MISSING PIECES - Inter-Parliamentary Union

THEME 1
across the region. A workshop on this topic was organised in September
2005, which produced a set of guidelines and an implementation plan to be
carried out at both national and regional levels. Each Member State agreed
to establish a legal drafting team by April 2006 to review their national
small arms legislation and check whether it conforms to the Best Practice
Guidelines.
In December 2005, a regional parliamentary workshop was held to highlight
the important role that parliamentarians need to play in harmonising
small arms legislation. With respect to the proliferation of illicit small arms
and light weapons the workshop agreed on the following plan of action:
1. To lobby for creation of small arms resource centre in the parliamentary
libraries to regularly update members on issues related to small arms and
light weapons
2. To strengthen the link between parliamentarians and law enforcement
agencies to ensure that legislation is not just a dead letter, but is implemented
3. To strengthen the existing parliamentary initiatives especially by building
the capacity of parliamentarians to make policy on issues of peace building
4. To take personal commitments and interest in harmonisation of legislation
on small arms and light weapons in the region.
The activities undertaken by RECSA and its partners with respect to
implementing the Nairobi Protocol demonstrate what is possible if regional
networks are engaged and strengthened. The efforts made to harmonise
firearms legislation and the active involvement of parliamentarians serves as
a model that could be emulated in other regions. Parliamentarians involved
in the Great Lakes and Horn of Africa process are encouraged to share their
experiences and lessons learned during the process – which is still ongoing –
to help other parliamentarians develop similar strategies to collectively
combat the small arms problem in their own regions.
Following a seminar by AWEPA (European Parliamentarians for Africa)
held in November 2003 in Mombasa, Burundi, the Democratic Republic
of the Congo and Rwanda have initiated a process to harmonise their
respective firearms legislation. This led to a series of sub-regional parliamentary
conferences between parliamentarians from the three countries
aimed at harmonising their legislation. It is hoped that, once final agreement
on harmonisation has been reached, it will serve as a model and
catalyst for harmonising laws in the entire region.
INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS
In addition to the trend among governments to strengthen outdated, weak
or incomplete national gun laws, several multilateral processes have encour-
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