Dual Use

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1999

Morehead, Jere W., and David A. DismukeExport Control Policies and National Security: Protecting U.S. Interests in the New MillenniumTexas International Law Journal Volume 34. 173. January 4, 1999.

  1. “The uproar over the Clinton Administration’s recent decision to export satellite technology to China highlights the national security interests implicated by U.S. export control policy.” – page 173
  2. “Controlling the export of such weapons and the technology to make them has been the cornerstone of U.S. policy since the conclusion of World War II.” – page 174
  3. “…this article will explore some of the deficiencies inherent in the current U.S. export control regime, particularly in the areas of shared licensing and enforcement responsibility.” – page 174
  4. “…Wassenaar Arrangement is the most important multilateral export control device in existence since the demise of COCOM (Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls), and it is here to stay for the forseeable future. – page 178
  5. “Although it may only be capable of slowing proliferation, the EAA has remained a useful tool while the United States searches for other devices to prevent the proliferation of dangerous weaponry.” – page 178
  6. “At the very least, export controls add costs and delays to those nations or terrorist groups pursuing such items” – page 178
  7. “This convoluted system of shared responsibility for licensing makes effective export controls problematic. Rather than one central authority having control over strategic export decisions the current system makes it very easy for delays, confusion, and mistakes to occur.” – page 180
  8. “…the Department of Commerce has two bureaus that exist with conflicting duties: the Bureau of Export Administration, which is responsive for licensing exports of dual-use items and enforcing export controls, and the International Trade Administration, which is in charge of Commerce’s primary function – trade promotion activities.” – page 181
  9. “Dr. Bryen… argued that the appropriate course of action is to remove licensing responsibility from the Commerce Department” – page 182
  10. “The General Accounting Office (GAO) cited several advantages to granting primary responsibility for export enforcement to Customs: it would eliminate overlapping jurisdiction and duplication of effort; it would utilize Customs’ vast domestic and overseas resource bases; it would employ Customs’ unique enforcement tools, such as warrantless search authority; and it would erase potential conflicts of interest stemming from Commerce’s role in both trade promotion and control.” – page 185
  11. “The only solution that would work is divorcing export promotion from export controls” – page 186

Export Control, Dual Use

 

Bohm, Nicholas, Ian Brown, and Brian GladmanStrategic Export Controls: The Impact on CryptologyComputer Law & Security Review, Volume 15, Issue 2. Pages 75-85. June 2, 1999

  1. “One of the proposals in the White Paper is that existing controls on the export of goods should be extended to control the publication or export of information” – page 75
  2. “This paper examines one important controlled technology, cryptography, and the impact of extending the existing control in the way proposed by the White Paper” – page 75
  3. “Surveys such as the Graphic, Visualization, & Usability Center’s 8th WWW User Survey have identified security of the Internet as a widespread concern of members of the public contemplating its use” – page 75
  4. “The effective deployment of cryptographic technology to provide improved safety and security in Internet use is now a crucial step in achieving the public confidence on which its future benefits depend.” – page 76
  5. “There are no general legal controls on the domestic sale, possession or use of cryptographic equipment or software in the United Kingdom” – page 76
  6. “UK export control is imposed by statutory instruments made either under the Import, Export and Customs Powers (Defence) Act 1939 or under the European Communities Act 1972 pursuant to the requirements of the EC Dual-Use Goods Regulation … known as the Wassenaar Arrangement” – page 76
  7. “Although cryptographic products are in no sense weapons they are nevertheless subject to controls under the terms of the Arrangement” – page 77
  8. “Because most research on cryptography is conducted through publication, meetings and electronic exchanges, export controls on cryptography have had no significant impact on pure academic research” – page 79
  9. “The UK White Paper on Strategic Export Controls proposes that documents transferred abroad containing controlled technology should be subject to export licensing requirements, whether exported physically or by fax or electronic mail” – page 79
  10. “Export controls on cryptographic products have been very effective in impeding the widespread use of cryptography. Despite all the interest in better security on the Internet, only an insignificant proportion of the traffic involved is cryptographically protected, even though the need for this is now widely recognized.”- page 81
  11. “There is no evidence to suggest that cryptographic export controls have had a major impact on the ability of criminals, terrorists or belligerent states to obtain cryptographic software products, since these are widely and easily available to those with the skills, motivation and resources for implementing security systems in a non-commercial environment” – page 81
  12. “Given the adverse impact of existing and proposed export controls on cryptography, we conclude that no adequate case has been made by government to justify them.” – page 81
  13. “…breaches of export control are no mere administrative infractions, but serious criminal offences for which a sentence of imprisonment is required for a first offender of good character whose offence causes no particular harm…” – page 82
  14. “…controls on intangibles cannot work without the support of controls on freedom of speech and publication.” – page 82

Cybersecurity, Export Control, Dual Use

2005

Kaiser, Jocelyn, “Resurrected Influenza Virus Yields Secrets of Deadly 1918 Pandemic”, Science, Vol. 310, 7 October 2005, page 28-29.

  1. “The research grows out of Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP) pathologist Jeffery Taubenberger’s efforts, begun in 1995, to sequence the genome of the 1918 flu virus. Working mainly with tissue from a victim found in permafrost in Alaska, he and others have been piecing together the virus’s eight genes and characterizing their protein products.”
  2. “Because of the sensitive nature of the work, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) lab’s safety precautions received unusual scrutiny, says Tumpey, including review by several biosafety committees. Workers followed biosafety level 3 (BSL-3) practices, with additional enhancements for instance, wearing battery-powered air purifiers with face shields and showering when leaving the lab.”
  3. “A new federal biosecurity board gave the paper an unusual last-minute review to make sure the merits of its publication outweighed the risks of releasing potentially dangerous knowledge. The board’s green light is a relief to scientists who have worried about a clampdown on scientific information following the anthrax attacks.” *“Science decided to publish the 1918 flu paper because it ‘could help prevent another global flu pandemic,’ says Editor-in-Chief Donald Kennedy.”

1918 Flu, Flu, Pandemic, Biosafety, Dual Use, Biosecurity

 

Sharp, Phillip, “1918 Flu and Responsible Science“, Science, Volume 310. 7 October 2005, page 17.

  1. “The influenza pandemic of 1918 is estimated to have caused 675,000 deaths in the United States.”
  2. “We now have the sequence of the virus, perhaps permitting the development of new therapies and vaccines to protect against other such pandemic. The concern is that a terrorist group or a careless investigator could convert this new knowledge into another pandemic.”
  3. “Influenza is highly infectious, and a new strain could spread around the world in a matter of months, if not weeks. The public needs confidence that the 1918 virus will not escape from research labs.”
  4. “All of the described experiments were done in a Biosafety Level 3 laboratory, a high-containment environment recommended by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institute of Health on an interim basis, whose use should become a permanent requirement for such experiments.”
  5. “The dual use nature of biological information has been debated widely since September 11, 2001. In 2003, a committee of the U.S. National Academies chaired by Gerald Fink considered this issue, weighing the benefits against the risks of restricting the publication of such biological information.”
  6. “The U.S. National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) was asked to consider these papers before publication and concluded that the scientific benefit of the future use of this information far outweighs the potential risk of misuse.”
  7. “Because a pandemic infection is dependent on many unknown properties, there is no certainty that the reconstructed 1918 virus is capable of causing a pandemic.”

1918 Flu, Open Science, Dual Use, Bioterrorism, NSABB, Lab Safety

2006

Tucker, Jonathan, “Preventing the Misuse of Biology,” International Security, Vol. 31, No. 2, 2006, pp. 116-150

  1. “Science will kill, heal, build and destroy.”
  2. “Dual-use first attracted attention in 2001 when Australian scientists reported that while developing a vaccine to control rodent populations, they created a virus that was highly lethal in mice.”
  3. “The most troubling example of dual-use was the recreation of the Spanish influenza virus that Jeffrey Taubenberger created in 2005.”
  4. “Critics claimed that this was irresponsible because of the risk that the lethal virus might escape from the laboratory.”
  5. “The accelerating pace of discovery in the life sciences is generating potential threats to international security that warrant a coherent policy response.”
  6. “In the 1970’s U.S. molecular biologists imposed a voluntary moratorium on certain areas of research until the risks were better understood.”
  7. “In 1975 the Asilomar conference formulated some proposed guidelines that included the use of weakened strains of bacteria that would not be able to survive outside the laboratory.”
  8. “This conferences lead the U.S. National Institutes of Health to issue the ”NIH Guidelines for Research Involving Recombinant DNA Molecules”, 1976.”
  9. “NIH-funded research must establish institutional biosafety committees (IBCs) that assess the risks of experiments.”
  10. “In 2003 Gerald Fink published ”Biotechnology Research in an Age of Terrorism” which stated that life science could be misused for hostile purposes.”
  11. “Fink committee identified seven types of experiments of concern:”
    1. demonstrate how to render a vaccine ineffective
    2. confer resistance to a therapeutically useful antibiotic or antiviral drug
    3. enhance the virulence of a pathogen
    4. increase the transmissibility of a pathogen
    5. alter the range of hosts that a pathogen can infect
    6. enable the evasion of a diagnostic or detection methods
    7. facilitate the weaponization of a biological agent or toxin
  12. “In 2004 under George W Bush the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) recommends strategies for the efficient and effective oversight of dual-use research supported or conducted by the U.S. government.”

Dual Use, Ethics

2007

Forden, Geoffrey, “How the World’s Most Underdeveloped Nations Get the World’s Most Dangerous Weapons,” Technology and Culture, 2007, pp. 92-103.

