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Throughout the world, companies profit from selling arms and security equipment (such as guns, tear gas, leg-irons, electroshock batons and tanks) to countries where they are used to commit torture and other human rights violations. They also provide military personnel and training to forces with a record of serious human rights violations.

What is the extent of the arms trade?

Amnesty has details of human rights violations in more than 140 countries and territories in the world. Military, security and police forces often use foreign equipment and training to carry out these abuses. We work to prevent human rights violations by trying to stop the supply of this equipment and training, and by calling on governments to introduce stricter conditions in their arms export policies.

There are serious shortcomings in the national export controls of most of the major countries involved in the supply of arms and security equipment. Governments throughout the world have allowed the export of arms and security equipment to countries where persistent, serious human rights violations are carried out. For example, the UK Government has given licences for arms and security exports to Algeria, Colombia, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Syria, Turkey, Zambia and Zimbabwe - all countries where we have serious human rights concerns.

The UK is one of the top arms exporters in the world, and so it has a responsibility to make sure that UK arms do not contribute to human rights violations abroad. The Government has promised to put human rights at the heart of foreign policy, but there is still a lot of secrecy in the UK arms and security trade, and it is still not regulated properly.

What needs to be done?

We need to improve the way the trade is regulated to prevent these arms and security from contributing to human rights violations. At the moment, companies can easily find ways around the controls. They use loopholes in legislation, provide false documents about where their products are going to, and what they will be used for, or make their products in a country which does not have such a strict licensing system.

Governments must introduce tighter controls and monitor their arms and security exports more effectively, making information on arms transfers available to the public. National measures to control the trade in arms and security equipment must be supported by regional and international regulations.

Making the arms and security trade more open is vital. In the UK, the Government has produced an annual report on arms exports since May 1997. Although this is a positive step towards being more open, the reports do not contain the level of information needed for parliament and the public to examine effectively the Government's record on arms controls.

No matter how full and open the annual reports become, they are still only useful in checking the Government's record after export licences have been granted. We believe that a parliamentary committee should be set up to advise the Government on applications for export licences to countries where we have human rights concerns, before the licences are granted.