A/HRC/44/29 firearms estimated to be owned by the military and law enforcement sectors combined. 6 States also continue to conduct unregulated or illicit arms transfers, resulting in thousands of civilian casualties and widespread displacement and human suffering on a massive scale. 6. In resolution 41/20, the term “arms” is used without qualification. States have long recognized the importance of considering not only weapons, 7 but also ammunition,8 parts and components together, 9 as these categories are interrelated and their diversion and unregulated or illicit transfer threatens peace and security, and human rights. 10 Diverted ammunition can also cause considerable harm as the main charge in improvised explosive devices, including victim-operated improvised explosive devices that function as antipersonnel landmines.11 Indeed, the Secretary-General has stated that improvised explosive devices are now a leading cause of deaths and injuries in armed conflict, with particularly devastating impacts on civilians.12 7. In resolution 41/20, the terms “diversion of arms” and “unregulated or illicit arms transfers” are also used without qualification. There is no agreed international legal definition of diversion. In the context of arms, however, it has been defined as the movement – either physical, administrative or otherwise – of weapons and ammunition from the legal to the illicit realm, in defiance of national and/or international law, to an unauthorized end user or for unlawful end use.13 Diversion of arms encompasses diversion 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Civilians own approximately 850 million firearms worldwide, vastly outweighing the number of firearms held by global military and law enforcement sectors combined. Indeed, 88 per cent of these were held by unauthorized end users in 2017 (A/HRC/42/21, paras. 5–6). In the context of international arms transfers, the United Nations Register of Conventional Arms contains seven main categories of major conventional weapons: battle tanks, armoured combat vehicles, large-calibre artillery systems, combat aircraft and unmanned combat aerial vehicles, attack helicopters, warships and missiles and missile launchers. See www.unroca.org/categories. Article 2 (1) of the Arms Trade Treaty includes these eight categories, adding small arms and light weapons as an additional category. When referring to weapons in the present report, the High Commissioner will consider the seven categories of conventional weapons in the United Nations Register of Conventional Arms together with small arms and light weapons. The terms “ammunition” and “munitions” are used interchangeably. See 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 (Firearms Protocol), art. 4 (1); Arms Trade Treaty, art. 3 (Ammunition/Munitions) and art. 4 (Parts and Components); Economic Community of West African States Convention on Small Arms and Light Weapons, Their Ammunition and Other Related Materials; Central African Convention for the Control of Small Arms and Light Weapons, Their Ammunition and All Parts and Components That Can Be Used for Their Manufacture, Repair and Assembly; Protocol on the Control of Firearms, Ammunition and Other Related Materials in the Southern African Development Community; and Inter-American Convention against the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, Ammunition, Explosives, and Other Related Materials. See the submissions of Ireland, Switzerland, UNIDIR and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. In his disarmament agenda, the Secretary-General indicated that the components of improvised explosive devices can be sourced from poorly secured munitions (Securing Our Common Future: An Agenda for Disarmament (United Nations publication, Sales No. E.18.IX.6), p. 37). OHCHR has expressed deep concern over the harm to civilians caused by victim-operated improvised explosive devices that function as anti-personnel landmines. See, for example, United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan and OHCHR, Afghanistan: Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict 2019, pp. 30–31, indicating that pressure-plate improvised explosive devices that function as anti-personnel landmines killed 149 civilians and injured 371 in Afghanistan in 2019. Securing Our Common Future: An Agenda for Disarmament, p. 36. See the contribution of UNIDIR, citing GGE/PACAS/2020/3, para. 4. See also Sarah Parker, “Article 11. Diversion”, in The Arms Trade Treaty: A Commentary, Stuart Casey-Maslen and others, eds. (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2016), para. 11.21, in which she cites Owen Greene and Elizabeth Kirkham, Preventing Diversion of Small Arms and Light Weapons: Issues and Priorities for Strengthened Controls: Biting the Bullet Policy Report (February 2009), p. 9, and Matt Schroeder, Helen Close and Chris Stevenson, “Deadly deception: arms transfer diversion”, in Small Arms Survey 2008: Risk and Resilience (Cambridge, United Kingdom, Cambridge University Press, 2008), p. 114, to indicate that diversion also refers to unlawful end use that is carried out by authorized end users. 3