  1. “Iraqi biological weapons administrative infrastructure relied on its own mytoxin experts, who encouraged first research and then production.”
  2. “According to the Iraq Survey Group’s ”Comprehensive Report”, the Iraqis began research on the powerful nerve agent VX in 1985 with a literature search for published work on its synthesis and production.”
  3. “In 1975, the Sunday Times of London revealed that the British patent office had, a number of years earlier, approved and published the formula and method of synthesis for a whole family of organophosphate chemicals, including VX.”
  4. “A machinist can just as easily learn to operate a flow-forming machine by making a tuba horn as a rocket nuzzle; a technician can learn to control a fermenter to brew a vaccine as well as a pathogen; producing a nerve agent is not so different from producing a pesticide. As such beneficial knowledge spreads–and no one would deny a developing country the right to produce vaccines or refine its own agricultural chemicals–it will become that much easier for proliferators to find the necessary population of skilled workers already within the country.” *”We still need our supply-side-oriented nonproliferation regimes to try to prevent crucial technologies from being shipped to countries that might abuse them.”

Tacit Knowledge, A.Q. Khan, Dual Use, Bioterrorism, WMD, Synthetic Biology, Open Science, Developing Countries

2008

Kaliadin, Aleksandr, “In Search of an Effective Coercive Strategy to Deter Weapons of Mass Destruction,” Russian Social Science Review, Vol. 49, no. 2, March-April 2008, pp. 77-93.

  1. “The PSI (Proliferation Security Initiative) aims at keeping proliferators away from the materials necessary for developing WMDs and their delivery systems by monitoring the trade routes used for proliferation and intercepting suspicious cargoes.”
  2. “Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), believes that the ‘black market’ in nuclear technologies and materials has become a reality and exists outside the effective control of either the IAEA or the leading special services.”
  3. “(NPT) does not impose sanctions on member states …(BWC) also has no statement on sanctions …(CWC) were not designed to curb proliferation among nonstate structures.”
  4. “An essential flaw of the nonproliferation treaties is that they stipulate no mechanisms for the physical prevention of the activities they ban.”
  5. “The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced its decision to support the PSI on 31 May 2004, on its first anniversary.”
  6. “(UNSCR) Resolution 1540, …helps establish the necessary legal foundations for PSI-related activities. …its key statements and its messages are in line with PSI’s principles.”
  7. “During the first half of the year (2004) PSI participants conducted ten exercises: five at sea, three in the air, and two on the ground.”
  8. “The highly sensitive information on which PSI operations must be based will demand a qualitatively new (and unprecedented) level of cooperation between Russian and U.S. state agencies.”
  9. “Russian … first greeted the initiative (PSI) with restraint, even with skepticism and distrust.” {further discussion on Russian perspective excluded}
  10. “Russia faces complex challenges in balancing the requirements to promote WMD nonproliferation against the need to develop the nuclear and other branches of industry that manufacture and export dual-use goods and technologies and to reassess its regional geopolitical interests.”
  11. “It is vital to Russia’s interests that its strategic stability not be undermined by its neighbors acquiring nuclear arms while Russia is reducing its own strategic offensive weapons–for economic and technical reasons, among others.”

PSI, NPT, BWC, CWC, UNSCR 1540, Dual Use, WMD, Russia

 

Rood, John C. “Improvements to the Defense Trade Export Control SystemDISAM Journal of International Security Assistance Management, Volume 30, Issue 4. 83-89. Winter 2008.

  1. “The following are excerpts of remarks at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington DC, February 26, 2008” – page 83
  2. “I am excited to discuss with you the significant changes that this Administration has undertaken which we believe will maintain the United States’ ability to control sensitive military technology and at the same time, permit U.S. companies to export their products in a more timely and predictable manner and collaborate more effectively with foreign companies” – page 83
  3. “We changed our licensing policy so that employees of foreign companies who are nationals from NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization] or EU [European Union] countries, Japan, Australia [or] New Zealand are now considered authorized under an approved license or TAA (Technical Assistance Agreement).” – page 84
  4. “We also are working with the Department of Commerce to clarify the application of U.S. munitions export controls to parts and components certified by the Federal Aviation Administration” – page 84
  5. “Similarly, we are reviewing internal review processes within the Department with the objective of eliminating internal bottlenecks where they may exist” – page 84
  6. “And, as you know, the Administration also signed landmark treaties with the United Kingdom and Australia on Defense Trade Cooperation this year.” – page 86
  7. “The goal was to create the ability for our respective militaries and security authorities and companies to freely exchange information and technologies. To accomplish this, we have created an entirely new structure for most defense exports” – page 87
  8. “Exports of most classified and unclassified U.S. defense goods, technology, and services will be permitted to go into and to move freely within this community without the need for government approvals and export licenses when in support of:
    1. Combined military and counterterrorism operations
    2. Cooperative security and defense research, development, production, and support projects
    3. Specific security and defense projects where HMG [Her Majesty’s Government] is the end-user
    4. And USG only end-use” – page 88
  9. “This will be a big change from today’s export licensing system where numerous government approvals are often necessary for companies to hold discussions about potential projects, to pursue joint activities, to ship hardware and know-how to one another, and even sometimes to move engineers and other personnel within branches of the same company on both sides of the Atlantic” – page 88
  10. “One important highlight of the treaty is that it will include the ability for both governments to effectively enforce it against violators” – page 88

Export Control, Dual Use, Military, Compliance, NATO

2009

Chakhava, George; Kandelaki, Nino. “Progress in the Life Sciences in Georgia Strategies for Managing Dual Use Research of Concern“. Center for Strategic Development and Research in Medical Education at TSMU and the ethics of science: Georgian Association of Medical Specialties. March 27, 2009. http://oba.od.nih.gov/biosecurity/NSABB_3rd_Roundtable_Presentation/Nino%20(Dual)1_Chakhava.pdf

  1. “Three types of ethics committees exist currently in Georgia: National Council on Bioethics, research and clinical (medical) ethics committees. Schematically outlines all these chematically ethics committees and the legal basis for their establishment and functioning.”

Georgia, Dual Use, Biosafety, Biosecurity

 

Kerr, Simeon,  & Morris, Harvey, Financial Times, August 29, 2009, p. 4.

  1. “The United Arab Emirates has seized a ship secretly carrying embargoed North Korean arms to Iran, say diplomats.”
  2. ”The UAE reported the seizure to the UN sanctions committee responsible for vetting the implementation of measures, including an arms embargo, imposed against North Korea under Security Council resolution 1874…”
  3. ”A UN diplomat whose country is represented on the sanctions committee said the UAE reported the ship was carrying 10 containers of weapons and related items, including rocket-propelled grenades and ammunition. He said the consignment had been ordered by Iran’s TSS, a company said to be linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps and previously subject to international bans on importing weapons-related items.”
  4. ”The vessel, identified by diplomats as the Bahamian-flagged ANL-Australia, … The UN sanctions committee has written to the Iranian and North Korean governments pointing out that the shipment puts them in violation of UN resolution 1874.”
  5. ”The UN resolution, adopted following North Korea’s second nuclear test in May, extended an existing ban on the transfer of heavy weapons and nuclear and missile-related technology to cover all arms exports by Pyongyang.”
  6. ”The binding resolution authorises states to seize and dispose of items that break the embargo. The resolution also requires states to report to the committee on what action they are taking to implement sanctions.”
  7. ”While most focus is on dual-use technology, diplomats said the clampdown on public dissent after Iran’s contested elections had also raised concerns about supplies of arms to state-linked militias.”

United Arab Emirates, Iran, North KoreaUNSCR 1874, Dual Use, PSI

 

Sanger, David, “Obama Pushes to Update Global Rules on Nuclear Arms,” A6, NYT, September 25, 2009.

  1. “He [Obama] pushed through a new United Nations Security resolution that would, if enforced, make it more difficult to turn peaceful nuclear programs into weapons projects.”
  2. “the White House celebrated the passage of a new Security Council resolution that ‘encouraged’ countries to enforce new restrictions on the transfer of nuclear material and technology, the measure stopped well short of authorizing forced inspections of countries believed to be developing weapons.”
  3. “the [new] resolution was less specific, as well as less stringent, than the last broad nuclear passed, in 2004 under President Bush, known as Resolution 1540.”
  4. “‘Today’s resolution had a different purpose,’ said Matthew Bunn, a nucl;ear expert at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard.  ‘It was intended to win unamious support for remaking the nonproliferation treaty, strengthening inspections and getting everyone behind the idea of securing all nuclear materials in four years.  And they got that agreement.'”

Nuclear, Dual Use, UNSCR 1540

 

Committee on Laboratory Security and Personnel Reliability Assurance Systems for Laboratories Conducting Research on Biological Select Agents and Toxins, National Research Council of The National Academies, Report Released September 30, 2009. http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12774

  1. “The Committee was asked to consider the appropriate framework of laboratory security and personnel reliability measures that will optimize benefits, minimize risk, and facilitate the productivity of research.”
  2. ”Recommendation” 1: “…personnel with access to select agents and toxins should receive training in scientific ethics and dual-use research.”
  3. ”Recommendation” 2: “… a Biological Select Agents and Toxins Advisory Committee (BSATAC) should be established. … [to]… Promulgate guidance of the Select Agent Program; … Promote harmonization of regulatory policies and practices.”
  4. ”Recommendation” 3: “The list of select agents and toxins should be stratified in risk groups according to the potential use of the agent as a biothreat agent, …mechanisms for the timely inclusion or removal of an agent or toxin from the list are necessary and should be developed.”
  5. ”Recommendation” 4: “Because biological agents have an ability to replicate, accountability is best achieved by controlling access to archived stocks and working materials. …[as opposed to] counting the number of vials.”
  6. ”Recommendation” 5: The appeals process for Security Risk Assessments should be broadened beyond mere checks for factual errors.
  7. ”Recommendation” 6: “… define minimum cross-agency physical security needs.”
  8. ”Recommendation” 7: Dedicated funding should support an independent evaluation of the Select agent Program to assess benefits and consequences of the program.
  9. ”Recommendation” 8: “Inspectors of select agent laboratories should have scientific and laboratory knowledge and experience, as well as appropriate training in conducting inspections specific to BSAT research.  Inspector training and practice should be harmonized across federal, state, local, and other agencies.”
  10. ”Recommendation” 9: A  separate category of support should be allocated for BSAT research due to the costs of security.

