Whether the war zone be in Africa, Sri Lanka, Chechnya or Afghanistan, most people are not killed by hi-tech or heavy weaponry, but by the small arms, cheap and accessible, that have flooded into so many countries in recent years. Crime rates involving guns have also soared, as South Africa and Kenya have experienced. Yet much of this cross-border arms trade is illegal. Several governments, including the United States, Canada and Mexico, are now pressing for a new global treaty on illegal trafficking in small arms.

This book is a fascinating, highly informative and policy-relevant investigation into an issue about which far too little is known, and which raises crucial questions about the black market.

Lora Lumpe founded the Arms Sales Monitoring Project at the Federation of American Scientists in Washington DC in 1991 where she directed its research and advocacy programme until she became director of research at the Norwegian Initiative on Small Arms Transfers at the Peace Research Institute (PRIO), Oslo, in 1998. In addition to publishing numerous book chapters, magazine articles and op-eds, she edited the quarterly newsletter, Arms Sales Monitor. She coauthored Arms Trade Revealed: A Guide for Investigators and Activists (1998) and is the editor of other recent books on disarmament topics.