G-7 Members Should Develop, Announce Export Control Standards, Experts Say

Japan and other G-7 countries should use the group’s trade ministers meeting later this year to push for a common set of export control standards across member states, which could help allied export control systems better respond to modern security and human rights issues, export control and technology policy experts said. In comments recently submitted to Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, the experts said plurilateral controls by G-7 countries and other like-minded “techno-democracies” can address some issues the existing multilateral control regimes are hindered from tackling because of Russia’s membership (see 2211210005 and 2009290042).

Although the U.S. and allies “effectively” have a new plurilateral export control arrangement resulting from their Russia sanctions coordination, that collaboration could eventually dissipate if not formalized, wrote Kevin Wolf and Atsushi Oshima, Akin Gump trade lawyers, and Emily Weinstein, a research fellow at Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology.

“Creating the standards for effective contemporary plurilateral controls would be a critical first step” to securing a “passionate commitment” from G-7 political leadership and governments, they said. “Moreover, the commitment alone from the [G-7] members to do so will serve as a model for other allied countries and existing plurilateral groups with export controls as part of their mandates.”

The comments, released this week by Wolf, a former senior Bureau of Industry and Security official, said the U.S.-EU Trade and Technology Council is a “good start.” But that forum is “Euro-centric” and doesn’t include “Pacific allies that are critical to the success of new plurilateral controls.” The TTC also doesn’t “clearly” provide standards for how domestic export control systems should operate, and the resources they need, to be effective.

The authors listed 10 “basic standards” the G-7 nations should agree to, including that export control agencies should have appropriate “legal authorities” and resources to quickly impose and enforce unilateral, plurilateral and multilateral controls. Member countries should also create systems to coordinate sharing of licensing and enforcement information, the comments said, and intra-governmental coordination between policy officials and enforcement officials should be “seamless.”

Other standards say export control agencies should work to reduce “unnecessary regulatory burdens on controlled trade by and among [G-7] members and other allied countries that adopt the same standards” and that G-7 members shouldn’t use controls to “achieve purely trade protectionist or mercantilistic policy objectives.” The “standards adherents” also should work to make sure new controls are clearly written and effective -- particularly “given the complexity of technology, supply chain, and foreign availability issues” -- and that their export control agencies provide incentives for compliance.

The authors stressed that the comments don’t ask the G-7 members to create a new export control regime -- which Wolf and Weinstein proposed in May (see 2205240039) -- but rather are a call for Japan to “lead the effort” during the October G-7 meetings in Osaka-Sakai in developing standards for domestic export control systems that can be used to effectively implement plurilateral controls.

“Although this comment is not about the creation of a new export control regime,” the authors said, “the development and implementation of the recommended standards will nonetheless facilitate the creation of all the domestic tools necessary for the eventual creation of a new, additional regime to address the same issues more formally.”