Every day around the world over 1300 men, women and children lose their lives in conflict, adding up to an annual total of half a million deaths, the majority of these in the poorest countries. Countless more livelihoods are ruined as a result of armed conflict through disability, displacement or lack of access to markets and health and education facilities. Yet although the European Union regulates everything from beaches to bananas, it does not regulate arms brokers, says this briefing paper from Oxfam. The lack of regulation is despite the fact that Europe is home to many of the world’s arms brokers responsible for arranging deliveries of weapons into countries in conflict and or into the hands of those who commit grave human rights abuses.