Havemann, Chris. "Hawks or Doves? The Ethics of UK Arms Exports". Business Ethics, Vol.7, No.4 (1998): 240-244.

Havemann, Chris. "Hawks or Doves? The Ethics of UK Arms Exports". Business Ethics, Vol.7, No.4 (1998): 240-244.

• The five permanent UNSC members collectively produce 86% of the world's weapons [in 1993]. The top exporter was the USA, followed by the UK, which accounted for around 25% of global arms sales worth roughly £5.1 billion (240).
• The arms trade is a major business in the UK, and between 1/4 and 1/3 of weapons manufactured in the UK are exported (240).
• The arms trade enables war and oppression. The availability of arms is necessary both state repression and civil wars, while even non-lethal military equipment can be used by states to repress their citizens (240).
• Light or small arms are responsible for around 90% of casualties in wars, largely because of their availability and commonality (241).
• Arms exporters in Britain must receive an export license for their activities. The UK have approved a large number of licenses for export to countries suffering from internal conflict, including 71% of its African importers in 1995. Additionally, the UK has not addressed how to avoid the illegal re-export of British arms to embargoed countries, an illicit trade that may account for half of all arms trading (241).
• British arms sales are often to countries with poor human rights records and British exports have been used in internal repression, particularly the use of British aircraft by the Indonesian government in its bombing campaigns in Timor Este. Britain also continues to approve major arms shipments to countries likely to use them in military confrontations, as in its sales to Saudi Arabia, India, and Pakistan (242).
• The British defense industry is dominated by British Aerospace and the General Electric Company. British Aerospace in particular is dependent on exports, exporting 80% of its products, and in particular on contracts with Saudi Arabia, which account for 75% of that company's total exports in the 1990s. Other major export markets are the USA, Malaysia, South Korea, Oman, Finland, Turkey, Germany, Nigeria, and Pakistan (241).
• Defense spending has been shrinking since the end of the Cold War, with the arms market contracting 42% between 1990 and 1995; it is estimated to contract another 25% between 1995 and 2005. Defense spending in the UK itself has been falling since the mid-1980s (241).
• This has created a crunch on the profits of arms manufactures globally. British defense industries have also suffered under competition from American, Chinese, Israeli, South African, and Russian competitors. The liberalization of the British government's procurement process has opened up these companies to competition for both domestic and international markets (241).
• Some have recommended that Britain take this economic decline as an opportunity to shut down its arms industry and try to create new jobs in an industry with more economic growth potential and fewer ethnical concerns (244).
• The British response to increased competition and decreased demand for weapons has been to focus its defense industry on exports to countries that still have a major demand for weapons (241).
• Advocates of this policy, organized in the Ministry of Defense within the Defence Export Services Organization, argue that arms sales cement influence in foreign countries, that a reduction in the British arms industry could threaten British capacity to be self-reliant in procurement, that arms sales facilitate espionage operations, that the defense industry is economically vital to supporting British industry and maintaining British balance of payments, and that arms sales contribute to stronger international economic links across industries (241-242).
• British armed forces are fought against countries supplied with British weapons in Iraq, Somalia, Rwanda, and elsewhere, demonstrating the danger posed by poorly regulated or poorly planned arms sales (242-243).
• The author argues that the precepts of just war theory should be applied to the arms trade. According to the author this would mean that the small arms trade should be ended, considering the high proportion of civilian casualties caused by small arms, land mines should not be sold, and exports should be stopped to countries with major human rights abuses or that are spending disproportionately on their military instead of health or education (243).
• In 1992, the EU Council of Ministers agreed to adopt 8 rules regulating the arms trade. These included good ideas, like respect for human rights and attention to internal stability, but have been widely ignored by European arms manufacturers and national governments (243).
• Robin Cook, the British Foreign Secretary for the Labour government in 1997, has criticized the policy of prior British governments towards arms exports and called for the imposition of new regulations on the arms trade across the entire EU. These new regulations will prohit the export of non-military items like shock batons that may be used in torture, force governments to publish reports on all arms export license applications, and includes dual-use systems in all existing regulations (244).