Ambassador Patokallio to chair UN small arms conference

Press release 256/2004
5 November, 2004

The UN General Assembly appointed on Thursday, 4 November, Ambassador Pasi Patokallio to chair the UN small arms conference in New York next year. The conference’s task is to review the national and international implementation of the Programme of Action adopted at the UN Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in 2001.

Small arms used in conflicts all over the world kill hundreds of thousands of people annually. The most typical small arms used in conflicts are assault rifles, rocket propelled grenades and mortars. It has been estimated that the majority of the approximately four million victims of wars in the 1990s were killed with small arms. About 90 per cent of them were civilians, mostly women and children.

The Programme of Action focuses on ways to curb the illicit trade in small arms. This requires involvement in the legal trade as well in the form of stricter export control and monitoring of end use. It is documented that a great number of small arms used in conflicts has been exported legally in the first place.

Further information: Pilvi-Sisko Vierros-Vielleneuve, Head of the Unit for Arms Control, Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland, tel. +358 9 160 55580, and First Secretary Janne Taalas, Permanent Mission of Finland to the United Nations, New York, tel. +1 212 355 2100