Ethics, Dual Use, Misconduct, Law Enforcement, Lab Security, Law

2010

Gregg, Kelsey, “Unauthorized Brucellosis Experiments, University of Wisconsin-Madison,” Posted May 21, 2010, Federation of American Scientists, Biosecurity Blog, http://www.fas.org/blog/bio/2010/05/unauthorized-brucellosis-experiments-university-of-wisconsin-madison/. Last checked 10/30/11

  1. ”Professor of pathobiological sciences, Gary Splitter, DVM, PhD, was suspended from laboratory work above BSL-1 until 2013 because unauthorized work was conducted with an antibiotic-resistant strain of Brucella, a select agent, by his graduate student in 2007.”
  2. ”Brucella bacteria can cause the disease brucellosis, which presents as a prolonged non-specific febrile illness in humans accompanied by chills, sweats, headache, fatigue, myalgias (muscle pain), arthralgias (joint pain), and anorexia.”
  3. ” This unauthorized research is even more egregious because it was with an antibiotic-resistant select agent, making this research of dual use concern.”
  4. ” Dr. Splitter claims that the incident was the result of an understaffed biosafety committee and ‘The University of Wisconsin fail[ing] to provide the right education.’ Dr. Splitter, while culpable, may be right that this incident ‘… was a major meltdown by the university.’ Put together, the unauthorized work and a past case of brucellosis acquired in Dr. Splitter’s laboratory, indicate personal and systemic failures to educate laboratory personal about biosafety level procedures and regulations. This incident highlights the need for continued efforts to educate students and scientists alike about research of concern and general laboratory biosafety.”

Brucellosis, Misconduct, BSL, Dual use, Oversight, Biosafety

 

Eckstein, Megan, “Amerithrax experts debate FBI findings, insist Ivins was innocent,” FrederickNewsPost.com, Frederick County Maryland Daily Newspaper, Originally published November 30, 2010, http://www.fredericknewspost.com/sections/storyTools/print_story.htm?storyID=113107&cameFromSection=a1 11/30/2010 4:46:11 PM

  1. “The FBI may have closed its Amerithax case against Fort Detrick scientist Bruce Ivins nine months ago, but some experts are not willing to let the issue die quite so easily.  A group of about 25 scientists, professors, writers, terrorism experts and more convened Monday afternoon to discuss the particulars of the investigation and to debate who the real perpetrator may have been.”
  2. “Lewis Weinstein, who has written extensively about the anthrax attacks in 2001 that killed five and sickened 17 others, introduced the first panel of speakers by saying ‘none of us on this panel believe the FBI proved its case against Dr. Bruce Ivins.'”
  3. “‘There is no evidence that Dr. Ivins ever made the dried anthrax’ used in the attacks, Kemp said. ‘There were no spores found in his house, in his car, at his desk, any place that it shouldn’t have been.'”
  4. “Because the attack anthrax was never found on Ivins’ property and because his DNA was never found on the attack letters, critics of the FBI investigation said the final report released in February is nothing more than a laundry list of circumstantial evidence strung together to make Ivins appear mentally unstable and, therefore, guilty.”
  5. “James Van de Velde, a consultant on terrorism issues, added that Ivins, as a prominent anthrax researcher, would not have been dumb enough to use anthrax from his own beaker in an attack. And Ross Getman, a lawyer and author on the subject, said the FBI changed its timeline of when the letters would have had to be mailed to fit Ivins’ calendar, which has not been released. Getman asserted that Ivins had group therapy sessions scheduled for the two days the FBI originally thought the letters were mailed.”

Anthrax, Dual Use

 

Associated Press, “Researcher tells how anthrax may have been made,” The Baltimore Sun, baltimoresun.com, NEWS, Maryland, , December 5, 2010.

  1. “A retired researcher at the Army lab believed to be the source of anthrax spores used in deadly 2001 mailings gave his views recently on how they may have been made.”
  2. “John W. Ezzell, who retired in 2006 from the U.S. Army Medical Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick in Frederick, was in the audience at a conference last week in Washington. Ezzell stood up and spoke for about 15 minutes when a technical question arose.”
  3. “Ezzell says he believes the spores were removed from wet anthrax samples in a centrifuge while being dried with a speed vacuum. That would have created a brown pellet with a white cap consisting almost entirely of spores.”
  4. “Investigators believe fellow researcher Bruce Ivins mailed the spores and later killed himself as investigators closed in.”

Anthrax, Dual Use, Misconduct

2011

Suk, Jonathan, Zmorzynska, Anna, et al., “Dual-Use Research and Technological Diffusion: Reconsidering the Bioterrorism Threat Spectrum”, PLOS Pathogens, January 13, 2011, http://www.plospathogens.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.ppat.1001253#equal-contrib last checked February 20, 2011.

  1. ”Activities that have garnered substantial attention include chemically synthesizing the poliovirus [9] and the ΦX174 bacteriophage [10], demonstrating the importance of a variola virus gene for its virulence [11], and reconstituting the 1918 influenza virus [12]. Each has been classified as dual use research of concern (DURC), which is defined by the US National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) as ‘research that, based on current understanding, can be reasonably anticipated to provide knowledge, products, or technologies that could be directly misapplied by others’.”
  2. ”The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) was established in 2005 with the mandate to strengthen Europe’s defenses against infectious diseases through developing European Union–wide surveillance networks and early warning systems, coordinating scientific studies, and identifying emerging health threats.”
  3. ”As a part of ECDC efforts to evaluate potential bioterrorism threats, we reviewed 27 assessments (published between 1997 and 2008) that address the links between life science research and bioterrorism with the objective of identifying DURC relevant for public health (Text S1). The focus of the review was limited to the application of DURC by terrorist organizations and it did not consider state-sponsored biological weapons programs.”
  4. ”…we conducted a threat assessment during an expert workshop. The purpose of this threat assessment was to identify those DURC activities that would be the most easily deployed by bioterrorists. The key parameters for this assessment were the level of expertise required for conducting any given DURC activity and the level of equipment required to conduct the work. In the threat assessment, an estimated threat level was calculated for each DURC activity by giving a score ranging from 1 (high threshold) to 3 (low threshold) for both parameters, and then multiplying these scores to yield the final threat, which could be 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, or 9. Higher scores indicate a higher likelihood of success if they were to be undertaken by bioterrorists.”
  5. ”The recent history of bioterrorism also suggests that more attention should be allotted to low tech threats [30].”
  6. ”We do not suggest that high tech bioterrorism threats do not exist—rather, that their likelihoods should be re-evaluated. Biosecurity policy discussions could gain more nuance and credibility by adopting more sophisticated notions about the challenges inherent in conducting and replicating advanced research.”
  7. “The United States Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism believes it is very likely that a weapon of mass destruction will be used in a terrorist attack by the end of 2013, and that an attack with a biological weapon is more likely than one with a nuclear weapon” (Pg. 1)
  8. “Al Qaeda is believed to have failed to obtain and work with pathogens by the early 2000s [32], and this likely remains the case. In comparison, the contamination of food and water, and direct injection/application of a pathogen, all have much lower technical hurdles and might be expected to be rather more successfully deployed [31]. The best known example is the contamination of salad bars with Salmonella by the Rajneeshee cult in 1984, which led to roughly 751 illnesses and 45 hospitalizations” (Pg. 2)
  9. “the most successful ‘‘bioterrorists’’ of all, nature and globalization, which have led to the emergence of numerous new communicable diseases in recent years [39–41]. A focus on strengthening global health security has been put forward by the Obama administration [42] and the European Commission [38], and has also gained prominence in fora such as the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention [43]. Public health, too, is dual use: it can be leveraged to counter natural and intentional disease outbreaks” (Pg. 3)

Dual Use, Bioterrorism, Information Policy, Biosurveillance, Europe

 

Patrick, Micheal, “The New Form I-129- Enhanced Enforcement,” NYLJ, January 20, 2011, P. 3, Col.1.

  1. “Form I-129 is used by employers to petition U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services for prospective non-immigrant foreign workers, including H-1B professionals, L-1 intracompany transferees, and O-1 individuals of extraordinary ability.”
  2. “The form is used primarily to determine whether the foreign national and the job he or she will perform are eligible for the non-immigrant classification. But recent revisions to the form have increased its role as a compliance and enforcement document.”
  3. “First, the petitioner must certify that it has reviewed the list of controlled technologies and technical data from the EAR and ITAR. Second, with respect to technology or technical data the petitioner intends to release to the foreign worker, the petitioner must check one of two boxes, stating either that an export license is not required or that a license is required and will be obtained before the employer releases the controlled technology to the foreign worker.”
  4. “This is the first time that employers filing visa petitions for non-immigrant workers have been required to make this certification directly on the I-129 form.”
  5. “The export control regulations apply primarily to ‘dual use’ technologies with both commercial and military applications
  6. “[B]ecause of widespread objections to and confusion about this new requirement, its implementation has been delayed two months, and it will not become mandatory until Feb. 20, 2011.”

Export Control, Dual Use, Military

 

Miller, J. Berkshire, “North Korea’s Other Weapons Threat“, 12 November 2011, The Diplomat, http://the-diplomat.com/2011/11/12/north-korea’s-other-weapons-threat/, Last Checked 15 November 2011.

