Recently, US troops uncovered one of the largest weapons caches to date in Iraq. It included anti-aircraft missiles and a huge quantity of explosives used to wreak havoc with port-war Iraq's security.

Similar arms caches, including many surface-to-air missiles, were also uncovered in post-war Afghanistan.

The arrest of Hemant Lakhani, a British arms trader caught in an FBI sting operation in New Jersey in August, caused concern in civil aviation. It highlighted the ease with which surface-toair missiles could be smuggled and evoked memories of the attempted attacks on an Israeli aircraft in Kenya.

Predictably debates turned to application of military technology to civilian aircraft to provide safety amid new threats. These new measures in civil aviation are costly. Yet they are just stopgaps while burning questions of small arms remain insufficiently addressed at national, regional and multilateral levels despite recent efforts spearheaded by the United Nations (UN).

The international community must realise the link between small arms and new security threats, and act swiftly to tighten regulatory mechanisms to counteract their proliferation.

Small arms cause big problems. They have the status of neglected stepchildren of the global arms control debate. Arms control cannot only focus on nuclear, chemical and biological threats.

Small arms are no longer merely a concern of those involved in conflict prevention, peace-keeping and demobilisation in Africa, or in debates on post-Cold War eastern Europe. They must become a global concern requiring a different focus and renewed commitment.

Small arms are intertwined with other challenges such as sustainable development, the protection and promotion of human rights, combating genocide and containing terrorism.

Technical initiatives such as agreements on the marking, tracing and destruction of stockpiles of small arms and light weapons are necessary, but certainly not enough for change. The regulation of arms brokers and transport agents is not a silver bullet but vital to any success.

The UN convention on transnational organised crime, and the firearms protocol, are in place. But binding international conventions are needed to control arms exports and regulate brokers.

Secretary-General Kofi Annan said at the launch of the 2001 UN Small Arms Conference: "To fight back, we need better laws and more effective regulations. States have established international norms in the areas of nuclear non-proliferation, and banned chemical and biological weapons and antipersonnel landmines. Yet there is no such framework of binding norms and standards to eliminate the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons."

A vital ingredient to such a framework is mustering the required concerted political will from codification to implementation. Has political commitment to combat the problem been forthcoming? Assessing the results of the UN conference on the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons, as well as of the programme of action adopted and the first biennial meeting of states on small arms, the answer must, regrettably, be no.

While the programme of action calls on states to undertake a host of steps at a national, regional and multilateral level, these steps are not binding or compulsory. States can proceed in a discretionary fashion at any pace, if at all.

Notorious arms broker Victor Bout recently boasted in the New York Times: "Maybe I should start an arms trafficking university and teach a course on UN sanctions busting." Such boasts are possible when the world community fails to act convincingly and speak with one voice, and states drag their feet on acting in line with political undertakings.

The problem of arms brokers and transport agents is also a political problem, as they often act as intermediaries in state arms transfers to non-state actors, act on behalf of private military companies over which there is limited oversight, or multinational corporations conducting business in conflict areas.

The US and the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe have specific legal instruments to regulate brokers' activities. But more is needed to ensure co-operation at the multilateral level to monitor and regulate their activities, monitor associated financial transactions and curtail transport agent activities by tougher customs provisions.

New security threats emerge every day: the international community cannot afford not to act decisively in rolling back the insidious reach of the illicit operators and their deadly wares.

Taljaard is an MP and currently Yale Global World Fellow at Yale University.

With acknowledgements to Raenette Taljaard and the Business Day.