Three export controls and trade experts submitted a 40-page paper this month to help guide the work of the U.S.-EU Trade and Technology Council’s export control working group (see 2111290014). The paper -- submitted by the Center for a New American Security's Emily Kilcrease and Akin Gump lawyers Kevin Wolf and Jasper Helder -- includes a broad outline of the purpose of export controls and the U.S. and European Union legal authorities available to implement them. It also describes steps the U.S. and the EU would need to take to implement new, coordinated controls and a set of questions to consider while developing the controls, including whether the U.S. and the EU will push for better alignment across license exceptions, encryption controls, cyber-surveillance controls and enforcement.
The Commerce Department should publish a list of controlled emerging and foundational technologies 90 days after the Senate confirmation of its Bureau of Industry and Security leader, China Tech Threat's Future of BIS said. Strand Consult operates China Tech Threat, which advocates for stronger export controls on China. Despite congressional pressure (see 2111170064), BIS has repeatedly said it doesn’t plan to publish an exhaustive list of controlled emerging and foundational technologies but rather will issue controls on a continuous basis. A BIS spokesperson didn’t comment.
The U.S. is working with Japan to build a multilateral forum to control exports of advanced technologies, which would be specifically aimed at limiting shipments to China’s military, The Japan News said Jan. 10. The forum would also include Europe and other like-minded countries and could restrict sales of semiconductor manufacturing equipment, quantum cryptography, artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies, the report said. The two sides are “currently specifying the fields to be subject to regulation” and hope to “establish a new framework for a small number of countries with advanced technology.” The White House didn’t comment.
In their first official statements at the Bureau of Industry and Security, the agency’s two newest export control officials singled out China and Russia and said they plan to prioritize enforcement work involving human rights.
China’s Ministry of Commerce recently launched a website dedicated to information about its newly established export control regime, according to an unofficial translation. It features updates about the regulations, compliance training materials, a landing page to check whether a dual-use item is covered by the controls and various guidance documents, including a section on licensing. The website was released alongside China’s new export control white paper, which details how the country has sought to increase export enforcement, coordinate restrictions with allies and improve industry compliance (see 2112290036).
The Wassenaar Arrangement last week published export control changes agreed to by member states during the 2021 plenary. The changes include new controls for “computer-assisted-design software tools for high-end components” and “new classes of metallic and organic substrates used in highly sophisticated applications,” the plenary chair said in a Dec. 23 statement. The changes also include some “relaxed” controls, including loosened restrictions on “fluorinated silicon fluids, metal working parameters for commercial applications, the performance level of High-Performance Computers and multi-mode lasers and radars used in automotive anti-collision applications.”
The Bureau of Industry and Security is still reviewing export controls on facial recognition software, surveillance-related products and other goods controlled for crime-control reasons after requesting feedback on the potential restrictions in July 2020, said Hillary Hess, BIS’s regulatory policy director. Although no new restrictions have been announced, Hess said new controls for items described in the rule, including crime-control goods that may be used for human rights abuses, are still being considered. “We have been looking at that,” Hess said during a Dec. 14 Regulations and Procedures Technical Advisory Committee meeting. “It’s definitely on our plate.” In the 2020 rule, BIS solicited feedback on possibly imposing new licensing requirements for biometric systems for surveillance, non-lethal visual disruption lasers, long-range acoustic devices and other surveillance-related technologies and goods (see 2007160021). In comments, several technology companies warned BIS against imposing overly broad, unilateral export restrictions that could hurt U.S. competitiveness, while a human rights advocacy group and a U.S. lawmaker called for new export restrictions and suggested existing controls should be strengthened (see 2010090044).
The White House announced a new multilateral export control initiative this week to curb the proliferation of dual-use technologies used for human rights abuses (see 2112020073). Under the effort, which the White House called the Export Controls and Human Rights Initiative, the U.S. will work with “like-minded partners” to determine how export controls can better “monitor” and “restrict” sensitive technologies. The effort will help “reduce the potential for countries to abuse new technologies, including surveillance technologies,” President Joe Biden said Dec. 9 at the U.S.’s virtual Summit for Democracy (see 2112070050). Biden said countries attending the summit will convene again next year to show they followed through on their various commitments, including the export control effort.
The Biden administration plans to work closer with trading partners to tighten export controls around surveillance tools and other technologies used by authoritarian governments for human rights abuses, according to a Dec. 2 report in The Wall Street Journal. The U.S. hopes to work with a number of countries to establish a “code of conduct” on export licensing policies for surveillance goods, administration officials said this week, and will encourage information sharing on sensitive technologies that are used against political dissidents, human rights activists and journalists.
The Commerce and State departments completed interagency reviews of final rules that would revise export controls for goods destined to Cambodia. Commerce’s rule would revise certain restrictions for Cambodia under the Export Administration Regulations, while the State Department would add Cambodia to its list of proscribed countries in the International Traffic in Arms Regulations. Both agencies sent their respective rules for interagency review Nov. 16 (see 2111170014) and completed them Dec. 1.