The Peddling Peril Index: A Ranking Of Strategic Trade Control Systems

The Peddling Peril Index (PPI) for 2021/2022 is the latest edition of the Institute’s biennial comprehensive ranking of national strategic trade controls (STC). It quantitatively ranks 200 countries, territories, and entities according to their capabilities and demonstrated success in implementing export, import, transit, and transshipment controls of strategic goods and technologies. To arrive at its ranking, the PPI evaluates a broad set of about 100 indicators that build on an extensive survey of national legislation, enforcement, ability to monitor and detect illicit trade, and ability to prevent proliferation financing. The PPI also assesses STC implementation among groups of countries with similar supply potential, and thematically. While other systems exist to measure threat, no other public methodology exists to evaluate national strategic trade control systems on a regular basis and identify global trends as well as specific gaps, facilitating efforts to improve strategic trade controls. The PPI also provides a basis for countries to improve their efforts. It is useful to governments in evaluating their own country prioritization and impact assessments. The 2021/2022 edition shows an overall positive trend towards improved STC worldwide, when compared to previous PPI editions. At the same time, all countries have room for improvement, and proliferation financing and enforcement are two areas where improvement is needed globally. Additionally, more than seventeen years after the passing of United Nation Security Council Resolution 1540 (2004), which mandated the development and implementation of strategic trade controls, more than half of all countries are still lacking comprehensive export control legislation incorporating relevant control lists of dual-use items and technology. The 2021/2022 PPI shows that implementation of strategic trade controls remains bimodal, well-embraced by countries in the Northern and Western Hemispheres, but with the bulk of countries lagging behind. A silver lining in the 2021/2022 PPI is that important progress has been made in a few regions where STC has been largely absent until recently.