14. Dual-use and arms trade controls

Chapter:

14. Dual-use and arms trade controls

Source:

SIPRI Yearbook 2020

Author(s):

Mark Bromley

Global, multilateral and regional efforts continued in 2019 to strengthen controls on the trade in conventional arms and in dual-use items connected with conventional, biological, chemical and nuclear weapons and their delivery systems. Membership of the different international and multilateral instruments that seek to establish and promote agreed standards for the trade in arms and dual-use items remained stable. At the same time, there were growing signs that the strength of these instruments is being increasingly tested by stretched national resources and broader geopolitical tensions. This could be seen in the shortfalls in compliance with mandated reporting and funding obligations under the 2013 Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), the various reported violations of United Nations arms embargoes, and differences both within and among groups of states about how the obligations generated by these different instruments should be implemented. At the same time, states continued to make substantive progress on reaching agreement on expanding and developing many of the technical aspects of these agreements. For example, states continued to outline in more detail how key obligations under the ATT should be implemented and made a number of additions to the set of good practice documents and control lists connecting the various export control regimes.