  1. “North Korea’s latent nuclear weapons program is rightfully the main point of concern for its neighbors and the international community. But far less publicized is Pyongyang’s ongoing efforts to build upon its capabilities to produce and maintain chemical and biological weapons (CBW). “
  2. “North Korea’s expansion of these programs is no secret to intelligence agencies around the world, and there are a number of reports detailing sites across the country dedicated to the production of CBW.”
  3. “North Korea isn’t a state party to the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) and has never been subject to inspections of its chemical industry facilities or sites believed associated with its CW program. Regardless, there’s little debate about the existence of the North’s CW program, with intelligence assessments from Russia, Britain, the United States and South Korea all indicating that Pyongyang continues to produce CW stocks.”
  4. “Much less clear is the scope of the CW program and its level of advancement. Most assessments concur that the North has produced all of the main chemical agents such as nerve (including VX gas), blood, blister and choking agents.  There’s less certainty regarding the amount of chemical agents stockpiled by the regime, although estimates range from 1,000 to 5,000 tons. However, even if the North’s program is at the low end of estimates, its capacity is bolstered by the fact that its military has a variety of sophisticated delivery vehicles for CW attacks including missiles, artillery and airborne bombs.”
  5. “While Pyongyang publicly denies the need for transparency on its CW program, its production of biological weapons is muddied and concealed by weak international non-proliferation standards. Unlike the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which has robust verification standards, the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) is plagued by the failure of its members to agree on a universal verification mechanism that would adequately ensure that all state parties are held to account for their treaty commitments.”
  6. “States at the BWC have been engaged in talks to come to an agreement on a suitable verification arm, but these efforts were cut short after the United States withdrew its support back in 2001. At the time, George W. Bush’s administration insisted that such a mechanism would require considerable financial capital with little pay off in security terms. The Pentagon also stressed that it was concerned about diverting precious resources on combating BW to a multilateral organization that would in turn take away funds from its successful biodefense programs. But perhaps the largest hurdle is to overcome U.S. and other members’ concerns that a strict verification regime may impose heavy restrictions on the biotech industry.”
  7. “Regardless, Pyongyang has taken advantage of the BWC’s verification gap by using its position as a state party to the BWC in order to blanket accusations that it continues to produce and maintain biological weapons.  The South Korean Defense Ministry claims that North Korea has possession of several biological agents such as anthrax bacterium, botulinum and smallpox – all of which can be weaponized.”
  8. “The thorniest issue between members of the BWC relates to the dual-use nature of biological agents and how to determine whether a program is peaceful or intended for nefarious purposes. The global science industry relies on the research conducted by studying biological materials. However, from an international security perspective, there’s the potential that this dual-use research could be diverted into a biological weapons program.”
  9. “There’s also the terrifying possibility that the government may – or already has – traded chemical or biological agents and suitable delivery vehicles to terrorist groups, which could weaponize them to use in an asymmetric attack. The improved ability of intelligence agencies around the world to determine weapons forensics would in theory deter such an illicit transfer, but it can’t be guaranteed”
  10. “South Korean officials have recently claimed that their intelligence confirms that CBW factories were constructed in the North Korean province of Chagang last year. In response to this, the South Korean government has indicated that it will continue to pour millions of dollars into programs aimed at detecting, deterring and protecting their citizens and soldiers from a possible CBW attack from an unpredictable regime in the North.”
  11. “However, while the government is satisfied with its CW prevention efforts, Seoul has largely neglected creating a sufficient biodefense infrastructure. Korean parliamentarian Shin Hak-yong recently outlinedthis, stressing that the country’s“military defense has been excessively focused on preparedness for North Korea’s chemical attacks, rather than for its biological attacks.”
  12. “Seoul’s new biodefense strategy has three central prongs. The first relies on detection, and has been supported by the government’s planned implementation of scanning technology at ports of entry that will be able to detect ten separate disease threats. The second pillar focuses on deterrence, which is based on South Korea’s continued investment in its hard power resources, such as medium and long range surface-to-air missiles. The final ingredient is the much needed investment in protecting South Koreans in the event of a biological attack through the development and stockpiling of vaccines.”
  13. “Beginning a serious dialogue on CBW with North Korea is necessary, and could facilitate an opening for a smoother resumption to the stalled Six Party Talks on the regime’s nuclear weapons program.”
  14. “Kim Jong-il’s regime has displayed its insincerity and belligerence on several previous occasions when such talks resumed. Attempting to include CBW in the Six Party Talks would be counterproductive and would give Pyongyang more avenues to stall and launch salvos against Korea and the United States.”

Chemical, Biodefense, BWC, CWC, North Korea, South Korea, Dual Use

 

Greenfieldboyce, Nell, “Scientists Worry about Impact of Bird Flu Experiment,” National Public Radio, November 17, 2011 http://www.npr.org/2011/11/17/142435910/bird-flu-experiment-rattles-bioterrorism-experts Last Checked December 3, 2011

  1. “Scientist recently have been altering the genes of H5N1 to make the virus spread more easily between lab animals- raising concerns about biosafety and how this research is regulated.”
  2. “At a flu conference one scientist said he’d done a lab experiment that resulted in bird flu virus becoming highly contagious between ferrets, the animal model used to study human infection.”
  3. “Thomas Inglesby, bioterrorism expert and director of the Center for Biosecurity at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center said, ‘It’s just a bad idea for scientists to turn a lethal virus into a lethal and highly contagious virus. And it’s a second bad idea for them to publish how they did it so others can copy it.’”
  4. “The scientist who presented the results of this study is Ron Fouchier, of the Erasmus Medical Center in the Netherlands.”
  5. “NPR has learned that his work is now under scrutiny by a committee called the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity.”
  6. “That’s a committee of independent experts that the U.S. government set up to give advice on how to deal with biological research that’s legitimately important to science, but that also could be misused. It can make recommendations about things like whether or not to publish.”

Flu, Scientist, Biosafety, Biosecurity, Dual Use, Drug Resistance, Biosurveillance

 

Editors,  “Scientists Brace for Media Storm Around Controversial Flu Studies,” Science Insider, November 23, 2011.  Available at  http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2011/11/scientists-brace-for-media-storm.html, Last checked 12/5/11

  1. ”The virus is an H5N1 avian influenza strain that has been genetically altered and is now easily transmissible between ferrets, the animals that most closely mimic the human response to flu. Scientists believe it’s likely that the pathogen, if it emerged in nature or were released, would trigger an influenza pandemic, quite possibly with many millions of deaths.”
  2. ”The other study—also on H5N1, and with comparable results—was done by a team led by virologist Yoshihiro Kawaoka at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and the University of Tokyo, several scientists told ScienceInsider.”
  3. ”Both studies have been submitted for publication, and both are currently under review by the U.S. National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB), which on a few previous occasions has been asked by scientists or journals to review papers that caused worries.”
  4. ”NSABB chair Paul Keim, a microbial geneticist, says he cannot discuss specific studies but confirms that the board has “worked very hard and very intensely for several weeks on studies about H5N1 transmissibility in mammals.”
  5. ”’I can’t think of another pathogenic organism that is as scary as this one,’ adds Keim, who has worked on anthrax for many years. ‘I don’t think anthrax is scary at all compared to this.’”
    ”’This work should never have been done,’ says Richard Ebright, a molecular biologist at Rutgers University in Piscataway, New Jersey, and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute who has a strong interest in biosecurity issues.”
  6. ”Those stories describe how Fouchier initially tried to make the virus more transmissible by making specific changes to its genome, using a process called reverse genetics; when that failed, he passed the virus from one ferret to another multiple times, a low-tech and time-honored method of making a pathogen adapt to a new host.”
  7. ”Fouchier says he consulted widely within the Netherlands before submitting his manuscript for publication. The U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), which funded the work, has agreed to the publication, says Fouchier, including officials at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. (NIH declined to answer questions for this story.)”
  8. ”Osterholm says he can’t discuss details of the papers because he’s an NSABB member. But he says it should be possible to omit certain key details from controversial papers and make them available to people who really need to know.”
  9. ”Even Ebright, however, says he’s against efforts to ban the publication of the studies now that they have been done.”
  10. ”’The researchers “have the full support of the influenza community,’ Osterholm says, because there are potential benefits for public health. For instance, the results show that those downplaying the risks of an H5N1 pandemic should think again, he says.”

Open Science, Classified, Due Process Vetting, Flu, Dual Use, NSABB, Anthrax, Pandemic, Zoonotic

 

Editors, “Dutch Scientist Modifies Avian Flu into More Virulent Virus,” Global Security Newswire, November 28, 2011 http://gsn.nti.org/gsn/nw_20111128_9954.php Last Checked December 3, 2011

  1. “A Dutch scientist performing U.S.-backed biodefense research was able to modify an avian flu strain into a more virulent version of the lethal virus, eliciting concerns that the findings could be misappropriated for acts of biological terrorism.”
  2. “The U.S. National Institutes of Health requested that Rotterdam-based molecular virology professor Ron Fouchier examine whether the avian influenza virus H5N1 could cause a massive outbreak.”
  3. “The Dutch professor reportedly demonstrated that with a few changes to the genetic code, he was able to alter the virus into a highly contagious pathogen.”

Scientist, Flu, Biodevelopment, Lab Safety, Dual Use, Drug Resistance

 

Editors, “Biosecurity Board Assessing Studies on Altered Bird Flu Virus,” Global Security Newswire, December 1, 2011 http://gsn.nti.org/gsn/nw_20111129_9660.php Last Checked December 6, 2011

  1. “A U.S. biosecurity panel is assessing whether two separate studies that altered the avian flu virus should be published given concerns that such information could be abused by terrorists to create a biological weapon.”
  2. “Dutch molecular virology scientist Ron Fouchier submitted to the U.S. journal Science a summary of his research on how a strain of H5N1 became able to be transferred through the air after it was transmitted between ferrets on 10 occasions.”
  3. “Biosecurity board Chairman Paul Keim said, ‘I can’t think of another pathogenic organism that is as scary as this one. I don’t think anthrax is scary at all compared to this.’”
  4. “Keim said he thinks that the potential ramifications of dual-use studies should be assessed in the very early stages of the project.
  5. “‘The process of identifying dual use of concern is something that should start at the very first glimmer of an experiment,” Keim said. You shouldn’t wait until you have submitted a paper before you decide it’s dangerous.’”

