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Issue Brief: Weapons

Introduction

The international security landscape has dramatically changed since Calvert first developed our weapons exclusion in 1982. The Cold War is now long over, but violent conflicts between - and especially within - states continue to exact horrifying civilian casualties. Terrorism has targeted civilians in every region of the world. Yet moral ambiguities arise at the same time as military forces are often involved in defensive or humanitarian missions using the same equipment they would employ in conventional warfare.

While Calvert continues to deplore warfare and the use of weapons, there are some legitimate national security threats and needs that require the production of weapons and their use in certain circumstances. Moreover, there are certain crimes against humanity, human rights abuses, and humanitarian crises so grave that military intervention may be necessary when diplomacy has failed. We also recognize the growing need for peacekeeping missions around the world in recent years, such as that in Darfur, and we accept that those missions must be equipped with lethal force.

Taking into account these and other factors, Calvert recently conducted an intensive review in consultation with outside experts on contemporary international security, warfare and human rights. As a result, we updated our weapons exclusion to focus even more sharply on the complex and lethal realities of the early 21st century.

Calvert's Approach

The increasingly complex uses and impacts of weapons in the post-Cold War and post-9/11 world have led to new perspectives on armed conflict. Civilians are increasingly the victims of cluster bombs, landmines, and other indiscriminate weapons that exact horrific casualties. Armed forces often engage in international peacekeeping or humanitarian missions using the same equipment they would deploy in wars between nations. Just as military forces are developing advanced forms of electronic warfare, light weapons continue to cause mass casualties in countries like Rwanda, where almost a million people were slaughtered with machetes in just three months during 1994.

In light of these evolving realities, Calvert updated its weapons criteria and will now avoid investing in companies that:

• Manufacture, design, or sell weapons or the critical components of weapons that violate International Humanitarian Law (IHL), as discussed below; or
• Manufacture, design, or sell inherently offensive weapons, as defined by the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) and the UN Register on Conventional Arms, or the munitions designed for use in such inherently offensive weapons.

International Humanitarian Law (IHL): IHL provides a set of rules seeking to limit the effects of armed conflict. This includes a ban on the weapons with the most impact on civilians, such as land mines and cluster bombs. IHL focuses on two areas of humanitarian concern:

• protecting those who are not, or are no longer, taking part in fighting; and
• restricting the legal means of engaging in warfare or deploying weapons, and the methods of warfare or military tactics.

IHL prohibits all means and methods of warfare that:

• Fail to discriminate between those taking part in the fighting and those who are not in order to protect the civilian population, individual civilians, and civilian property;
• Cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering; or
• Cause severe or long-term damage to the environment.

IHL discourages the use of, or bans outright, both indiscriminate weapons and those weapons that cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering. Calvert defines "indiscriminate weapons" as weapons of mass destruction, cluster munitions, and antipersonnel landmines. Similarly, IHL prohibits weapons that cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering, such as incendiary weapons and blinding laser weapons. The use of these weapons violates IHL because they cause injury or suffering in excess of that necessary to achieve a legitimate military objective. It is important to note that IHL is distinct from, but complementary to, international human rights law. While human rights law protects individuals at all times, IHL only applies in situations of armed conflict.

Inherently Offensive Weapons: Calvert has determined that both the CFE and the UN Register are necessary components of our standards, as they provide the appropriate normative standards needed to define inherently offensive weapons. The CFE has the force of law because it has been ratified by the U.S. Government and dozens of European countries. The UN Register fills the gaps in the CFE and also carries with it the imprimatur of the United Nations. Together, they provide Calvert with criteria grounded in law and foreign policy custom.

The CFE defines five categories of conventional armed forces necessary to waging an offensive campaign: battle tanks, armored combat vehicles, artillery, combat aircraft, and combat helicopters. The UN Register on Conventional Arms includes these five categories plus two others: warships and missiles. In addition, there are exceptions for unarmed transport vehicles. Thus, Calvert can still invest in companies that produce unarmed transport or medical aircraft and vehicles.

Calvert will also avoid investment in munitions, which include items such as missiles, bombs, and ammunition. While Calvert's updated weapons criteria do not specifically ban munitions, we believe it is most consistent to avoid investing in companies that produce ammunition for weapons platforms that the criteria prohibit.

Limitations of the new criteria: This change does not affect Calvert's weapons exclusion in relation to civilian firearms. Calvert believes that firearms are a separate issue from weapons of warfare and fall under the umbrella of Calvert's product safety criteria.

Criteria in Practice

Calvert continues its due diligence process by conducting full reviews of companies to determine whether companies may now be acceptable under this new criteria. Calvert may come across companies that meet the letter of our criteria, but not the spirit, in that they may still pose acute moral problems and risks due to the nature of their weapons-related business. Calvert, therefore, reserves the right to render such companies ineligible for investment on a case-by-case basis.

Advocacy

Calvert plans to pursue engagement with some of the companies that will meet our revised weapons criteria. For example, a human rights issue related to weapons involves the presence of landmines that are still active in the field even after conflicts have ended. We may engage with companies that have yet to manage the consequences of their landmine production in order to encourage them to reclaim and destroy those landmines. Calvert will inform our shareholders and other stakeholders of our activities in this area.

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