Tracking Corruption in the Arms Trade

The arms business—especially the international arms trade, but also domestic military procurement—is widely seen as one of the areas of legal business that is most subject to corruption. This program sought to document the global impact of this corruption. The World Peace Foundation’s “Compendium of Arms Corruption” (2016-2019), led by Sam Perlo-Freeman with support from Xiaodon Liang, highlighted 41 cases of corruption within the arms trade. Building on this data, WPF partnered with Shadow World Investigations (UK) and RüstungsInformationsBüro (Arms Information Centre, Germany) to establish the Corruption Tracker (CT). Youth and women-led, this project aims to gather, document, and expose corrupt practices within the arms trade, serving as a vital resource for activists, journalists, human rights organizations, and researchers committed to ending the global arms trade.