Scientist, Flu, Biodevelopment, Lab Safety, Dual Use, Drug Resistance

 

Yoon-mi, Kim, “Nuke summit to discuss everyday radioactivity,” Korea Herald, Dec. 13, 2011 http://www.koreaherald.com/national/Detail.jsp?newsMLId=20111213000766 Last checked 12/27/11

  1. ”The upcoming 2012 Seoul Nuclear Security Summit’s agenda will include how to ensure the safety and security of radioactive materials widely used in people’s daily lives, a government official said Tuesday.”
  2. ”Korea will host the summit on March 26-27 as a continuation from the first nuclear security summit in April 2010, led by U.S. President Barack Obama, to prevent nuclear materials falling into the hands of terrorists.”
  3. “’Terrorism using nuclear materials such as highly enriched uranium and plutonium would have a massive impact, but the probability is low. While terrorism using radioactive materials, widely used in hospitals, would have a smaller impact but the probability is high,’ a foreign ministry official said.”
  4. ”Fifty-one leaders ― 47 heads of state and the heads of the U.N., IAEA, EU and Interpol ― are expected to attend the 2012 Seoul Nuclear Security Summit.”
  5. ”President Lee Myung-bak repeatedly has said he welcomes Pyongyang to join the summit in March if it shows the international community its sincerity about giving up its nuclear ambitions.”
  6. ”South Korea’s hosting of the nuclear security summit, inviting 47 national leaders, will positively impact the security of the Korean Peninsula, the ministry official said.”

Nuclear, South Korea, North Korea, Law Enforcement, Dual Use

2012

Beach, Coral, “Nanotechnology could help reduce shrink” 2 May 2012, the packer, http://www.thepacker.com/fruit-vegetable-news/Nano-technology-could-help-reduce-shrink-149877135.html, Last Checked 7 May 2012.

  1. “A chemistry professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is using his background in the detection of explosives and chemical warfare agents to help reduce fresh produce shrink.”
  2. “Chemistry professor Timothy Swager and his students have developed a sensor to detect minute amounts of ethylene gas that could help retailers and distributors better manage inventory, according to a news release from the university in Cambridge, Mass.”
  3. “The devices could reduce retailers fresh produce losses by 30%, Swager said in the release”
  4. “The professor has filed for a patent and hopes to start a company to offer the sensors commercially. He estimates the cost for a sensor and an accompanying radio frequency identification chip to be about $1.”
  5. “The sensors consist of an array of tens of thousands of carbon nanotubes, which are sheets of carbon atoms rolled into cylinders that act as superhighways for electron flow. Swager and his students added copper atoms to the nanotubes to slow the speed of the electrons and provide something for ethylene to bind to.”
  6. “The amount of ethylene can then be determined by measuring the speed of the electrons, which slow down more as the level of ethylene bound to the copper atoms increases. To make the sensors even more sensitive the research team added tiny beads of polystyrene, which absorb ethylene and concentrate it.”
  7. “With the latest version, the researchers can detect ethylene as low as 0.5 parts per million. The concentration required for fruit ripening is usually somewhere between 0.1 ppm and 1 ppm.”
  8. “Swager said in the release the sensors could be placed in cartons of produce to detect ethylene levels. The RFID chips would enable the data to be sent wirelessly to handheld devices. Retailers and distributors would then know the level of ripeness in individual cartons without having to handle the produce or rely on visual inspections.”

Chemical, Chemical Surveillance, Dual Use

 

Eric McClafferty & Michael Dobson, “Export Controls Complicate Risk for Chemical Companies,” ICIS.com, May 7, 2012. http://www.icis.com/Articles/2012/05/07/9556554/export-controls-complicate-risk-for-chemical-companies.html Last Checked 6/2/12

  1. “On December 19, 2011, the US Commerce Department issued an order requiring payment of a $275,000 civil penalty to settle export violations that occurred between 2007 and 2010. The violations involved 16 unlicensed shipments of triethanolamine (TEA), a relatively common chemical compound used in cosmetics, photograph processing, and many other applications. The shipments went to an affiliate entity in Brazil, and were valued at less than a quarter of the penalty amount.”
  2. “This wasn’t an unusual case: in recent years, well over 70 companies in the chemical and allied industries have been penalized for export control violations. The number of criminal cases is exploding, enforcement agents pay announced and unannounced visits to companies, hundreds of new ICE and FBI agents are now enforcing export control regulations, and two new enforcement coordination centers were created in recent months.”
  3. “It turns out that in addition to its use as an ingredient in lotions, TEA can also be used to make nitrogen-based vesicants similar to mustard gas, which is regulated under the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention.”
  4. “Because it is a chemical weapon precursor, TEA, along with roughly 90 other chemicals, is controlled for export under the US Export Administration Regulations (EAR) . . . . The US regulations, which are administered by the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), apply to “dual-use” items that have both commercial and military or weapons proliferation applications. While most items in the marketplace are subject to the EAR in one way or another, only certain listed chemicals, fertilizers, and petrochemical items are controlled for export – meaning a license is required for export to listed destinations.”
  5. “Near-identical controls (and similar headaches) apply to re-exports, or shipments from the initial destination country to a second country. These have proven particularly vexing for chemical companies, which too often operate under the misguided assumption that export responsibilities end at the US border.”
  6. “Think of the US export rules as a string that attaches to products exported from the US, following the product from location to location. The first shipment from the US may not need a license because it is made to a close ally, but shipment to the next country may well require a license from the US Commerce Department.”
  7. “Serious enforcement efforts have recently targeted the equipment side of the chemical business, and over 50 companies have been penalized for exports and re-exports of controlled equipment. . . . [O]ne company . . . received a $2.9m penalty associated with equipment shipments.”
  8. “None of these controls is [”sic”] static. The equipment rules have been amended several times in recent years in important ways – for example, over 100 countries were added to the control category – and there are more changes coming that have not been published yet.”
  9. “If your company does not have an explicit, regularly updated process to classify products and technology that are exported, you are likely not handling export compliance risks appropriately.”
  10. “[B]ecause the penalties are assessed on a “strict liability” basis, the government has little sympathy for companies unfamiliar with the regulations.”
  11. “Getting to full compliance with export control regulations can be complicated, but it is well worth the effort, given what is at stake for both companies and individuals. In addition to the penalties already mentioned, companies can lose eligibility to do business with the US government, and they can have export privileges revoked altogether.”

Chemical, Export Control, Dual Use

 

Connor, Steve, “Experts condemn plans to lift ban on research into deadly H5N1 birdflu virus,” The Independent, July 27, 2012. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/experts-condemn-plans-to-lift-ban-on-research-into-deadly-h5n1-birdflu-virus-7982081.html# last checked July 31, 2012

  1. ”The moratorium on deliberately creating highly infectious strains of H5N1 was supposed to last 60 days but has continued for six months.”
  2. ”This weekend, influenza scientists will meet in New York in the hope of lifting the ban and allowing the work to continue.”
  3. ”’The moratorium should be continued until a broader, dispassionate, international discussion can be held to carefully consider the risks and benefits,” said David Relman, professor of infectious diseases at Stanford University in California. ‘The consequences of misuse or accidental release are potentially catastrophic on the global human and animal populations. Scientists have a deep moral and ethical responsibility to back off…it should not be decided by a group of flu researchers,’ said Dr Relman, who also sits on the US National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity.”
  4. ”The meeting in New York is being organised by the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases whose director, Tony Fauci, has gone on record as saying that he would like to ‘expedite as quickly as possible the lifting of the moratorium’.”
  5. ”Richard Roberts, a Nobel prize-winning molecular biologist and expert in genetic engineering, said the moratorium should continue and that many experts are privately appalled that there are plans to lift it but are afraid of speaking out over fears that it might affect their funding from the NIH.”
  6. ”Stanley Plotkin, a world authority on vaccines at the University of Pennsylvania, has written to Dr Fauci urging him to continue the moratorium. He said that creating a strain of H5N1 virus that is airborne transmissible would be like creating anthrax bacteria that could be easily spread from one person to another.”
  7. ”Professor Berg said that lifting the moratorium is ‘a bit ludicrous’ given that there is no scientific rationale to support an end to the voluntary research ban. ‘There should be a serious review and evaluation of the concerns that led to the moratorium and a scientifically rigorous analysis of why the concerns can be managed before the moratorium could be lifted,’ Professor Berg said.”
  8. ”’Stanley Falkow, Professor Emeritus of Microbiology and Immunology and Medicine, Stanford University: ‘I agree that the moratorium ought to be continued. My reasoning is that the moratorium is essential until such time as there is a dispassionate international meeting to address the issues brought to the fore by the H5N1 “affair”. In my judgment there has been a lack of leadership by the scientific community in dealing with this issue. The majority of statements from scientific leaders recently were often self-serving remarks and communications to journals from either biased virologists or those promoting doom and gloom. What was needed was a plan for a way forward based on the premise that H5N1 was simply an acute exacerbation of a long smouldering problem that was diagnosed in the Fink report a decade ago but still not treated appropriately for over a decade. In contrast, I believe the behaviour of the scientists in the face of the recombinant DNA discovery in terms of their initiative and responsibility was admirable and this kind of leadership has been notably missing now. Of course, that was over 35 years ago and while there are certainly parallels between the implications for public health and society from the discovery of recombinant DNA technology and similar implications for dual use research, it is a different time and a different world. However, the social responsibility of a scientist remains the same regardless of the time.’”

