A Review Of Arms Export Licensing

Excerpt from A Review of Arms Export Licensing: Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Federal Services, Post Office, and Civil Service of the Committee on Governmental Affairs, United States Senate, One Hundred Third Congress, Second Session; June 15, 1994 As a result of the gao recommendation, we will consult with State to determine if there are any additional categories of names on our watchlist which are of interest to them and we will provide them with all such names. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

This is the first joint report on arms export controls since the present Government took office in May 2010. As in previous years, the report reviews the Government's policy on arms exports, its administration and enforcement, and the adequacy or otherwise of current legislation. This year the Committees have paid particular attention to the Government's policy of intensifying the promotion of arms exports. The policy has come under scrutiny following the uprisings and demonstrations in recent weeks in North Africa and the wider Middle East and the armed response made to them. Since January 2011 the Government has been vigorously backpedalling on a number of arms export licence approvals to authoritarian regimes across the region. The MPs conclude that both the present Government and its predecessor misjudged the risk that arms approved for export to certain authoritarian countries in North Africa and the Middle East might be used for internal repression. The Committees welcome the revocation of a number of arms export licences to Bahrain, Egypt, Libya and Tunisia, and recommend that the Government extends immediately its review of UK arms export licences for countries in North Africa and the wider Middle East to authoritarian regimes worldwide. The Government should also set out how it intends to reconcile the potential conflict of interest between increased emphasis on promoting arms exports with the staunch upholding of human rights.

The joint committee is known as the Committees on Arms Export Controls, formerly the Quadripartite Committee. The UK strategic export controls annual report 2008 was published as Cm. 7662 (ISBN 9780101766227)

Essential features of the recommendations are to (1) replace licensing of low-risk individual transactions with programmatic approvals; (2) establish timelines for decisions on those items that still require licenses; (3) streamline the munitions list through annual reviews; and (4) harmonize national and multilateral lists to eliminate jurisdictional disputes.

The U.S. defense industry and some U.S. and allied government officials have suggested in recent years that the U.S. export control process be reformed. Much of the debate on reforming the process has focused on the amount of time required to process an export license application. As a result, you asked that we analyze the time it takes to process export license applications. In March 2001, we briefed your staff on the results of our work. As agreed with your staff, we are providing the briefing as a report (see app. I for a discussion of our scope and methodology). As also agreed with your staff, we plan further work to determine why some license applications take significantly longer than the average time to process and will be reporting on this issue in the future. Under the authority of the Arms Export Control Act, the State Department controls the export and import of defense articles and services. The State Department's International Traffic in Arms Regulations provide licensing procedures and define the defense articles and services that require a license in the U.S. Munitions List. The regulations, however, do not mandate or recommend timelines for the review of license applications. The Export Administration Act and Executive Order 12981 grant the Commerce Department authority to review and issue licenses for the export of dual-use commodities (those having both commercial and military applications).