Abstract
The article addresses the U.K. government's arms export licensing process to try to account for the discrepancy between its rhetoric of responsibility and practice of ongoing controversial exports. It describes the government's licensing process and demonstrate how this process fails to prevent exports to states engaged in internal repression, human rights violations, or regional stability. It then sets out six reasons for this failure: The vague wording of arms export guidelines; the framing of arms export policy; the limited use (from a control perspective) of a case-by-case approach; the weak role of pro-control departments within government; pre-licensing mechanisms that facilitate exports and a lack of prior parliamentary scrutiny, which means the government's policy can only be examined retrospectively; and the wider context of the relationship between arms companies and the U.K. state. It is concluded that the government's export control guidelines do not restrict the arms trade in any meaningful way but, rather, serve predominantly a legitimating function.
Highlights
The scale of U.K. arms exports and the character of its traditional major recipients – NATO allies and Middle Eastern states, in particular Saudi Arabia, as well as states such as India and Indonesia – are such that the U.K. arms trade plays a significant role in maintaining the coercive backbone to the global capitalist system and the disproportionate military capabilities that exist across the globe
Companies submit an export licence application to Export Control Organization (ECO), which circulates the application within BERR and to the Ministry of Defense (MoD), Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) and, where development concerns are an issue, Department for International Development (DfID)
The government is proud of its role as a leading arms exporter and states that “decisions to refuse licences are not taken lightly. In those cases where refusal is clearly justified is a final decision taken to refuse.”5 This pro-export stance to the licensing process must be understood against the backdrop of extensive political and financial support for arms exports and arms-producing companies. This support comes in the form of contributions toward research and development costs, insurance cover against the risk of recipient default via the Export Credit Guarantees Department (ECGD, the government department that helps U.K. exporters win business by providing guarantees and insurance), the use of defense attachés, ministers, and the royal family in promoting arms sales abroad, the use of the intelligence services to promote arms exports, and, between 1966 and 2007, the role of the Defense Sales Organization (DSO), later renamed Defense Export Services Organization (DESO), a department of the MoD dedicated to promoting arms exports
Summary
This article proceeds in three parts: an overview of the United Kingdom’s arms export licensing process; examples of ongoing controversial exports despite the existence of this process; and an argument as to why they continue. Parts: an overview of the arms export licensing process; examples of ongoing controversial exports that continue despite the existence of this process; and an argument as to why these exports continue. I argue that such exports continue because of the vague wording of the guidelines; the framing of arms export policy; the limited use (from a control perspective) of a case-by-case approach; the weak role of pro-control departments within government; pre-licensing mechanisms that facilitate exports and a lack of prior parliamentary scrutiny, which means the government’s policy can only be examined retrospectively; and the wider context of the relationship between arms companies and the U.K. state.. I argue that such exports continue because of the vague wording of the guidelines; the framing of arms export policy; the limited use (from a control perspective) of a case-by-case approach; the weak role of pro-control departments within government; pre-licensing mechanisms that facilitate exports and a lack of prior parliamentary scrutiny, which means the government’s policy can only be examined retrospectively; and the wider context of the relationship between arms companies and the U.K. state. The
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