Developments in Unilateral U.S. Dual-Use Export Controls

AW-Prax has published the article “Developments in Unilateral U.S. Dual-Use Export Controls” written by international trade partner Kevin Wolf. The article discusses recent developments in U.S. dual-use export controls and how they may affect plurilateral controls to address more contemporary concerns of common interest.

At the start, Wolf discusses the inefficiencies of the traditional multilateral export controls system. While an effective tool to address issues involving weapons of mass destruction and other military items, Wolf says it is not “well adapted to addressing contemporary issues involving a range of commercial information and communications technologies for several reasons.” Wolf notes that those reasons led to the Trump administration’s adoption and expansion of a “series of unilateral, extraterritorial export controls involving China and other countries of concern.”

In conclusion, Wolf suggests that a “small group of like-minded allies that are producer nations of the key technologies at issue” discuss how plurilateral export controls could better address more contemporary issues, such as “human rights abuses and China’s military-civil fusion policies.”