Commerce Control List Essay ⋆ Business Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

The Commerce Control List (CCL) is a list maintained by the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), an agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce. Similar lists are maintained by other countries. The Bureau of Industry and Security was originally called the Bureau of Export Administration, and references to the BXA are still seen in older texts. The CCL is used to ensure compliance with multinational export restrictions, especially on dangerous goods like munitions or dual-use technologies like computers or propulsion systems.

The body of regulations affecting exports is called the Export Administration Regulations (EAR), for which the BIS is responsible for enforcing and of which the CCL is a subset. Goods are regulated not only according to type, but according to country. Foreign policy severely limits exports to Cuba, Syria, Sudan, and Iran, while nearly anything that is legal to export can be exported to England or Canada. Exports include not only items originating in the United States and sold to foreign customers, but items being returned to their country of origin, items shipped to other countries but not sold, and items passing through the United States from their point of origin to some other final destination.

Certain other agencies outside the Department of Commerce have input into the EAR, whether it is to interpret their own regulations in light of their effect on exports, or to offer technical services in order to assist the BIS in implementing the EAR. The National Security Agency, for instance, is the technical review authority for cryptography and similar technologies. The Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agricultural Service advises on the exports of food and farm goods. The State Department advises on munitions exports. The Food and Drug Administration is involved with the export of American pharmaceuticals, though usually the more important authority in such cases is the analogous agency in the country of destination.

Goods that can be exported are issued a permit, based on the item’s Export Control Classification Number (ECCN). The ECCN is an alphanumeric designation identifying the level of export control. There are hundreds of ECCNs, and because the system is organized according to an item’s potential for misuse more than its intended use, navigating the list is time-consuming even for those accustomed to it.

The CCL was revised around the turn of the century, following the Wassenaar Agreement. Established in the Dutch town of Wassenaar in 1996, the Wassenaar Agreement is the successor to the Cold War–era Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls, and is a multilateral export control regime governing export controls on certain technologies. Forty nations are compliant with the Wassenaar Agreement: Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The agreement governs the export of 22 categories of munitions and 10 categories of “dual-use” technologies (those that have both peaceful and military applications): advanced materials, materials processing, electronics, computers, telecommunications, information security (such as cryptography), sensors, navigation and avionics, marine technology, and aerospace technology.

In addition to the 10 dual-use categories of the Wassenaar Agreement, the CCL (which combines telecommunications and information security into category five) includes “category zero,” used for all nuclear technology.

Bibliography:

UC-Irvine Office of Research, “Export Control Index: Commerce Control List,” www.research.uci.edu/ ora/exportcontrol (cited March 2009);
Wassenaar Arrangement, www.wassenaar.org (cited March 2009).

This example Commerce Control List Essay is published for educational and informational purposes only. If you need a custom essay or research paper on this topic please use our writing services. EssayEmpire.com offers reliable custom essay writing services that can help you to receive high grades and impress your professors with the quality of each essay or research paper you hand in.