten to use or are likely to use them to commit human rights violations or abuses. 8 The transfer of arms to States with weak governance and security capacities may also have a negative impact in the light of the heightened risk of diversion of such arms. 9 Furthermore, arms transfers to States that do not regulate civilian access to small arms and light weapons according to international standards pose a risk that such weapons may be used by individuals to commit or facilitate human rights violations and abuses, such as sexual and gender based violence.10 8. Arms transfers can also impair socioeconomic development and human rights through the diversion of the recipient State’s finances away from health, education and other social sectors.11 This “opportunity cost” was recognized by the drafters of the Charter of the United Nations, Article 26 of which sets out as an objective to promote the establishment and maintenance of peace and security with the least diversion for armaments of the world’s human and economic resources. 9. Arms may be used in conflict and non-conflict situations to commit or facilitate acts that violate a wide range of human rights, from the right to life, liberty and security of the person to the right to be free from slavery and from torture and other cruel, inhuman or 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 See the contributions of Albania, Argentina and Switzerland. See www.un.org/disarmament/convarms/armstrade. See also the contribution of UNDP, the guidelines for international arms transfers in the context of General Assembly resolution 46/36H of 6 December 1991, para. 20, and the Wassenaar Arrangement on Export Controls for Conventional Arms and Dual-Use Goods and Technologies, initial elements, para. 1 (1). See the Arms Trade Treaty, the third preambular paragraph and art. 11. See also resolution 2 adopted at the thirty-first International Conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent on a four-year action plan for the implementation of international humanitarian law. See the contribution of UNDP. See also, for example, Amnesty International, “Iraq: turning a blind eye: the arming of popular mobilization units” (4 January 2017). See the contribution of UNDP, citing the report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on human rights and the regulation of civilian acquisition, possession and use of firearms (A/HRC/32/21). For the current international standard, see the International Small Arms Control Standard, available from www.smallarmsstandards.org/isacs/0330-en.pdf. See the contributions of Argentina and UNDP, the Protocol against the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, Their Parts and Components and Ammunition, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, first preambular paragraph, and the Council Common Position 2008/944/CFSP of 8 December 2008 defining common rules governing control of exports of military technology and equipment, criterion eight. See also the report of the Group of Governmental Experts on the relationship between disarmament and development (A/59/119), para. 18, and the Geneva Declaration on Armed Violence and Development (see A/63/494, annex I, para. 1). 3