Indicator 16.4.2 Proportion of seized, found or surrendered arms whose illicit origin or context has been traced or established by a competent authority in line with international instruments

Indicator 16.4.2: Proportion of seized, found or surrendered arms whose illicit origin or context has been traced or established by a competent authority in line with international instruments

Target 16.4: By 2030, significantly reduce illicit financial and arms flows, strengthen the recovery and return of stolen assets and combat all forms of organized crime

United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and United Nations Office for Disarmement Affairs (UNODA)

Definition:

Proportion of seized, found or surrendered arms whose illicit origin or context has been traced or established by a competent authority in line with international instruments

Concepts:

Arms: arms refer to ‘small arms and light weapons’, defined as any portable lethal weapon that expels or launches, is designed to expel or launch, or may be readily converted to expel or launch a shot, bullet or projectile by the action of an explosive, excluding antique small arms and light weapons or their replicas. Antique small arms and light weapons and their replicas will be defined in accordance with domestic law, and in no case will they include those manufactured after 1899. Arms include all firearms, as defined in the “Protocol against the illicit manufacturing of and trafficking in firearms, their parts and components and ammunition”.

In particular, ‘small arms’ are, broadly speaking, weapons for individual use, including revolvers, pistols, rifles and carbines, shotguns, sub-machine guns and light machine guns. ‘Light weapons’ are, broadly speaking, weapons designed for use by two or three persons serving as a crew, although some may be carried and used by a single person. They include, heavy machine guns, hand-held under-barrel and mounted grenade launchers, portable anti-aircraft guns, portable anti-tank guns, recoilless rifles, portable launchers of anti-tank missile and rocket systems, portable launchers of anti-aircraft missile systems, and mortars of a calibre of less than 100 millimetres.

Seized: arms that have been physically apprehended during the reported period by a competent authority, whether temporarily or not, in relation to a suspected criminal offence or administrative violation related to these arms. For the purpose of the calculation of indicator 16.4.2, only arms that were seized due to criminal offences are considered.

Found: arms apprehended by authorities that are not linked to an intentional or planned investigation or inspection, neither attributable to any apparent holder or owner, regardless of whether the items were reported lost or stolen.

Surrendered: arms willingly handed over to authorities that are not linked to a planned investigation or inspection. The surrender may occur as a personal initiative of a citizen in the context of a voluntary surrender campaign and disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration processes, inter alia.

Illicit origin: Earliest point in time in the life of an arm where it was of an illicit nature. In order to establish the illicit origin, it is necessary to identify the point of diversion of the arm and the circumstances around it.

Point of diversion: the point in space and time and/or circumstances when arms left the licit circuit and entered the illicit one. If identified through tracing, the last legal record needs to be found. For arms illicitly manufactured, the point of diversion is the manufacture itself.

Last legal record: last recorded information available about the item, its status (deactivated, stolen, lost, seized, found, surrendered, sent for destruction, confiscated, in transit, etc.) and its legal end-user. The identification of the last legal record may require the initiation of several individual tracing requests.

Tracing: the systematic tracking of weapons and, where possible, their parts and components, and ammunition, at the national and/or international level for the purpose of assisting the competent authorities of States parties in detecting, investigating and analysing illicit manufacturing and illicit trafficking.

Illicit origin established by a competent authority in line with international instruments: illicit origin established through means other than tracing, e.g. through intelligence. In the case of arms that are not traceable, this is the only mean to establishing the illicit origin.

Marking: A uniquely marked item has a unique marking providing the name of the manufacturer, the country or place of manufacture and the serial number, or maintain any alternative unique user-friendly marking with simple geometric symbols in combination with a numeric and/or alphanumeric code, permitting ready identification by all States of the country of manufacture.

Percent (%)

At national level data are produced by Law Enforcement or other Agencies responsible for firearms issues.

Such data are reported at international level through tables 5.1 to 5.3 of the UN-IAFQ. Please refer to the following link for detailed information: https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and-analysis/data-collections.html.

These data will also be supplemented by data collected through the Programme of Action (PoA) national reports; in particular, Section 6 of its reporting form (national reports submitted by States are available at: www.smallarms.un-arm.com/sustainable-development-goals).

Additional data sources include national official publications, as well as data from international organizations such as the World Customs Organization and INTERPOL.

Most of the data providers are Law Enforcement Agencies, including National Police, Regional/State Police, Customs, Military, etc. Focal Points at the national level are responsible for compiling the data and submitting it.

There are certain limitations to the methodology used in the calculation of indicator 16.4.2:

• Information on the illicit circumstances of arms not uniquely identifiable, which include illicitly manufactured firearms and firearms with erased or altered markings, is scarce, and these arms are very difficult to trace. Therefore, information on the establishment of the illicit origin for these arms is excluded from the calculation, with the indicator focusing on arms that are potentially traceable (i.e., uniquely identifiable through marking or unknown status with respect to marking).
• The values for indicator 16.4.2 may be affected by whether the country has a significant proportion of apprehended arms that are traceable, which is usually a consequence of the context of illicit arms trafficking in the country and is not related to its Law Enforcement efforts.
• The process of tracing firearms can be notably long, especially if several requests are involved. Therefore, the information on tracing results provided on the questionnaire for the reference year may be incomplete. While the fact that countries are requested to review the figures reported during the previous data collection cycle may partially correct for this, there may still be a bias in the calculation.
• Due to the year-to-year volatility of of the estimates, the data is published as a 2-year moving average to increase robustness.

The indicator is calculated as a proportion, and can be computed separately for each of seized, found and surrendered arms, as well as all three taken together.

The denominator of the proportion is the total number of arms seized, found and surrendered that are potentially traceable (i.e., uniquely identifiable through marking or unknown status with respect to marking).

The numerator includes all those arms for which the point of diversion was established / identified, either through tracing or by a competent authority (e.g. through intelligence).

$SDG\mathrm{\ }16.4.2=\frac{Number\mathrm{\ }of\mathrm{\ }arms\mathrm{\ }for\mathrm{\ }which\mathrm{\ }the\mathrm{\ }illicit\mathrm{\ }origin\mathrm{\ }or\mathrm{\ }context\mathrm{\ }was\mathrm{\ }established/identified\mathrm{\ }(A\mathrm{\ }+\mathrm{\ }B\mathrm{\ }+\mathrm{\ }C)}{Total\mathrm{\ }number\mathrm{\ }of\mathrm{\ }arms\mathrm{\ }seized,\mathrm{\ }found\mathrm{\ }or\mathrm{\ }surrendered\mathrm{\ }(A\mathrm{\ }+\mathrm{\ }B\mathrm{\ }+\mathrm{\ }C\mathrm{\ }+\mathrm{\ }D\mathrm{\ }+\mathrm{\ }E\mathrm{\ }+\mathrm{\ }F\mathrm{\ }+\mathrm{\ }G)}$

A: Weapon seized/found/surrendered from illegitimate owner and weapon found in national registry (e.g., lost or stolen) (national tracing)

B: Point of diversion of the weapon (last legal record) identified through tracing and weapon found in foreign registry (international tracing)

C: Point of diversion otherwise established by a competent authority

D: Tracing attempted, but not enough information to identify point of diversion

E: Tracing procedure still pending

F: No tracing procedure initiated

G: Unknown status with respect to marking

Data are published as a two-year moving average to increase robustness.

2024-09-27

United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and United Nations Office for Disarmement Affairs (UNODA)

Not applicable

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