- guardian.co.uk, Wednesday February 14 2001 18.09 GMT
There are still no adequate controls to ensure arms are sold to their stated destinations, and British weapons brokers can easily bypass existing controls, say the campaigning groups.
Policy is still determined by a 1939 emergency law which gives the executive wide powers with no proper parliamentary scrutiny, despite recommendations in Lord Scott's report published five years ago tomorrow.
"Despite their scathing criticism over the arms to Iraq report while in opposition, leading members of the government have let five years pass without acting to introduce tough new arms controls laws," said Robert Parker of Amnesty.
Justin Forsyth, Oxfam's policy director, said: "Small arms brokered from Britain will continue to cause suffering around the world. Having made so much noise about the Scott report in opposition, the government should be ashamed by its failure to introduce tough new arms laws."
Lord Scott disclosed how British arms had reached Iraq through third countries - notably Jordan and Saudi Arabia - as a result of the failure to monitor end-user certificates. Checks are still not made to ensure arms stay in the countries to which they are sent.
Amnesty and Oxfam also point out that the government has admitted it is still unable to track arms exported from Britain. And arms deals brokered in Britain do not require a licence if the weapons are shipped from a third country.
In a notable example, Heckler and Koch guns manufactured in Turkey were exported to Indonesia when Britain had imposed an arms embargo on weapons sales to the country.
