PoA

PoA is the common shorthand for the United Nations Programme of Action to Prevent, Combat and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects, adopted by consensus at the UN Conference on the Illicit Trade in SALW held in New York in July 2001. It is the principal global framework dedicated to curbing the illicit circulation of small arms and light weapons (SALW), which fuel armed conflict, organized crime, and armed violence.

The PoA is politically rather than legally binding. States commit to measures at the national, regional, and global levels, including:

• Establishing national coordination agencies and SALW focal points.
• Enacting laws criminalizing illicit manufacture, possession, stockpiling, trade, and brokering of SALW.
• Marking weapons at manufacture and import to enable tracing.
• Managing and securing government stockpiles and destroying surplus or seized weapons.
• Cooperating on border controls, information sharing, and assistance to affected states.

Implementation is reviewed through Biennial Meetings of States (BMS) and Review Conferences (RevCons) held roughly every six years. The PoA is complemented by the International Tracing Instrument (ITI), adopted by the General Assembly in 2005, which sets standards for marking, record-keeping, and cooperation in tracing illicit SALW. Together, PoA and ITI form the core of the UN's small arms control architecture.

The PoA does not regulate ammunition explicitly (a long-standing contested issue), nor does it address civilian possession, which several states — notably the United States — insisted be excluded during negotiations. It is conceptually distinct from the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) of 2013, which is a legally binding treaty regulating the international transfer of conventional arms more broadly.

For MUN delegates, the PoA typically arises in DISEC (First Committee) debates, in resolutions on illicit arms flows in Africa and Latin America, and in discussions on links between SALW proliferation and the Sustainable Development Goals, particularly SDG 16.4.