the weapons not covered by sipri's arms data transfer base, which is king. while it would be great to have more of the big producers and exporters to report, the other states -- it's equally that other states report. combined the data from minor importers when analyzed togethe nonreporting by the states that actually export their weapons. and then secondly, this is to the journalist notice audience, when appropriate and when safe, takeons you find, take pictures of the markings, take pictures of the markings that you find on crates of weapons and copy and upload shipping documents. a few clicks of the camera and an upload and you can reveal the model the date of manufacture and the conditions, which informs serviceability and like itly threat of the weapon, the country of manufacture, all incredibly important for assessing threats and arms buildups and all it takes is just probably a greater awareness amongst journalists of the need and the value of doing it. they're not sexy shots. you're not going to win a pulitzer. the right shot could probably revolution

and just again, to plug sipri's work and the importance of transparency, sipri's work with the a lotier statius made this information available and we didn't have to dig quite so much. so presumably they will be a transparency aspect to the arms trade treaty that will hopefully allow this information to be presented in a standardized consistent and regular manner, which will make all this work easier. so in conclusion, in my opinion the att needs to be part of goal and affect it and we need to balance the very worthy aspirations and ideals concerning the arms trade with the reality of the global arms trade, which we have heard on this morning. it is not going to have to have a treaty at the end of the day to legitimize his irresponsible transfers or lease is such a burdensome system that hinders the legitimate trade and nobody wants to be part of that. so lastly, unlike other conventional arms treaties, i want to stress that att is not like banning other things. it is like developing for the first time the rules of the game and clear international standards. so we will see how states

just again to plug sipri's work and the importance of transparency in arms transfer, it would be a lot easier if states just made this information available and we didn't have to dig quite so much. so presumably there will be a transparency aspect to the arms trade treaty that will hopefully allow this information to be presented in a standardized, consistent and regular manner, which will make all this work easier. and so in conclusion, in my opinion the att needs to be practical and effective and we need to balance the very worthy aspirations and ideal concerning the arms trade with the reality of the goebbels arms trade, which we've heard from this morning. it's not going to help to have a treaty at the end of the day th that legitimatizes systems. or burden the trade so that nobody wants to be part of it. att is not about banning anything. it's about developing for the first time the rules of the game. it's about developing clear international standard for the global trade in arms. so we will see how state do with that task in july. >> thank you very much, rachel. i think it was ve

new sipri data and sort of set the stage.efore joining sipri in 2006, paul was associated with prestigious institutions. in germany, in russia, in the u.k. and has always worked for the council of europe. paul has has expertise in russian and east european issues since he did his ph.d. on that particular issue. he has written extensively and let me just -- i'll make a little plug for you, paul. just written implementing an arms trade treaty as well as another publication on china's energy and security relations with russia. after paul, i'd like to turn to matt schroeder who's aner analyst of the federation of american scientist and a consultant for the german survey. matt is a prolific author and is the co-author of the small arms trade and the coordinator of the first comprehensive global studies of the authorized trade and small arms and light weapons. so matt will talk a little bit about what's happening in the small arms field and talk in particular about transparency issues. we will then turn to rachel, rachel stohl who'

it features a sipri one of's -- one of sipri's flagship programs. each year, dr.aul holtom and his team provide us with data that many inside and outside government have come to rely on. the benefits of data are twofold. and allows us to identify destabilizing buildups of weapon, identify regional arms races, or as paul likes to call them, arms acquisition, and it allows us to devise policies to isolate areas of escalating tension. i think the data shows the conventional weapons trade does not seem to of suffered much from the economic crisis. and while we are all preoccupied, particularly in this town, with nuclear proliferation, the conventional weapons are the ones actually killing people around the world. 2012 is going to be an extremely important year. we might see the conclusion of the treaty that will regulate the global arms trade. this treaty will be negotiated in july in new york. in august, we will have a conference that will assess the progress made in terms of small arms and light weapons, a plan of action from 2006. and the committee for that confere

and just again to plug sipri's work and the importance of transparency in arms transfers, sipri's work -- and matt's work as well would be a lot easier if states just made this information available. and we didn't have to, you know, dig quite so much. and so presumably there will be a transparency aspect to the arms trade treaty that will hopefully allow this information to be presented in a standardized consistent and regular manner which will make all this work easier. and so in conclusion, in my opinion, the att needs to be practical and effective and we need to balance the very worthy aspirations and ideals concerning the arms trade with the reality of the global arms trade which we've heard from this morning. it's not going to help to have a treaty at the end of the day that legitimatizes irresponsible transfers or leaves us with such a burdensome that it hinders the legitimate commercial trade and nobody wants to be part of it. so, you know, just lastly, unlike other conventional arms treaties like the land mine ban i want to stress that att is not about banning anything. it's ab

in terms of the research, sipri north america will initially have a focus on the four main areas.ne is on the women, the war and peace come engender issues if you want, and we have a number of projects in the pipeline. we have a conference on sexual violence and the settings that will be held in november later this year and a multi-year research project on the implementation of german security council resolution 1325. this was the revolution and lofted by the security council from 11 years ago that landed estates to pay greater attention to the participation of women particularly in the peace negotiations. the second area of research would be the global health and security. third, the regional security issues and here we will have a particular focus on central asia and what is going to happen in that region with a broad central asian region after the drawdown of allied troops. and last but certainly not least, arms control and disarmament, the sort of bread and butter issues. back to today this is actually one of our first defense, first big public events, and i think it is very f