Open Science, Flu, Due Process Vetting, Dual Use, Information Policy, NSABB, Oversight, Lab Safety

 

Roos, Robert, “Fauci Urges Continuing Pause on Risky H5N1 Studies,” CIDRAP News, July 31, 2012. Available at http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/cidrap/content/influenza/avianflu/news/jul3112fauci.html last checked August 1, 2012.

  1. ”The head of the US agency that funds much influenza research today called on scientists to continue their voluntary moratorium on certain kinds of potentially hazardous H5N1 research, saying they need to better address public concerns about the studies, according to news reports from a flu meeting in New York City.”
  2. “’I strongly recommend that you continue this voluntary moratorium until you can have this open and transparent process addressing the fundamental principles,’ said Anthony Fauci, MD, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), as quoted in reports by Nature and National Public Radio (NPR).”
  3. ”According to the Nature story, Fauci spent a half hour at today’s meeting explaining his reasoning and the process now under way to develop a government policy on “dual-use research of concern” (DURC), meaning studies that could be deliberately used to do harm. He said several federal agencies are involved in developing the policy, which would govern how researchers and institutions must report on DURC and address the risks involved.”
  4. ”This policy would include the formation of a ‘government-wide agency’ assigned to develop and implement guidelines for federally funded researchers in a way that involves input from all interested parties, including the public, scientists in other fields, and the global community, Nature reported. Fauci said he hoped that the agency could be in place by the end of the summer, but he was careful not to promise, saying, ‘I don’t control it.’”
  5. ”Ron Fouchier, PhD, of Erasmus Medical Center in the Netherlands, lead author of the more contentious of the two H5N1 studies, called for ending the research pause, according to NPR. He argued that the original conditions for imposing the moratorium have now been met, including time for review of the biosafety requirements for such experiments.”

Open Science, Flu, Due Process Vetting, Dual Use, Information Policy, NSABB, Oversight, Lab Safety

2013

Fouchier, Ron, García-Sastre, Adolfo,  Kawaoka, Yoshihiro et al., “Transmission Studies Resumefor Avian Flu,” ”Science Express” – Letters, January 23, 2013 http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2013/01/22/science.1235140.full.pdf last checked January 24, 2013.

  1. ”In January 2012, influenza virus researchers from around the world announced a voluntary pause of 60 days on any research involving highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1 viruses leading to the generation of viruses that are more transmissible in mammals. We declared a pause to this important research to provide time to explain the public-health benefits of this work, to describe the measures in place to minimize possible risks, and to enable organizations and governments around the world to review their policies (for example on biosafety, biosecurity, oversight, and communication) regarding these experiments.”
  2. ”The World Health Organization has released recommendations on laboratory biosafety for those conducting this research, and relevant authorities in several countries have reviewed the biosafety, biosecurity, and funding conditions under which further research would be conducted on the laboratory-modified H5N1 viruses. Thus, acknowledging that the aims of the voluntary moratorium have been met in some countries and are close to being met in others, we declare an end to the voluntary moratorium on avian flu transmission studies.”
  3. ”The controversy surrounding H5N1 virus transmission research has high-lighted the need for a global approach to dealing with dual-use research of concern.”
  4. ”Because H5N1 virus transmission studies are essential for pandemic preparedness and understanding the adaptation of influenza viruses to mammals, re-searchers who have approval from their governments and institutions to conduct this research safely, under appropriate biosafety and biosecurity conditions, have a public-health responsibility to resume this important work.”
  5. ”Scientists should not restart their work in countries where, as yet, no decision has been reached on the conditions for H5N1 virus transmission research. At this time, this includes the United States and U.S.-funded research conducted in other countries.”
  6. ”Scientists should never conduct this type of research without the appropriate facilities, oversight, and all necessary approvals. We consider biosafety level 3 conditions with the considerable enhancements (BSL-3+) outlined in the referenced publications as appropriate for this type of work, but recognize that some countries may require BSL-4 conditions in accordance with applicable standards (such as Canada).”
  7. ”We fully acknowledge that this research—as with any work on infectious agents—is not without risks. However, because the risk exists in nature that an H5N1 virus capable of transmission in mammals may emerge, the benefits of this work outweigh the risks.”

Scientific Self-Governance, Dual Use, Flu, Biosafety, Biosecurity, WHO, Open Science, Oversight, Public Health, Canada, Risk, BSL, Pandemic

 

Gatling, Lance, and Sheldon, JohnA New Opportunity for U.S.-Asian Space Cooperation,” February 25, 2013. Defense News. Last checked February 25, 2013. http://www.defensenews.com/article/20130224/DEFFEAT05/302240012/A-New-Opportunity-U-S-Asian-Space-Cooperation?odyssey=nav|head

  1. “The satellite export control reforms in the 2013 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) provide an opportunity to further Washington’s strategic interests through cooperation in Asia-Pacific national security space.”
  2. “The NDAA allows the president to propose removing space-related items from the State Department’s Munitions List and administer them under the Department of Commerce’s Control List…”
  3. “This is especially important because the technology in question is often available throughout the world”
  4. “Export reform may provide an opportunity to strengthen key alliances with Japan, South Korea, Australia and Singapore; reinforce links with friends such as the Philippines and Thailand; and expand ties with Indonesia, Myanmar, Mongolia and Vietnam. These countries all seek to exploit space capabilities for national security purposes.”
  5. “Japan, South Korea and Australia are developing national security space systems. Their efforts might be encouraged by deeper U.S. engagement and space-capacity building — actions consistent with the 2010 U.S. National Space Policy.”
  6. “As the global economy increasingly shifts toward Asia, the strategic attributes of space power — perspective, access, presence and extended strategic depth — create economic openings and could help ameliorate the potential for conflict.”
  7. “Space systems can also provide redundant and secure communications, and support greater and more efficient border security, maritime domain awareness and exclusive economic zone monitoring.” Dual-use remote sensing space systems can help countries more efficiently utilize scarce naval and air assets to support freedom of navigation and defend sovereign rights.
  8. “Not only can space systems improve a nation’s security, they could help a U.S. under fiscal constraints; consequently, it is very much in U.S. interests to help its friends and allies become dependable space powers.”
  9. “The importance of regional space policy precipitated the recent introduction of national security space issues at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Regional Forum. Today, an increasing number of countries, including the U.K., European countries, Russia, China and Japan, are willing to provide their expertise in space hardware and launch services for either commercial or “soft power” political engagements to these Asian nations and beyond.”
  10. “Cooperation on space systems with allies will demonstrate a new level of trust on the part of the U.S., as the technology has been seen as overly guarded for years.”
  11. “Active dual-use space cooperation would provide a strategically and politically powerful statement of American commitment.”
  12. “The net result: a greater level of political and strategic commitment to trans-Pacific security relationships and greater trust in partnership with America. The time is right for this step.”

Export Control, Dual Use, Asia, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Mongolia

 

Palmer, Doug, “Obama Pushes Ahead with Export Control Changes” March 8 2013, Reuters, U.S. Edition, http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/08/us-usa-export-controls-idUSBRE92715720130308, Last Checked March 8 2013.

  1. “The Obama administration has notified Congress of plans to modify U.S. weapon and ammunition export controls to make it easier for American companies to export spare parts for aircraft and gas turbine engines, the White House said on Friday.”
  2. “President Barack Obama also issued an executive order changing how export controls on military and certain high-technology goods are administered, the latest step in a reform initiative that dates back to August 2009.”
  3. “”This is the beginning of putting in place the nation’s new export control system,” a senior administration official told reporters on condition he not be identified. “Our current export control system is very complicated … It’s designed to address the Cold War-era and hasn’t been updated since that time.””
  4. “The new rules go into effect in 180 days of being published, unless Congress, which was notified of the changes on Thursday, moves to block them in the next 30 days.”
  5. “Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates in April 2010 outlined the administration’s long-term plan to merge two separate government lists that govern exports of weaponry and dual-use technology goods into a single list.”
  6. “A study by the Milken Institute for the National Association of Manufacturers a few years ago estimated that modernizing export controls could boost real U.S. economic output by $64 billion and create 160,000 manufacturing jobs.”

Export Control, Executive, Dual Use

 

Kurzrok, Andrew, and Gretchen HundBeyond compliance: Integrating nonproliferation into corporate sustainabilityBulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Volume 69 Issue 3. Pages 31-42. May 2013

  1. “… the private sector is often described as the first line of defense against the spread of weapons of mass destruction. However, many in industry see nonproliferation – an international security goal awash in treaties and United Nations Security Council Resolutions – as a job primarily for governments or multilateral organizations such as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, Nuclear Suppliers Group, or Australia Group.” – page 32
  2. “An alternative approach to engaging industry on nonproliferation is to weave it into an existing framework – widely known as corporate sustainability – that the private sector uses to monitor and regulate its own behavior” – page 32
  3. “Several international security experts have suggested that nonproliferation should be factored into corporate ethics” – page 32
  4. “Effective nonproliferation requires focus from industry because proliferators solicit goods from the private sector, not from government” – page 35
  5. “Hundreds, if not thousands, of manufacturers produce tools and materials with potential WMD proliferation applications … Whether or not they are aware of it, the manufacturers of these commodities are all potential targets for proliferators.” – page 35
  6. “… illicit procurement is a real and continuing threat, and … innocent companies can become involved with bad actors.” – page 35
  7. “For those who knowingly take part in proliferation activities, most jurisdictions have heavy penalties for export control noncompliance, including fines, lost export privileges, and imprisonment.” – page 36
  8. Possible options on how to incorporate nonproliferation into existing frameworks:
    1. Pledging nonproliferation
    2. Reporting on nonproliferation performance
      1. Corporate governance statement
      2. Participation in, or support for, an industry-wide code of conduct or pledge
      3. Commitment to preferentially choosing business partners
      4. Policy on sharing suspicious trade requests
      5. Participation in governmental export control rulemaking
      6. Nonproliferation training and education for employees
      7. Acknowledgment of noncompliance
  9. “The technical know-how and raw natural resources needed to make weapons ultimately cannot be controlled; what can be controlled, however, are commodities that could be misused to parlay knowledge and materials into bombs” – page 40
  10. “Many of the manufacturers, shippers, brokers, and financiers of dual-use commodities already responsibly manage and report on other global threats. Expanding these efforts to include nonproliferation is good business and good citizenship, the keys to corporate sustainability” – page 40

Export Control, Compliance, Dual Use, Nonproliferation, WMD

 

McCarthy, Thomas, et al, “Export Control Reform Is Here: Aerospace Industry Is First, Others To Follow,” May 7, 2013, The Metropolitan Corporate Counsel, http://www.metrocorpcounsel.com/articles/23766/export-control-reform-here-aerospace-industry-first-others-follow, Last Checked May 21, 2013.

