This week, the environmental and human rights organizations Facing Finance and Urgewald published the “ExitArms” database: www.exitarms.org.
It is the first publicly available, global database on companies supplying arms to warring states. The launch is supported by ENAAT, the European Network Against Arms Trade.
So far, the database covers the years 2015 to 2020. It lists around 500 companies that were involved in almost 1,400 arms exports during this period – along the entire arms supply chain and either directly, through subsidiaries or via joint ventures. This supplied 33 warring parties involved in 52 wars, most of them domestic.
The database reveals that 8 of the top 10 beneficiaries of the EU Defence Fund have track records of delivering weaponry to warring parties in conflicts. In order to avoid that EU-funded weaponry end up fueling conflicts, The EU should not fund companies supplying arms to warring parties.
The finance sector should also refuse green-washing the arms industry, which seems to consider that international standards of the UN and the OECD, which provide for the respect of human rights in business practices among other social and ethical criteria, do not apply to it. Yet the arms lobby is campaigning in order to be considered as a sustainable sector, and as such have access to “cheaper” financing. This would divert resources from major civilian priorities.
Read the Press Release in English or French, the Media briefing and its annex