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On this website BICC publishes different data sets concerning the military sector, overall security environment, human rights situation and governance in all together 170 countries. The range of information is supposed to support, improve and facilitate an evaluation of German arms exports and is therefore based on the criteria spelled out in the European Union’s 2008 Common Position that includes the EU Code of Conduct on Arms Export (German).

On the one hand, the website includes detailed country reports in PDF format on 27 selected recipient states of German arms exports outside of NATO. The reports are only available in German language and were last updated in December 2011.
On the other hand, a large database examines the correspondence of 170 countries to seven evaluation criteria, which are based upon the EU Code of Conduct. As of 2007, country classifications can also be viewed as an interactive map.
In order to classify each country, BICC pools a number of different data sets, for example from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), the World Bank, the United Nations, or Freedom House.

Coordination: Max Mutschler



Background

Unfortunately, the discussion in Germany on arms exports often suffers from a lack of information on the situation of the recipient states.
This often starts with general data which are easily accessible, such as the economic situation, then becomes more difficult with political topics such as human rights and finds its peak in the data on the military sector which can only be found in technical journals, etc.
By making solid information more accessible, the evaluation of German arms exports is thus to be improved and facilitated.
The project is funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development.