The Responsibility of Private Legal Entities in the Arms Trade in Inter-American Law

Abstract

The use of firearms from foreign nations is a determining factor in the expansion and increase of lethal results in Latin American security dynamics. This paper seeks to explore the existing theoretical debates on this issue within the framework of public international law. It is proposed as a hypothesis that, although there are elements of soft law in public international law, the implementation of a legal-institutional response would be sustained only through the right to collective security, which has not been fully defined in international law. The text proposes that the duty of guarantee of states also relates to the responsibilities of private law legal persons in their duty to respect both national and international law. Therefore, any future effort to control the flow of armaments implies coordinated and intrastate responses to make international law binding.