Marking and tracing of small arms: Current challenges and new trends

For the first time in the history of the United Nations process on small arms, an open-ended meeting of governmental experts was held in New York in May 2011. This was a rare opportunity for pragmatic debates on concrete issues about the implementation of the three pillars of the UN International Tracing Instrument (ITI). The discussions shed light on the challenges States currently face in their implementation of the ITI and highlighted emerging trends in the field of tracing, often representing new areas of concern. This meeting also allowed to discuss new ideas on how to improve the relevance and the efficiency of tracing requests.