Australia’s military exports are growing, but parliament and the public still lack clear information about what is being exported, where it goes and how it is used.
Last month member countries of the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty met in Geneva. The meeting faced challenges. While the Arms Trade Treaty was established to reduce the flow of arms where grave violations of international law are occurring, it has failed to make meaningful progress towards this vital goal in its first ten years. In fact the current context is dire – 1 in 5 children on this planet are growing up in a war zone, the highest ever. And a recent report of 23 armed conflicts show breaches of international law are being perpetrated at a massive scale, with more than 100,000 civilians killed in the last 18 months, and widespread use of torture and rape by armed actors, with near impunity.
There are signs that some countries are taking their obligations seriously – curtailing or stopping weapons transfers due to the wars in Sudan, Iran and Gaza. However there are still weapons pouring into these regions. For example, reports indicate that military materiel from Europe is ending up in Sudan, probably via the UAE, where horrific violations of international law are occurring. This should be of significant concern to Australians as the UAE is a major export destination for Australian made weapons systems and components.
One of the major problems to cracking down on illegal flows of weapons is a lack of global transparency, which is exacerbated by complex supply chains. According to the Arms Trade Treaty Monitor (the de facto international monitoring body of the Arms Trade Treaty, established with funding from Australia and other states), only 26 country reports to the Treaty Secretariat were meaningfully transparent last year. The UK was one of them. Australia was not. Australia received this negative report card for its practice of aggregating data, which obscures which countries particular goods are going to and coming from.
There has been sustained and broad community concern for some years about Australia’s lack of transparency in military exports. Defence policy experts have described Australia’s systems as “at best opaque and at worst negligently poor”. Neither the public nor parliament have detailed knowledge of what military goods Australia is exporting, to where or for what purpose. While Israel’s leaders have had arrest warrants issued against them by the International Criminal Court for war crimes, the Australian Government has refused to be up front about Australia’s role in direct and indirect military exports to Israel. This is in stark contrast to European countries, which publicly discloses exports and monitors their exports. Even the USA has some public disclosure and end use monitoring.
Last year, with deep community concern that Australian-made weapon components were facilitating human rights abuses in Gaza and possibly also Sudan and other places – 64 civil organisations asked for accountability – calling for a review of Australia’s systems. The call was received by Government and crossbench parliamentarians, and a key parliamentary Committee heard directly from Peter Woolcott, the former Australian Ambassador who presided over final negotiations of the Arms Trade Treaty. However, as yet there has been no parliamentary review, and no substantial improvement either, as the Arms Trade Treaty report card shows.
This is of particular concern as Australia, under successive governments, has set a goal to become one of the world’s largest arms exporters – and has invested significant public monies towards this goal. While figures are rubbery and sometimes contradictory, one thing is clear – Australian military exports are on the rise, some figures suggesting exponentially.
Australia has a moral and legal obligation to also invest in strengthening transparency and safeguards of Australian military exports.
At the Arms Trade Treaty meeting last week Australia talked about transparency, even presenting a paper about the importance of transparency. But unfortunately it seemed to only focus on pointing the finger, not looking in the mirror.
If Australia wants to regain its place as a leader in global arms control, then we must start by getting our own house in order
Jessica Morrison
Jessica is the Quakers Australia peaceworker. She was formerly the Executive Officer of the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network.