By Brad Lehigh, GTM Governance, Canada
The Wassenaar Arrangement (WA) is made up of 41 countries committed to promoting responsibility and transparency in global arms trade and to preventing the destabilizing accumulations of arms. Each year, in December, WA signatories meet to discuss necessary revisions to the Wassenaar Arrangement of Dual-Use Goods and Technologies list. The Wassenaar List is used by member countries as a basis for implementing controls on dual-use goods and technologies.
In theory, because all the member states have agreed to a common language in regard to their respective Control Lists for Dual-Use Goods, there should be harmonization across Wassenaar nations as to what is “controlled” and what is not. As each Wassenaar nation must integrate the list into their own regulations, the timing can vary. And with some WA countries updating their regulations sooner than others, the result is that country lists do not align with each other.
In the Q4 Global Perspectives Newsletter, we wrote about how the United States had adopted the 2014 Wassenaar Control List on May 21st, 2015.[1] While the United States usually implements their list sooner than Canada, it seems this time Canada is taking an unusually long period of time to implement the list themselves. With the United States now having different and in many cases, more relaxed, export controls than Canada, there is an administrative burden for Canadian exporters who have to apply for export permits (licenses) for products that would not require a license to export from the United States.
For example, Information Security products which use encryption for Operations, Maintenance, and Administration (OAM) purposes only, do not require a license to export from the United States, whereas a permit is required for export from Canada.
Canada’s Export Controls Division has advised exporters applying for an export permit to indicate whether a product is controlled under the new Wassenaar Control List. If it is not, they will expedite and issue a permit sooner than for a more heavily-controlled product. While this is a welcome and helpful gesture, the delay can only be seen as a trade barrier for Canadian exporters.
The 2015 change in Canada’s Federal Government, and subsequent revamp of many departmental agencies –– one of which saw the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade, and Development (DFATD) restructured and renamed Global Affairs Canada (GAC) –– could partially be the cause of the delay in the implementation of the Wassenaar Arrangement’s Control Lists. Canada should still seek to ensure these lists are introduced as soon as possible, and end delays caused by not issuing the changes in a timely manner.