Editors: John K. Roman, Philip Cook

One of the great policy successes of the last decade is the increasing role of rigorous, objective, and transparent data and research in policymaking. Developing and implementing a data-driven government in which valid and reliable evidence informs solutions to our nation’s most pressing health and safety challenges is more critical than ever as those challenges are ever more complex. Nowhere is that data foundation more needed than in the realm of firearms violence. Trustworthy data is a much-needed bridge to effective policymaking that can reduce the number of firearm accidents, suicides, homicides, and assaults. In an age of intense partisanship, shared facts are the cornerstone for building a shared purpose. The shared purpose of modernizing firearms data infrastructure is to improve public safety by reducing gun violence. In the fall of 2020, Arnold Ventures, a philanthropy dedicated to maximizing opportunity and minimizing injustice, and NORC at University of Chicago, an objective nonpartisan research institution, released the Blueprint for a US Firearms Infrastructure (Roman, 2020)1 . The Blueprint is the consensus report of an expert panel of distinguished academics, trailblazing practitioners, and government leaders. It describes 17 critical reforms required to modernize how data about firearms violence of all types (intentional, accidental, and self-inflicted) are collected, integrated and disseminated. This project, which is also supported by Arnold Ventures, takes the conceptual priorities described in the Blueprint and proposes specific new steps for implementation. The first step in building a better firearms data infrastructure is to acknowledge where we currently stand. In The State of Firearm Data in 2019 (Roman, 2019)2 , the expert panel found that while there are a substantial number of data sources that collect data on firearms violence, existing datasets and data collections are limited, particularly around intentional injuries. There is some surveillance data, but health data on firearms injuries are kept separately from data on crimes, and there are few straightforward ways to link those data. Data that provide context for a shooting—where the event took place, and what the relationship was between victim and shooter—are not available alongside data on the nature of injuries. Valuable data collections have been discontinued, data are restricted by policy, important data are not collected, data are often difficult to access, and contemporary data are often not released in a timely fashion or not available outside of specialized settings. As a result, researchers face vast gaps in knowledge and are unable to leverage existing data to build the evidence base necessary to adequately answer key policy questions and inform firearms policymaking.

By Nicolas Florquin with Victor de Oliveira

SITUATION UPDATE: LATIN AMERICA

Based on UN Comtrade data, reported global small arms and light weapons (hereafter ‘small arms’) exports rose sharply from USD 5 billion in 2019 to USD 9.2 billion in 2024. Consistent with previous trade updates, ammunition remains the most traded weapon category, accounting for 35% of the value of reported global imports for the period 2019–24, followed by sporting and hunting shotguns and rifles (21%), and pistols and revolvers (18%).

The Authorized Trade in Small Arms: Latin America from a Global Perspective—a Situation Update from the Mapping the Transnational Circulation and Control of Small Arms in Latin America project—examines the global authorized trade in small arms between 2019 and 2024, with a particular focus on trends in Latin America. It finds the region to be a comparatively small player in the global authorized small arms trade, accounting for 2.8% of global small arms imports and 6.3% of exports. Yet military firearms represented about 10% of all Latin American small arms imports during this period—almost double the global average of 5.6%.

The Situation Update also identifies a significant increase in European—and in particular Eastern European—imports during this period, which seem to have fuelled the growing trade. Indeed, European imports accounted for 40% of all reported global imports in 2024, while the value of Eastern European imports multiplied by more than ten between 2019 and 2024.

Geneva: Small Arms Survey, 2025. 16p.

By M. D. Vattel. Introduction by Graeme R. Newman

A foundational work of international law, still resonant today.

First published in the eighteenth century and issued in authoritative English editions throughout the nineteenth, The Law of Nations by Emer de Vattel shaped how statesmen, jurists, and diplomats understood the rights and duties of sovereign powers. In this monumental treatise, Vattel applies the principles of natural law to the real conduct of nations, addressing war and peace, treaties and alliances, commerce and neutrality, diplomacy, and the limits of lawful power.

Rejecting both utopian idealism and brute realpolitik, Vattel argues that true national interest is inseparable from justice, restraint, and respect for sovereignty. Nations, like individuals, are bound by moral obligations arising from their coexistence in a shared international society. His careful analysis of war, intervention, and treaty obligations established enduring standards that influenced constitutional debates, foreign policy doctrine, and the development of modern international law.

This edition preserves a work that continues to illuminate contemporary conflicts and global challenges. Clear-eyed, systematic, and profoundly influential, The Law of Nations remains essential reading for anyone seeking to understand how lawful order, moral principle, and power intersect in the affairs of nations.

The theses advanced in The Law of Nations remain strikingly relevant to contemporary international disputes, particularly those involving intervention, recognition of governments, and claims of humanitarian necessity. Vattel’s insistence on sovereignty as the cornerstone of international order places clear limits on the legitimacy of external interference in the internal affairs of states. While he allows that extreme cases—such as manifest tyranny threatening the very existence of a people—may raise difficult moral questions, he consistently warns that powerful states are prone to disguise ambition and interest under the language of justice.

This caution is especially pertinent when considering recent controversies surrounding efforts by the United States to promote regime change in Venezuela, including diplomatic, economic, and political measures aimed at displacing the government of Nicolás Maduro. From a Vattelian perspective, such actions raise fundamental questions about lawful authority, the limits of collective judgment, and the distinction between moral condemnation and legal right. Vattel argues that no nation may unilaterally assume the role of judge over another sovereign without undermining the mutual independence on which international society depends. To do so, he suggests, risks converting international law into a mere instrument of power.

At the same time, Vattel’s framework does not deny the reality of gross misrule or humanitarian suffering. Rather, it demands rigorous scrutiny of motives and means. Economic coercion, diplomatic isolation, and recognition of alternative authorities would, in his analysis, need to be justified not by ideological preference or strategic advantage, but by clear evidence that such measures genuinely serve the common good of nations and do not erode the general security of the international system. His emphasis on proportionality, necessity, and respect for established sovereignty stands in tension with modern practices of intervention that rely on contested doctrines of legitimacy.

Viewed through this lens, contemporary debates over Venezuela illustrate the enduring force of Vattel’s central warning: that the stability of international relations depends less on the moral claims of individual powers than on shared restraint. His work reminds modern readers that the erosion of sovereignty in one case—however rhetorically justified—sets precedents that may ultimately weaken the legal protections upon which all nations, strong and weak alike, rely.

P.H. Nicklitn etc. Philadelphia. 1829. Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2026 p.424.