From Promises to Progress: Opportunities for action on gender responsive arms control in existing international commitments

The brief makes the case that:

• Existing political and legal frameworks represent a minimum political consensus to act at international, regional, or national levels on issues related to gender responsive small arms control.
• Reviving the relevance of existing international political commitments and applying them to argue for more gender responsive policies can create opportunities for advocacy—and ultimately progress—on implementation of more gender responsive small arms control policies.
• Encouraging states to act on the commitments they have already made regarding violence reduction, disarmament, and gender equality offers the hope of progress that can also strengthen the evidence base for further action and ultimately stronger future agreements.

Commitments relevant to gender-responsive small arms control are spread across a range of thematic agreements, at different levels of multilateral governance, and carry varying degrees of leverage to act. This Issue Brief suggests how advocates for gender responsive small arms control can identify relevant commitments in international agreements to create leverage for national action. It also gives an overview of some of the most important relevant agreements.

GENSAC’s Issue Brief Series provides concise and practical analysis of contemporary issues in gender responsive small arms control. The series aims to inspire and support progress across local, national, regional, and international levels of action. It builds on extensive background research as well as the collective insights of GENSAC’s membership and the interested policy and practitioner community. The series aims to reach specialists in small arms control with an interest in understanding the relevance of gender responsive approaches, as well as specialists in gender equality, women’s empowerment, and conflict and security fields who seek to better understand the contribution of gender responsive small arms control for violence reduction.