GAO Says Multilateral Export Control Regimes Too Weak
Concluding a 13-month study of four international regimes designed
to stem global weapons proliferation, the General Accounting Office
(GAO) reported October 25 that the Australia
Group, the Missile
Technology Control Regime (MTCR), the Nuclear Suppliers Group,
and the Wassenaar
Arrangement are not working as effectively as they should and
need to be made more robust.
While noting that governmental and nongovernmental nonproliferation
experts believe the four regimes have successfully helped institute
standards limiting worldwide exports of dangerous goods and kept
such items out of the hands of troublesome governments, GAO asserted
that measuring the actual impact of the regimes is difficult, and
it identified several shortcomings that undercut their utility.
Established over a span of 21 years, beginning with the 1975 creation
of the Nuclear Suppliers Group and ending with the 1996 founding
of the Wassenaar Arrangement, the four regimes each deal with a
specific area of proliferation concern, although they are largely
comprised of the same members. More than 30 countries, including
the United States, have committed to adhere voluntarily to the regimes,
which were established separately to regulate the global trade of
dangerous materials by harmonizing national export controls. The
Nuclear Suppliers Group limits nuclear materials and technologies;
the Australia Group addresses chemical and biological weapons-related
goods and technologies; the MTCR restricts missiles and related
technologies; and the Wassenaar Arrangement covers conventional
arms and goods with both military and civilian uses.
GAO, which conducts investigations and studies for Congress, said
two chief problems hamper the regimes: members do not share adequate
information with each other in a timely manner about their approval
and denial of exports, and they fail to implement regime decisions
quickly and consistently enough so that members’ export controls
are uniform. Making agreed-upon changes to national export controls
has taken some countries, including the United States, more than
a year.
The report warned that countries or groups seeking outlawed or
deadly capabilities might exploit an exporter’s outdated controls
or incomplete knowledge of what exports other suppliers are denying.
The regimes’ voluntary nature also hinders them from working
effectively, according to GAO. None of the regimes have monitoring
or enforcement mechanisms, and all the regimes operate by consensus,
meaning that a single country can block proposals or initiatives
to strengthen a regime. Although the consensus rule can frustrate
efforts to reform regimes, U.S. officials told GAO that it can also
work to the U.S. advantage by permitting Washington to block proposals
it does not like.
The regimes are also limited by the difficulty export controls
have keeping pace with rapid technological changes; the growing
number of countries outside regimes, such as China and North Korea,
that are capable of manufacturing and selling weapons and related
technologies; and the lack of criteria by which to judge regime
performance.
The GAO report painted Russia, which belongs to three of the four
regimes (the Australia Group is the exception), as pursuing policies
at odds with the regimes’ purposes. GAO stated U.S. officials
claimed that “Russia does not yet have an effective export
control system in place,” and they cited Moscow’s January
2001 shipment of nuclear fuel to India, despite the objections of
32 other capitals, as the clearest violation of a regime commitment.
The Nuclear Suppliers Group forbids members from nuclear cooperation
with countries that do not have internationally approved safeguards
on all their nuclear facilities, which India does not.
Yet, Russia is not the sole country violating its nonproliferation
pledges. GAO reported that the State Department provided it with
roughly 100 diplomatic demarches that Washington issued between
1998 and 2002 to a dozen foreign governments, including Russia,
raising questions about their exports. The problem may be even broader,
however, because the State Department did not supply GAO with copies
of all the demarches sent in recent years, and U.S. officials estimated
that in 2001 100 demarches were issued regarding MTCR matters alone.
In general, GAO contended that its limited access to data prevented
it from completely assessing “how regime members comply with
their commitments or how well efforts to encourage compliance work.”
U.S. and foreign government officials told GAO that judging how
well the regimes work is complicated by the fact that it is not
possible to know how widely dangerous technologies might have spread
had the regimes not existed. One U.S. official interviewed October
29 about the GAO report commented that past experience shows that
the regimes “are better than nothing.”
To enable countries to make more informed decisions about their
arms exports and to improve adherence to export control regimes,
GAO urged the secretary of state to press for increased information-sharing
among regime members, to work for more consistent implementation
of export controls, and to identify possible ways to make regimes
operate better, such as changing decision-making procedures. GAO
further encouraged more frequent U.S. reporting on its export denials,
thereby enabling other countries to take similar actions, and the
development of criteria to evaluate regime successes and failures.
In an October 16 reply to a draft copy of the GAO report, the State
Department said it would consider GAO’s recommendations as
part of a recently initiated review of the regimes ordered by the
president.
When asked, however, several State Department and White House officials
were unaware of the reportedly ongoing review. Only one State Department
official knew of the review and she would only say, “The president
has directed a review of the nonproliferation regimes.” She
explained she could not provide any other details, such as when
the president ordered the review, who is conducting it, when it
is supposed to be completed, or what it entails.
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