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MTCR Members Amend Missile Nonproliferation Guidelines; Include “Catch-All” Provisions By Mike Nartker During a Sept. 19-26 meeting in Buenos Aires, MTCR members agreed to add “catch-all” provisions to the regime’s guidelines, according to a U.S. State Department press release. Such provisions would provide regime members with a legal basis to restrict exports of items not specifically identified on the MTCR annex or national control lists when such items are destined for missile programs, the release said. The catch-all provisions will require an export license for any trade with an organization involved in an MTCR Category 1 missile program, such as an Iranian facility involved in the production of a Shahab 3 missile, according to Richard Speier, a former U.S. Defense Department official who helped to negotiate the MTCR. The MTCR seeks to restrict the export of critical missile technologies by establishing common export controls among the regime’s 33 members. Under the MTCR, the export of missile systems with a range of more than 300 kilometers and capable of carrying a payload of more than 500 kilograms are subject to a strong presumption of denial. Regime members agreed during this year’s plenary meeting to make the inclusion of catch-all provisions into national export control regulations a regime-wide requirement, a State Department official told Global Security Newswire today. Already, 30 of the regime’s 33 members have such provisions in place, the official said. Speier said it is “critically important” that the catch-all provision requirement has been made regime-wide. As the MTCR has grown in effectiveness, missile proliferators have become forced to shift their focus away from selling complete missile systems and missile production technologies, both of which are controlled by the regime, to acquiring equipment designed for other purposes but that could be used to produce missile-related items, he said. Last year, members of the Australia Group, an informal network of 33 countries that coordinates export controls on chemical and biological weapons technology, agreed to include a catch-all provision to the group’s guidelines (see GSN, June 21, 2002). During the Buenos Aries meeting, MTCR members also agreed to restrict “intangible” technology transfers, such as sending missile blueprints by e-mail or fax, the State Department official said. Over the past decade, there has been increased recognition of the proliferation threat posed by intangible technology transfers, the official said, adding that many regime members have already developed national export control regulations to cover such transfers. Controls over intangible technology transfers were included in the original MTCR, but some members of the British Commonwealth had difficulties implementing them, Speier said. The regime members included in the Commonwealth are Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa and the United Kingdom. Intangible technology transfer controls have also been made an MTCR-wide requirement, the State Department official said. Last week, the U.S. Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security announced that U.S. export control regulations had been amended to implement decisions made at last year’s MTCR plenary meeting in Warsaw (see GSN, Sept. 23). According to the State Department release, MTCR members this year also “actively considered” increasing the membership of the regime based on applications received from several countries. While declining to name specific countries, Speier said that in the early 1990s, the MTCR agreed to cover all members of NATO, the European Community and the European Space Agency. Since then, both the alliance and the EC, now known as the European Union, have expanded to include a number of East European and Baltic states. The United States supports the “deliberate, prudent expansion” of the regime, the State Department official said.
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