The Scope and Implications of a Tracing Mechanism for Small Arms ...

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communities, jeopardizing their safety and security, it is entirely
appropriate that countries should be able to ask for and receive help from
the international police community and utilize systems, such as IWETS, for
much broader policing purposes.
It is important to remember that tracing investigations can often
discover material which may ultimately need to be presented as evidence
in Court to prosecute the illicit traffickers identified. Therefore, from the
outset, those involved in such enquiries need to comply with the rules of
evidence, disclosure, forensic continuity, and confidentiality, including the
protection of personal information. Training NGOs in these disciplines is
essential to ensure that where an inquiry ultimately identifies illicit activity,
the evidence collected throughout exists in a form that can be presented
without any question of its forensic integrity being compromised. It makes
good sense for NGOs to work alongside individuals from the international
police community, which does not need to include local forces if there is a
likelihood of local collusion in arms trafficking.
To illustrate these points, in 1994 the UN Security Council set up the
International Commission of Inquiry to investigate the flow of arms into
Rwanda. Countries involved in the Inquiry included the Democratic
Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, South
Africa, Zambia, Belgium, France, UK, and the Seychelles. A variety of
sources were used in these countries ranging from police and Interpol,
customs, intelligence, media reporters, defectors, refugees and a large
number of private contacts. All sources were kept strictly confidential. The
Inquiry Team used their own in-house methods, involving established
intelligence procedures, to grade the reliability of their sources and the
accuracy of the information supplied in order to undertake tracing enquiries
in respect of the weapons recovered. Tracing was able to link the weapons
to commercial dealers and countries that condoned the supply in breach of
the arms embargoes. The Inquiry Team were able to present their own
evidence to prove these offences “on balance of probability” without the
need to produce witnesses and compromise the latter’s confidentiality.
Access to police and military held databases can be problematic, as
they may require additional judicial and national security hoops to be gone
through. Access will, therefore, be on a case-by-case basis as an integral part
of a specific criminal (or suspected criminal) investigation. Where records
are held on computer databases, preset levels of access are often built in,