Trade controls and non-proliferation: compliance costs, drivers and challenges

The private sector clearly has an increasingly important and well-defined role to play in slowing the flow of technology and preventing the provision of enabling services to states pursuing Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) and destabilising military capabilities. Exporters of proliferation-sensitive technology are frequently targeted by Iran and other countries. These countries are highly dependent on technology from the international market place to sustain their WMD and military programmes. Compliance with export controls only goes someway to ensuring that proliferation is prevented; a form of “over-compliance” is required to ensure that goods are not transferred to programmes of concern. This paper uses a significant quantity of primary data to consider the costs of compliance and over-compliance, the drivers for such processes, and the relationship between the national authority and firms and how this could be improved.