  1. “Specifically, the rules will transition control over a number of items manufactured for the aerospace industry from the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) to the Export Administration Regulations (EAR), requiring aerospace companies around the world that manufacture, export or re-export ITAR-controlled items to evaluate and amend their current authorizations and to restructure compliance activities in order to meet tight regulatory deadlines and avoid violations of the new laws.”
  2. “U.S. export controls are primarily comprised of two major regulatory regimes: (i) the ITAR, administered by the U.S. Department of State (“State”); and (ii) the EAR, administered by the U.S. Department of Commerce (“Commerce”). The ITAR regulates the export of military commodities, technical data and services (i.e., defense articles and services) and requires authorization (either a license or an exemption) from the agency for all exports. The EAR regulates the export of commodities, software and technologies that have a commercial and some other strategic application (e.g., military, terrorism, etc.) – often referred to as “dual-use” – and requires licensing based on the classification of the item under the EAR, its destination, end use and end user.”
  3. “The broad reach of these laws can affect activities all over the world that have a U.S. nexus, including mergers and acquisitions, the structure of supply chains, types of permissible customers and end users, employment decisions and information technology networks, among others.”
  4. “The ITAR includes a list of covered items, known as the U.S. Munitions List (USML). Similarly, the EAR contains a list of items that are covered, known as the Commerce Control List (CCL). The new rules make substantial changes to the structure of the USML and CCL, transfer certain items from the USML to the CCL, provide more precise guidance on making decisions regarding whether an item is subject to the ITAR or EAR, and update how items may be exported under export licenses and exemptions.”
  5. “Under the new rules, ITAR Categories VIII (Aircraft and Related Articles) and XIX (Gas Turbine Engines and Associated Equipment) will now list aerospace items that are subject to those categories in detail, including naming certain aircraft, and parts thereof, that remain subject to the ITAR.”
  6. “The State rule also creates certain “catch-all” provisions that control items that are “specially designed” (a concept discussed in more detail below) for military aircraft.”
  7. “A vexing question for many exporters in the aerospace industry, and other industries heavily regulated under the ITAR and EAR, has been determining whether an item is subject to the ITAR or EAR. That determination drives conclusions about which federal agency oversees activities related to exporting, but the law has been remarkably vague on how to reach such conclusions, giving rise to significant uncertainty and a sense of heightened regulatory risk.”
  8. “The twin State and Commerce rules become effective on October 15, 2013, giving manufacturers, exporters and other affected parties just 180 days to accomplish some enormous tasks. To assist U.S. companies in dealing with the period leading up to and after the effective date, State and Commerce have outlined a detailed transition plan.”
  9. “These reforms will have a major impact on regulated companies, particularly in the aerospace industry. In the short to medium term, the impact will likely involve a significant burden on companies that must adjust their compliance programs to account for the new export jurisdiction, classification and licensing requirements. Specifically, implementing these changes will be particularly difficult for companies that export items that are subject to both the EAR and ITAR.”
  10. “In the long term, however, these new rules may offer the possibility to reduce licensing burdens, although it may increase compliance resources needed to properly manage the complexity associated with license exceptions.”

Export Control, Executive, State Department, Dual Use

 

Ramer, Holly, “Shaheen Hosts Discussion on Export Controls Reform,” May 13, 2013, SFGate, San Francisco Chronicle, Associated Press, http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Shaheen-hosts-discussion-on-export-controls-reform-4510339.php, Last Checked May 21, 2013.

  1. “Overhauling outdated restrictions on military exports will help New Hampshire businesses continue to increase their activity overseas, U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen said Monday.”
  2. “‘New Hampshire has a very strong reputation for the quality of the defense manufacturing base we have here, and Granite State businesses have contributed to creating the strongest, most dynamic, most competitive defense industry in the world today,’ she said.”
  3. “Under recently announced changes, the export process for U.S. manufacturers will be simplified when the Commerce Department, rather than the State Department, gains the authority to control the export of thousands of “dual-use” items that could be used either for military or commercial purposes. The goal is to treat nonsensitve products differently from things like jet fighters and missile launchers.”
  4. “‘The line between what is military and what is dual-use is becoming ever thinner,’ Gottemoeller said.”

Export Control, Dual Use, State Department

 

Wolf, Kevin, J., “Export Administration Regulations (EAR): Control of Spacecraft Systems and Related Items the President Determines No Longer Warrant Control Under the United States Munitions List (USML),” Dated May 14, 2013, Published May 24, 2013, Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Export Administration, Proposed Rule, Bureau of Industry and Security, Department of Commerce, http://www.ofr.gov/(S(at5defqelxjulv40esdg5hhy))/OFRUpload/OFRData/2013-11986_PI.pdf, Last Checked June 4, 2013.

  1. “This proposed rule describes how certain articles the President determines no longer warrant control under United States Munitions List (USML) Category XV – spacecraft and related items – would be controlled on the Commerce Control List (CCL).”
  2. “This is one in a planned series of proposed rules describing how various types of articles the President determines, as part of the Administration’s Export Control Reform Initiative, no longer warrant USML control, would be controlled on the CCL and by the EAR.”
  3. *”This proposed rule is being published in conjunction with a proposed rule from the Department of State, Directorate of Defense Trade Controls, which would amend the list of articles controlled by USML Category XV.”
  4. “This rule proposes changes to the text of the EAR as modified by the Initial Implementation Rule of April 16, 2013 (78 FR 22660). BIS made changes to the EAR in the Initial Implementation Rule that provide the framework for the “500 series.” The changes made to the EAR in the Initial Implementation Rule will be effective on October 15, 2013.”
  5. “In December 2012, the Wassenaar Arrangement on Export Controls for Conventional Arms and Dual-Use Goods and Technologies (“Wassenaar Arrangement”) amended its definition of “space-qualified” to be “[d]esigned, manufactured, or qualified through successful testing, for operation at altitudes greater than 100 km above the surface of the Earth.”
  6. “This proposed rule is part of the Administration’s Export Control Reform Initiative. Under that initiative, the USML (22 CFR part 121) would be revised to be a “positive” list, i.e., a list that does not use generic, catch-all controls on any part, component, accessory, attachment, or end item that was in any way specifically modified for a defense article, regardless of the article’s military or intelligence significance or non-military applications. At the same time, articles that are determined to no longer warrant control on the USML would become controlled on the CCL. “Spacecraft” and related items so designated will be identified in specific ECCNs known as the “500 series” ECCNs.”

Export Control, Executive, State Department, Dual Use, NASA

 

Erwin, Sandra I., “New Export Rules Coming Soon: Will They Open Trade Floodgates?,National Defense Magazine, National Defense Industrial Association, Blog, Posts, July 10, 2013, http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/blog/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=1197. Last Checked July 17, 2013.

  1. “Up until now, any component of a military system or a communications satellite required a State Department arms-exporting license, even if they were commercial goods. Thousands of dual-use items will transition from the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) to the Export Administration Regulations.”
  2. “The first categories of items to transition to the new regime are aircraft and jet engines. Next in line are ground vehicles, naval vessels, submarines and oceanographic equipment, which will transition in January 2014. Other categories will follow over time.”
  3. “Under the current plan, product categories will be removed from the U.S. munitions list in a sequential order, which means some companies will have to wait years for their products to be transferred to Department of Commerce jurisdiction.”

Export Control, Dual Use, NASA

 

Editors, “Dutch Court Upholds Rule Requiring Permission to Publish Avian Flu DataGlobal Security Newswire. September 27, 2013. http://www.nti.org/gsn/article/dutch-court-upholds-regulation-requiring-permission-release-sensitive-avian-flu-data/?mgs1=51afde7Ede Last checked September 28, 2013

  1. “A court in the Netherlands ruled in favor of a Dutch regulation mandating government permission be granted before sensitive research into dangerous diseases such as the avian flu is disseminated to the public, the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy reported on Thursday.”
  2. “Virologist Ron Fouchier of the Erasmus Medical Center had filed an appeal to the Dutch government’s decision last year requiring him to obtain an export permit before he could publish research results in the journal Science. The findings showed how only a few genetic alterations were needed to change the H5N1 avian flu into a disease that more easily could be transmitted by air from one mammal to another.”
  3. “H5N1 bird flu has killed the majority — nearly 60 percent — of the hundreds of people it has infected in the last decade.”
  4. “Advocates of publishing the Erasmus research contended it would help spur public health and pharmaceutical understanding about the way the disease could evolve in the future. Biodefense analysts, however, argued that bad actors could seize upon the data to develop a more lethal disease targeting humans.”
  5. “The Dutch government said prior-permission to publish the research was mandated by 2009 European Union rules intended to limit the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. The regulations cover serous flu strains and accompanying technical information.”
  6. “The court ruled that scientists do not have the authority to determine whether their own scientific projects constitute basic research.”

