# Council Decision (CFSP) 2015/1908 of 22 October 2015 in support of a global reporting mechanism on illicit small arms and light weapons and other illicit conventional weapons and ammunition to reduce the risk of their illicit trade (‘iTrace II’), Division 1.1

Extent: E+W+S+N.I.

This Decision builds on successive Council Decisions to combat the destabilising impact of the diversion and trafficking of SALW and of other conventional weapons, notably Council Decision 2013/698/CFSP, which established the iTrace global reporting mechanism on illicit SALW and other illicit conventional weapons and ammunition.
The illicit proliferation of SALW and of other conventional weapons and ammunition is a major factor undermining State stability and exacerbating conflicts, posing a serious threat to peace and security. As stated in the EU SALW Strategy, illicit weapons and ammunition contribute to a worsening of terrorism and organised crime, and are a major factor in triggering and spreading conflicts, as well as in the collapse of State structures.
The activities conducted under Decision 2013/698/CFSP have significantly increased the international community's monitoring and diagnostic capacity in the field of combating the proliferation of illicit SALW and other conventional weapons. In the framework of the Decision 2013/698/CFSP, iTrace documented more than 200 000 conventional weapons, ammunition and related material, including improvised explosive devices (IEDs). This exceeds all previous efforts to map illicit weapons, combined, by a wide margin. iTrace field investigations were conducted in the Central African Republic, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Côte d'Ivoire, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Mali, Mauritania, Myanmar, Nepal, Somalia, Somaliland, South Sudan, Syria, the United Arab Emirates and Uganda. iTrace also provided significant technical support to UN Security Council Sanctions Groups and UN Missions (MINUSCA, MINUSMA, MONUSCO, UNMISS, UNOCI, and UNSOM) as well as to several governments who requested iTrace investigative support.
As the scope and scale of investigations have intensified, iTrace has become a progressively vital tool in: a) generating policy-actionable information on illicit weapon transfers into conflict regions, notably in specific regions of EU Member States' concern; b) enabling real-time understanding of the global illicit trade in weapons; c) profiling diversion to enhance the capacity of EU export-control authorities to assess diversion risks prior to export; and d) facilitating information-sharing across otherwise weakly connected UN, international, regional, and national bodies.

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Source: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/eudn/2015/1908/annex/division/1/division/1.1 (the official version)
Page: https://openlegislation.uk/eu-decision-2015-1908/annex/division-1/division-1.1
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Source: legislation.gov.uk, The National Archives.