Nicholas Gilby

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Nicholas Gilby

Goodreads Author


Born
The United Kingdom
Website

Twitter

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Member Since
February 2012


Nicholas Gilby led Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT)’s efforts to expose the corruption at the heart of Britain’s arms deals with Saudi Arabia over the past four decades. In 2008 he defeated Britain’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office in an Information Tribunal to force the disclosure of many documents concerning corruption in Britain’s arms deals with Saudi Arabia.

His research on arms trade corruption has been extensively featured in The Guardian (and on the newspaper’s ‘BAE files’ website), TV (BBC Newsnight and Al Jazeera) and in an academic journal. He was previously a director of TAPOL, the Indonesia Human Rights Campaign.

You can follow Nicholas on Twitter: @nicholas_gilby

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Popular Answered Questions

Nicholas Gilby Hi Sara,
I don't think the premise in your question ("arms are in c99% of the cases useless") is correct. I don't think anyone can know what percentage…more
Hi Sara,
I don't think the premise in your question ("arms are in c99% of the cases useless") is correct. I don't think anyone can know what percentage of arms exported are actually used in anger. Certainly many major weapons systems are not used in fighting for prolonged periods. But given that the shelf-life of them is typically measured in decades and that political change can be extremely rapid and unexpected (Arab Spring, Ukraine), there is no guarantee that weapons that appear "useless" now will not be "useful" to some undesirable person, group or state later.
In the second part of your question I think you are asking me what harm corruption does, and thus why we should care. I think I would answer that the type of corruption I talk about (i.e. in arms procurement where decisions are taken by people at the top of the regime in importing countries) is basically theft by elites of the resources of their country from their people. If the country is poor, that means fewer or no resources for basic health or educational services, which means much worse life chances for the population. In richer (say the Gulf) countries what this means is that the precious and finite natural resources they have are not deployed for the country's development. So in the short-term corruption may appear to make no difference, but in the long-term it will.
Lastly I think grand corruption simply sets the tone for others, and encourages abuses throughout society by those with power, to the detriment of the ordinary and defenceless.
I hope that answers your question.
Yours sincerely,
Nicholas Gilby(less)
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The fatal flaw in the Arms Trade Treaty: we will never know if it has been effective

Last week in New York, the UN General Assembly voted to adopt the Arms Trade Treaty by 154 votes to 3 (http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/201...). The “Control Arms” NGOs and some states have claimed that this Treaty will save lives by denying human rights abusers, committers of atrocities etc. conventional weapons or weapons systems. However, the NGOs have never articulated how we will know if the Read more of this blog post »
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Published on April 06, 2013 07:23
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