International treaties such as the 1992 Chemical Weapons Convention and the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty came into force after the end of the Cold War. Subsequently, the United Nations Programme of Action on Small Arms and the Fifth Protocol to the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons were adopted in 2001 and 2003 respectively. Movements to form or strengthen international regimes have been increasingly visible over the last 10 years even in international security issue areas, where it is believed international cooperation is rarely achieved. Formations of these regimes seem to be related to each other. However, scant attention has been paid to the interactions among various international regimes. This article tries to assess how international regimes are changing and how new international regimes are established by focusing on the dynamic interactions among various international regimes on Conventional Weapons.
International regimes are not independent from each other. The members of the international regimes are constituted from among some 200 nationstates. Quite a few international NGOs are involved in more than one international regime at the same time. Considering the same representatives from those nation states and international NGOs attend a couple of different regime meetings on similar topics, it is natural that changes within one regime or the formation of a new international regime influences the other regimes. This article demonstrates that interactions among international regimes, especially among those on conventional weapons, have become much denser, after the formation of the Mine Ban Treaty in 1997. Inspired by the successful formation of the Mine Ban Treaty, some international NGOs as well as nation states are trying to apply the lessons learned from the treaty formation process, the so-called Ottawa Process, to other issue areas, while others are trying to prevent another Ottawa Process from happening.
This article tries to clarify how the balance between “national security” and “humanitarian consideration” in conventional governance has shifted, due to the interactions among international regimes. Also, this article shows that after the formation of the Mine Ban Treaty, the roles of international NGOs are growing increasingly important in regime formation processes as well as in regime implementation. Although it remains unclear if such a trend will continue, analyses focusing on interactions among international regimes seem viable understanding both changes and developments related to conventional weapons governance.

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