Biosecurity, Biodefense, Dual Use

 

Sevastopul, Demetri, “Beijing bans ‘dual use’ exports to North Koea,Financial Times, September 25, 2013. P. 8.

  1. ”Items include Ebola virus.”
  2. ”The Chinese commerce ministry published this week a 236-page list of ‘dual-use’ equipment, chemicals and technologies that it said could be used to build “weapons of mass destruction”. It said China was implementing UN Security Council resolutions, without providing any more detail.”
  3. “’I think it is a change,’ said Paul Haenle, director of the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center, a think-tank in Beijing. ‘We are beginning to see the start of a fairly significant shift in Chinese policy.’”
  4. ”North Korea has reacted angrily to the new sanctions . It has been at pains to show that the international pressure has merely strengthened its determination to forge ahead with its nuclear programme.”

UNSCR 1540, China, North Korea, Ebola, Bioterrorism, WMD, Dual Use, Export Control

2014

Krige, JohnNational Security and Academia: Regulating the International Circulation of KnowledgeBulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Volume 70 Issue 2. Page 42. March 2014.

  1. “NASA banned Chinese scientists from attending a November 2013 conference at the agency’s Ames Research Center to discuss the latest results from the Kepler space telescopes planet search… it was ‘completely unethical for the United States of America to exclude certain countries from pure science research’” –page 42
  2. “The Fundamental Research Exclusion is the key instrument that universities use to maintain compliance with export controls while allowing free access to research” – page 44
  3. “National Security Decision Directive (NSDD) … noted that U.S. universities and federal laboratories were ‘a small but significant target’ of Soviet and Eastern bloc intelligence gathering” – page 44
  4. “The Fundamental Research Exclusion created a space for universities to produce unclassified knowledge that was not subject to restrictions on circulation.” – page 45
  5. “In 2004, the Department of Commerce’s inspector general insisted that the controls on knowledge production were far too lax. The collapse of Soviet communism, the emergence of China as a major economic power, and the terrorist attacks of 9/11 posed new challenges to national security.” – page 45
  6. “Fearful that other countries would benefit from the open climate of US research to acquire an economic advantage, the inspector general berated the Department of Commerce for not tightening up the regulatory system” – page 45
  7. “The Bureau of Industry and Security (as it has been called since 2001) administers these rules [Export Administration Regulations] to regulate the export of dual-use technology.”
  8. “Deemed export clauses control the export not only of devices or physical goods but also of dual-use knowledge.” – page 45
  9. “In the Export Administration Regulations, ‘use’ is defined as the ‘operation, installation (including onsite installation), maintenance, repair, overhaul, and refurbishing’ of equipment” – page 46
  10. “Universities claimed that this definition allowed foreign nationals to freely use controlled equipment in their research as long as they did not perform all six of the listed actions” – page 46
  11. “To definitively close this loophole, the inspector general wanted the word ‘and’ changed to ‘or’” – page 46
  12. “On that reading, a license would be needed for a foreign national to perform any one of the six listed activities.” – page 46
  13. “To date, these pleas have been heeded: ‘and’ has thus far not been changed to ‘or.’ However, the regulations affecting the entry of foreign nationals have been tightened considerably” – page 47

NASA, Open Science, Academia, Export Control, Compliance, Dual Use

2015

Whang, Cindy. “The Challenges of Enforcing the International Military-Use Export Control Regimes: An Analysis of the United Nations Arms Trade TreatyWisconsin International Law Journal, Volume 33. Page 114. January 4, 2015.

  1. “On April 2, 2013, the United Nations adopted the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) to create an international standard for regulating the international trade in conventional arms” – page 114
  2. “…the humanitarian purpose of ATT is aimed at increasing international security, stability, and peace while decreasing human suffering from the illicit trade of conventional arms” – page 114
  3. “ATT’s objectives will be achieved by standardizing the state parties’ import and export regulations” – page 115
  4. “Huge challenges continue to exist on both the international and domestic front for ratifying the ATT standards, but the ATT’s effectiveness relies on states unifying their domestic regulations with agreed-upon international standards.10” – page 116
  5. “Under UN multilateral treaties, ATT is categorized as a disarmament treaty. UN disarmament treaties can be divided into two categories according to their objectives. The objective of the first category is to disarm and eliminate military-use weapons.” – page 117
  6. “The second category of multilateral disarmament treaties is export control treaties. These treaties have a long-term objective of promoting peace, but their primary goal is to create common standards for regulating international trade of military-use weapons and technology. These types of treaties are in the minority for disarmament treaties, and ATT belongs in this second type.” – page 117
  7. “Current international export control regimes rely on cooperation as a main method for enforcement.” – page 119
  8. “There have been five international technology export control regimes established before ATT in the past sixty years. The establishment and structure of current international export control regimes are best understood in light of the Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls (COCOM), the first international export control regime.” – page 119
  9. “Three international agreements were established after COCOM, and they all targeted a specific type of weapon technology: the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), the Australian Group (AG), and the Missiles Technology Control Regime (MTCR). After COCOM was dissolved, the Wassenaar Arrangement (WA) was established to fill the void COCOM left for standardizing export regulations for conventional arms and dual-use products” – page 120
  10. “The first informal international military-use export control regime was structured to restrict the trade of military weapons according to perceived military hostilities post-World War II” – page 120
  11. “The Wassenaar Arragnement was established as an informal agreement made between participating states, but the effectiveness of adopting and enforcing WA standards remains an issue” – page 127
  12. “… several states became concerned with the status of nuclear export control and established NSG as a complementary measure to limit the transfer of nuclear technology and make sure that any transfer was safeguarded” – page 128
  13. “AG was an informal agreement established in 1985 as a complementary measure in support of two international treaties: the Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or Other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare (also known as the 1925 Geneva Protocol), and the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on the Their Destruction (also known as the 1972 Biological and Toxins Weapons Convention).” – page 129
  14. “MTCR was an informal agreement established in 1987, which sought to prevent the proliferation of unmanned delivery systems that could be used for weapons of mass destruction.” – page 129
  15. “There are two challenges with regard to the effectiveness of these three international technology export control regimes. The first challenge is that the technology export control regimes are focused on controlling the exporter’s side of the trade, and, for the most part, current participants in these technology export control regimes are suppliers of these controlled technologies” – page 130
  16. “The second challenge is the punishment for or repercussions of non-compliance.” – page 131
  17. “The UN’s decision to negotiate and create an Arms Trade Treaty was announced in the General Assembly 2006 Resolution 61/89. However, the votes taken on the General Assembly resolution were not promising” – page 131
  18. “The goal was to create a legally binding instrument that would establish an international standard for regulating the import, export, and transfer of conventional arms to promote international peace through arms control” – page 131
  19. “The United States voted against the resolution, while China, India, and the Russian Federation abstained from voting for the resolution” – page 132
  20. “Although the United States signed the treaty on September 25, 2013, many members of the US Senate have vocally opposed ratifying the treaty” – page 137

Military, Dual Use, Export Control, Compliance, Law, Nonproliferation, UN, BWC, WMD, Nuclear, CWC, Chemical, ATT

 

Stohl, RachelExercising Restraint? The New U.S. Rules for Drone TransfersArms Control Today, Volume 45, Issue 4. Page 20. May 2015.

  1. “On February 5, Representative Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) urged the Obama administration to reverse its decision to deny a Jordanian request for unarmed Predator XP drones to fight the Islamic State” – page 20
  2. “The revision of the U.S. export policy for unmanned aerial systems, as drones are formally known, had been highly anticipated by the defense industry and U.S. allies.” – page 20
  3. “The new drone export policy is part of a broader U.S. policy review of U.S. drone use and transfer and is the culmination of years of work” – page 20
  4. “Drone exports are governed, as are all U.S. defense exports, by a variety of laws, regulations, and policies including the Arms Export Control Act, the Foreign Assistance Act, the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, the Export Administration Regulations (for commercial drones), and the Conventional Arms Transfer Policy” – page 20
  5. “Much of the policy guidance governing drone exports is clarified in Presidential Policy Directive 27 (PPD-27)” – page 21
  6. “PPD-27 outlines the U.S. rationale for arms transfers, saying that U.S. policy ‘supports transfers that meet legitimate security requirements of our allies and partners in support of our national security and foreign policy interests. At the same time, the policy promotes restraint—both by the United States and other suppliers—in transfers of weapons systems that may be destabilizing or dangerous to international peace and security’” – page 21
  7. “Each potential transfer is reviewed on a case-by-case basis, and one criterion does not outweigh another” – page 21
  8. “The new policy on drone transfers does not develop any new legislation or create new bureaucratic institutions, but builds on existing legal frameworks and better clarifies how the decision-making process is implemented.” – page 22
  9. “Specifically, the policy includes “potential requirements” that the United States can impose on its drone exports. Not all recipients will be subject to all of the requirements, but these additional conditions provide the United States with an extra level of oversight over U.S. drone transfers and confirm a recipient government’s commitment to U.S. rules and procedures governing drone use” – page 22
  10. “One of the most notable and surprising aspects of the policy is that it contains four “principles for proper use” that recipients must adopt before any drone sales are authorized” – page 22
  11. “In short, it is not exactly easier to get a military drone from the United States now that the policy has been announced. Instead, there is now a more public and bureaucratically clear framework by which export decisions can be made.” – page 24
  12. “Overall, the new policy on drone exports represents an important step forward even if it is only a limited first step. There is more work to be done, particularly in developing international standards as more countries acquire and use this technology”- page 25
  13. “The new policy demonstrates an interest in restraining drone technology” – page 25

Nonproliferation, Export Control, Dual Use, Military