FACT SHEET:U.S. EXPORT CONTROL LAWS

[moe@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Dear BurmaNetters ,Maykha Readers and Friends,
                                                                            
 I beleive the following file will be of use to you in your research
works,studies ,documentation and campaigns regarding U.S.Export laws.So
absorb what's of use and eliminate what's not.

Regards,

Julien Moe

                                                                                
FILE ID:97091704.ECO

DATE:09/17/97

TITLE:17-09-97  FACT SHEET: U.S. EXPORT CONTROL LAWS


TEXT:

(Controls employed continuously since 1940)  (1360)


Washington -- The United States has employed export control laws

continuously since 1940. The first controls aimed to avoid scarcity of

critical commodities during World War II. Cold War-era controls aimed

mostly at preventing diversion of advanced technology to the Soviet

bloc and China. Later, controls increasingly aimed at changing

behavior of foreign countries.


Following is a list of U.S. export-control laws. The number in

parentheses is the date on which the law went into effect.


(This article appears also in USIA's September 17 electronic journal

Economic Perspectives. The complete journal can be found on the USIA

web site at http://www.usia.gov/journals/journals.htm.):



EXPORT ADMINISTRATION ACT OF 1979 (EAA) (September 29, 1979)


The Export Administration Act (EAA) authorizes the president to

control exports of U.S. goods and technology to all foreign

destinations, as necessary for the purpose of national security,

foreign policy, and short supply.


The Commerce Department administers the Export Administration

Regulations (EAR), which implement the EAA, even though the EAA

expired in August 1994. President Clinton has kept the EAA export

controls in force since then by executive order under the

International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). Although this use

of emergency powers has faced legal challenge from time to time, no

challenge has succeeded yet.


Regulated by the Commerce Department's Bureau of Export Administration

(BXA) are exports of "dual-use" advanced technology and materials

having both military and civilian applications.


Congress has failed five times over seven years to reform the Cold

War-era EAA because of persistent differences between defense and

commercial interests. Now Congress will tackle EAA once more, starting

with an October hearing in a House subcommittee.


Reflecting their Cold War origin, Commerce's export controls make

distinctions between those imposed for national security and those for

foreign policy reasons.


The objective of national security controls was to maintain a

qualitative weapons advantage for the United States against the former

Soviet bloc and China. The countries still subject to national

security controls are the former republics of the Soviet Union,

Albania, Bulgaria, China, Cuba, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Mongolia,

North Korea, Romania, and Vietnam.


The objective of the foreign policy controls was to promote change in

behavior by other countries. Most of the controls aim at halting

proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and reducing support for

terrorism.


Two years ago President Clinton submitted a legislative proposal for

EAA reform that would have departed from the distinction between

national security and foreign policy controls. Instead, it would have

made a basic distinction between multilateral and unilateral controls.


By executive order in 1990, President Bush vastly increased the scope

of export controls aimed at halting proliferation of nuclear,

chemical, and biological weapons and missiles. Bush's Enhanced

Proliferation Control Initiative (EPCI) is a catch-all provision

requiring an exporter to apply for a Commerce Department license on

shipment of any goods that he or she knows would be used for

proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, whether or not the items

are controlled otherwise.


The Commerce Department regulations also control exports of

commodities in short supply. The export of crude oil carried on the

Trans-Alaska Pipeline is controlled, as is that of crude oil and

western red cedar harvested from federal or state lands.


INTERNATIONAL EMERGENCY ECONOMIC POWERS ACT (IEEPA) (October 28, 1977)


IEEPA gives the president broad authority in peacetime to regulate a

comprehensive range of financial and commercial transactions with

foreign countries, but only after declaring a national emergency.


Presidents Reagan, Bush, and Clinton have declared national

emergencies to keep EAA controls in force when the EAA lapsed in 1983,

1984, and since mid-1990 except for a few months in 1994.


Following are recent developments in a few current issues on export

controls covered by IEEPA:


Encryption: A bill opposed by the Clinton administration for

de-controlling exports of encryption software has been approved in two

House committees, Judiciary and International Relations. Two other

House committees with partial jurisdiction, National Security and

Intelligence, approved amendments to the bill that essentially

overturn its original intent, including some provisions that would

actually increase domestic and export controls on encryption. A fifth

committee, Commerce, has until September 26 to act on the bill. After

that the House Rules Committee will have to sift through the different

versions of the legislation to fashion a base bill and amendments for

consideration by the full House. Action by the full House in the

current session is considered unlikely.


A rival bill favored by the administration has been approved in the

Senate Commerce Committee. It would relax export controls somewhat but

would require adoption by industry of the administration's key

recovery system giving law enforcement and intelligence agencies some

means, under court order, to unscramble scrambled messages. No bill

has yet been considered by the full House or Senate.


Meanwhile, a judge in a U.S. district court in San Francisco has ruled

that export controls on encryption are unconstitutional. The judge

ruled that the federal government decision barring a University of

Illinois computer science professor from publishing a version of his

encryption software over the Internet infringed his First Amendment

right to freedom of speech. Another U.S. district court, one in

Washington, D.C., had upheld the constitutionality of the same

regulations in 1996. The Justice Department said the export controls

will remain in place until the issue is resolved.


Computers: Although the House passed by 332-88 legislation reimposing

stricter export controls on U.S. supercomputers sales to 50 countries,

including China and Russia, the Senate decisively rejected similar

legislation. Resolution of the opposite approaches could emerge from

the House-Senate conference on the underlying Defense Department

spending bill, which needs to go to President Clinton for signature or

veto by October 1.


Weapons Proliferation: The Commerce Department has published the names

of weapons research institutes in India, Pakistan, Israel, Russia, and

China, listing them as proliferation risks subject to strict U.S.

export controls. India has protested the department's publication of

the list. The department has said it will add more names to its

"entity list."


ARMS EXPORT CONTROL ACT (AECA) (October 22, 1968)


Direct commercial sales of U.S.-origin defense products, components,

technologies, and services are controlled by the International Traffic

in Arms Regulations (ITAR), which are administered by the State

Department to implement the Arms Export Control Act. Those items

requiring export licenses from the State Department's Office of

Defense Trade Controls (DTC) appear in the U.S. Munitions List in the

ITAR. The Defense Department's Defense Technology Security

Administration (DTSA) also reviews many of the applications.


Any item on the Munitions List requires a license for export to all

countries (with a few exceptions for exports to Canada). Under current

regulations, licenses are denied for defense goods and services

exports to Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Cuba, Iran,

Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Serbia-Montenegro, Syria, Tajikistan, and

Vietnam. They are denied also to countries currently subject to U.S.

arms embargoes: Burma, China, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Haiti,

Liberia, Rwanda, Somalia, and Sudan.


ATOMIC ENERGY ACT (August 1, 1946)


The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is responsible for licensing

both exports and imports of nuclear facilities and materials under the

Atomic Energy Act, as amended by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act of

1978 and the Energy Policy Act of 1992. It also has authority to

license exports of nuclear components and other substances or items

that are deemed significant for nuclear explosions.


NRC issues about 100 specific export licenses or license amendments a

year. No specific license is required for reactor equipment exports

destined for use in Canada, Western Europe, Japan, South Korea, or

Taiwan.


Other agencies also have some jurisdiction under the law. The Commerce

Department controls nuclear-related dual-use items; the Energy

Department controls nuclear technology transfers; the State and Energy

departments negotiate agreements for peaceful nuclear cooperation.


SOURCES: U.S. Department of Commerce; U.S. Department of State;

Nuclear Regulatory Commission; U.S. House of Representatives Ways and

Means Committee; Practising Law InstitUTE