US Officially Eases Defense Export Licensing Policy for Cambodia
The State Department will officially remove its arms embargo against Cambodia under the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, effective Nov. 7, the agency said in a Federal Register notice released this week.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Export Compliance Daily combines U.S. export control news, foreign border import regulation and policy developments into a single daily information service that reliably informs its trade professional readers about important current issues affecting their operations.
The notice was published just over a week after the State Department previewed plans to lift the embargo, citing the country's "diligent pursuit of peace and security" (see 2510270017). For the past week, the State Department's Directorate of Defense Trade Controls has been reviewing license applications on a case-by-case basis for all Cambodia-related transactions and activities controlled under the ITAR, and the final rule will officially reflect those changes in the ITAR.
The rule will specifically remove Cambodia from the ITAR's list of countries subject to a license review policy of denial for certain exports of controlled defense articles and services, and it will also remove ITAR language that outlined the agency's restrictive review policy for Cambodia. Beginning Nov. 7, license applications for transfers of defense articles and defense services to Cambodia will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis, DDTC said, and exemptions that were previously unavailable for transfers to countries listed in ITAR 126.1 -- which describes destinations that face strict prohibitions for controlled defense exports -- will be available for Cambodia, "subject to the relevant criteria in the exemption being satisfied."