Panel Discusion Results (PDF 55 KB)
Executive Summary
Policy Bulletin (PDF 60 KB)
Report (PDF 170 KB)
This conference examined ways to reconcile First World security concerns and the Developing World's need for the free trade of critical dual-use civilian and military technologies that would allow for equitable economic development.
The technologies of concern-including biological, chemical, and nuclear-are those with both commercial and military applications, many of which are subject to export controls under such Western organizations as the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), the Australia Group, and the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR).
A major objective of this conference is to broaden the US national security debate by bringing global intergovernmental and nongovernmental officials together with the US officials and experts to reconsider Western and US export controls.
Three broad trends are at work in national and global security that are increasingly incompatible. First, many First World countries-especially the United States-continue to emphasize national export controls as an integral component of their individual national security strategies. In many cases, arguments for particular controls are predicated on specific bilateral relationships the United States has with certain countries, such as Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, North Korea, and to a lesser extent, India and Pakistan. Many other Western states have similar controls, though often they are less strict and have more of a focus on completed systems rather than individual components of systems, as is the case in much of US law.
Second, at the global level of security, various international treaty regimes and international forums are increasingly emphasizing the need for the free trade of critical dual-use civilian/military technologies to allow for equitable economic development in the developing world. As US export control expert Richard Cupitt has recently argued,
"[T]he evolution of the freer trade system in the 1990s, highlighted by the formation of the World Trade Organization (WTO), has the appearance of conflict with the norms of nonproliferation when it comes to restricting trade. If some parties to the CWC and BWC place a high priority on addressing economic threats, then it seems reasonable that all the State Parties to these treaties must at least consider these positions. As most treaties delineate a bargain among signatories, it comes as no surprise that both the CWC and BWC respond to economic as well as security considerations (Paper presented at September 2001 Wilton Park Conference on CBW issues, Wilton Park, England)."
To give one example, CWC Article XI states that State Parties agree to:
"Not maintain among themselves any restrictions, including those in any international agreements, incompatible with the obligations undertaken under this Convention, which would restrict or impede trade and the development and promotion of scientific and technological knowledge in the field of chemistry for industrial, agricultural, research, medical, pharmaceutical or other peaceful purposes."
In 2000, in response to a perceived lack of attention to this article of the CWC Protocol, the Non-Aligned Movement argued that:
". . . we reiterate our call on the developed countries to promote international co-operation through the transfer of technology, material and equipment for peaceful purposes in the chemical field and the removal of all and any discriminatory restrictions that are contrary to the letter and spirit of the Convention." 1
This debate about the necessities of development has now also extended to indigenous space programs. In the past 10 years, there has been an exponential expansion of the space technology trade. Accordingly, the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) held its third global conference on space programs in 1999 (UNISPACE III). Its major emphasis was on the need for increased assistance and trade in satellite and other space technologies to spur development. Scores of background papers were commissioned that emphasized the importance of microsatellite electronics and sensor technologies for the purposes of environmental monitoring, urban planning, agricultural planning, weather prediction, and communications. This strong post-Cold War mandate of COPUOS potentially conflicts with mandates to control certain dual-use technologies for missiles (under the Missile Technology Control Regime or MTCR) and information technology (under the MTCR and Wassenaar Arrangement).
Finally, in the middle of these opposing national and global trends sits the multilateral export control groups such as the Nuclear Suppliers' Group (NSG), the MTCR, and the Australia Group. These various groupings have been formed in response to the real need for adding concreteness to the various disarmament regimes mentioned above, in particular, the need to make sure that banned military technologies are not traded and that "critical dual-use goods" are not used in a way that contravenes the treaties' goals. The export control groups are seen by the West as a necessary supplement to the verification/compliance provisions and institutions of these treaties. While verification activities are carried out by global intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) associated with the treaty regimes, the Western states are cooperating among themselves to prevent illicit weaponization by keeping weapons-related technologies from spreading to states-parties (or states outside the treaties).
However, the nationally oriented positions of individual Western members often influence, and sometimes determine, the multilateral positions of these groups, which in turn undermines the groups' legitimacy in the eyes of many developing countries. For instance, US export control policies for Iran on chemical, biological, and nuclear items have found their way into the multilateral policies of the NSG and the Australia Group, as well as into the national policies of US friends and allies. Despite Iran's status as a member in good standing of both the NPT and the CWC, the Western control groups continue to withhold certain critical nuclear, biological, and chemical technologies on the basis of national security concerns.
These various international and national realities have created some potentially serious problems that are now reaching a head in international debates. First, in regard to national export control policies (especially those of the United States), the internal domestic debates are almost entirely oriented toward a "national security" viewpoint (as opposed to international or global security) and thus often fail to mention broader global concerns. New national policies may therefore be contradictory in spirit with global trade and development mandates as espoused by the WTO and COPUOS, or they may contravene the "technical assistance" terms of global disarmament treaties, including the wording in NPT Article IV or CWC Article XI.
Second, many developing countries do not see nearly as great a need for the security benefits offered by disarmament pacts, and they therefore ask for "carrots" to induce them to join, including explicit legal language stating the need for "technical assistance" or trade. The developing countries' more relaxed attitude toward verification flows from the fact of their more limited position within the international power hierarchy. While First World countries, especially the US and some of its larger NATO allies, have critical national interests in almost every area of the world, many developing nations are concerned largely with their immediate regional threat environment, which may or may not include realistic chemical, biological, or nuclear threats. Linked to this situational reality, many developing nations perceive that the United States and the West are demanding disarmament only of weapons that they themselves are not interested in deploying, while ignoring those weapon categories the West finds useful in fulfilling their national security strategies (hence, no total ban on ballistic missiles or nuclear weapons).2
In response, many Western states believe this increasing focus on development issues within security forums and conventions dilutes the primary focus of a disarmament treaty, which should be the improvement in the security environment of all member states on a multilateral basis. The Western emphasis on security benefits flows from their predisposition toward strictly legally binding frameworks and lessons learned from past unverifiable disarmament attempts, (e.g. naval disarmament between the two World Wars), plus the fact that they perceive the security stakes as being relatively higher.
Finally, there is a broader policy question at stake: is security based upon building alliance ties and national military capabilities that strengthen the economic and military power of friends/allies relative to other states, or is security based on participation in multilateral regimes and institutions that constrains the arms options of not only one's enemies but also of oneself? This basic philosophical question can be readily applied to the connected issues of dual-use technologies: Should export controls be constructed so as to support the former definition of security or the latter definition?
In general, the United States views national security as requiring some level of technology denial and often argues that Europe is not seriously committed on this issue; meanwhile, many countries in the developing world believe their future security is dependent on the free trade of advanced, critical technologies. For better or worse, the various disarmament regimes have become increasingly caught up in this national-versus-global security debate.
1 NAM Final document 2000 (Quoted in Cupitt, September 2001).