Responsibility to Protect: Arms Sales and the Future of Human Rights Protection in the Middle East

Active conflicts in the last decade are disproportionately located in the developing world, yet a simple look at the list of the largest producers of conventional weapons shows that the profit of weapon systems flows to robust Western economies. On a domestic level, the economic incentives of weapons manufacturing are undeniable, and on an international level security and political capital are the pillar of weapon exports. Nonetheless, these outputs have become part of a stalled symbiotic relationship, with exporting countries currently neglecting the risks of selling weapons to regimes with a track-record of human rights violations. We then need to assess, are weapons sales by countries like the United States, France and Germany, achieving what they intended in the first place? This paper seeks to provide a pragmatic approach to risk assessment in arms sales and a framework for countries to make security more effective, that is to protect civilians and reduce instability in critical regions of the world.

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