Technical Experts Working Group Meeting: An Exchange of Experiences and Best Practices in Nuclear Export Control

Effective export controls are an essential part of the international nonproliferation effort. To strengthen export control practices worldwide, the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Office of Export Control Policy and Cooperation partners with countries through its International Nonproliferation Export Control Program (INECP). The program emphasizes three necessary elements to a successful export control system: 1) licensing procedures and practices, 2) industry awareness and compliance, and 2) export control enforcement. A key feature of the INECP approach is the integration of technical expertise into each of these elements based on the principle that, as is the case in the United States, technical experts are indispensable to an effective system for nuclear export control. The participation of subject matter experts ensures appropriate assessment of proliferation risks associated with proposed transfers, effective outreach to key industries and nuclear institutes, and in-depth training of the enforcement community (Customs inspectors, border guards, etc). INECP has worked with export control technical experts since 1995 in Russia, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan and more recently in the Caucasus.1 On June 24-26, 2003, INECP sponsored a Technical Experts Working Group (TEWG) meeting, in Alushta, Ukraine to bring together experts from these partner countries. This meeting was the fourth in a series of regular meetings of export control specialists. Twenty-five export control technical and government specialists from Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, the Russian Federation and Ukraine together with eighteen U.S. specialists attended the meeting. The meeting provided a forum for technical experts and government licensing and enforcement officials involved in nuclear export control to discuss and compare their experiences supporting nuclear export licensing and enforcement processes, raise issues of common interest, offer ideas for improvements, and, in general, learn from each other. This paper will describe the meeting and the challenges identified by the participants for export control in the future.