News Review Special Edition

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International Developments, October 1 - November 15, 2002

US Study Critical on Export Controls

On October 25, the US General Accounting Office (GAO) released a report urging a strong and persistent effort, led by the State Department, designed to strengthen systems of international controls on exports of non-proliferation related materials and equipment. The study - Nonproliferation: Strategy Needed to Strengthen Multilateral Export Control Regimes - focussed on four existing arrangements: the Australia Group (AG), regulating the export of chemical and biological items, the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), and the Wassenaar Arrangement (WA) on Export Controls for Conventional Arms and Dual-Use Goods and Technologies.

In summary, the GAO study "identified several weaknesses in regime activities that could hinder their goal of curbing proliferation". Three main faults were found. First, "not all regime members share complete and timely information on their export licensing decisions, including denials and approvals of exports. For example, the United States did not report any of 27 export denials to the Australia Group between 1996 and 2001, as expected under regime procedures." Second, "several factors complicate the regime goal of applying export controls consistently. It takes some members as much as 1 year to adopt agreed-upon changes to control lists into their national laws or regulations. ... In addition, we found significant disparities in how regime members implement agreed-upon controls, such as those for high performance computers". Third, "export controls cannot be applied consistently until countries joining regimes have effective export control systems in place. According to the US government, at least three countries - Argentina, Belarus, and Russia - did not have effective control systems in place when they became members of certain regimes."

The report recommends that the Secretary of State "take steps to establish a strategy to strengthen these regimes" and "work with other regime members to increase information sharing, improve the consistent adoption and implementation of export controls, and assess ways to overcome organizational obstacles to reaching decisions and enforcing members' compliance with their regime commitments." In addition, "we are...recommending that the Secretary (1) report US denials of all export licenses for items controlled by a multilateral export control regime and (2) establish criteria for assessing the effectiveness of the regimes."

The Department of State reviewed the report prior to publication. According to the GAO, the Department "said that it will give due regard to our recommendation to establish a strategy for enhancing the effectiveness of the multilateral export control regimes as part of a recently announced review of the regimes ordered by the President." In addition, the Department noted that "our report highlighted the inability of the regimes to enforce Russia's compliance with its regime commitments, a matter of key non-proliferation significance."

Reports: Nonproliferation - strategy needed to strengthen multilateral export control regimes, United States General Accounting Office (http://www.gao.gov), GAO-03-43, October 2002, released October 25; US response - tougher export control regimes needed, Global Security Newswire, October 28.

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