strategy was also indirectly supported by states and actors (such as several eu member states), who maintained that human rights should be respected and that a negotiated solution to the conflict was necessary – but who, nevertheless, exported arms to the Sri Lankan government. Furthermore, the impunity enjoyed by those who were responsible for the gross human rights violations and war crimes in Sri Lanka signals that this is a viable “model” to replicate for all those states that are threatened by internal rebellions, and that as long as the rebels, or “terrorists”, are subdued, underlying conflicts do not need to be dealt with. International actors, thus, have the responsibility to press for justice for the victims of war in Sri Lanka, and to develop and implement arms trade regulations that prevent arms export from supporting and replicating the costly “Sri Lankan model” globally.
Significant inconsistencies between the rhetoric and the practice of arms trade This study of arms exports to the conflict in Sri Lanka has revealed a significant gap between international actors’ rhetoric and declarations about peacemaking on the one hand, and their practice of arms trade on the other. Although both the un Security Council Guidelines for Conventional Arms Transfer and the eu Code of Conduct (as of December 2008 replaced by a Common Position) state that arms should not be transferred to countries where they risk aggravating or prolonging conflicts, arms exports to Sri Lanka contributed to prolonging the war for 26 years. The eu Code of Conduct also has a criterion specifying that respect for human rights and humanitarian law should be upheld by the recipient country. In spite of this, and all the well-documented human rights abuses in Sri Lanka, several eu member countries have exported arms to Sri Lanka. For example, in 2007 United Kingdom’s annual sum of debt relief to Sri Lanka was cut in half because of concerns over human rights abuses, while the arms exports to the country continued. The analysis of eu arms exports to Sri Lanka reveals that the gap between arms trade regulations and practice can be explained by various factors. An inadequate understanding of the realities in Sri Lanka made some eu countries define the period of ceasefire after 2002 as “peace”, hence, allowing arms export that contributed to undermining the trust in the peace process. Furthermore, several eu member countries adopted a narrow interpretation of the human rights and humanitarian law criteria in the Code of Conduct, and made a material-specific assessment, which looked at whether the particular arms system would directly contribute to human rights abuses, rather than assessing the impact of arms export on the broader context of conflict in Sri Lanka. Moreover, it is apparent from the eu case that there is a worrying gap between the logics of diplomacy on the one 9