The Regulation of Arms and Dual-use Exports: Germany, Sweden and the UK

This study analyses the reasons for and the broad implications of the post-cold war reforms of arms and dual-use export controls in three members of the European Union. It conceptualizes the arms export policy process as a policy system, involving the interaction of three basic elements: the policy environment, policy stakeholders and public policies.

Three national case studies explore the major problems and paradoxes of practical regulatory activity in Germany, Sweden and the United Kingdom. The differences in their approaches—including variations in the export control criteria, controlled goods, decision-making bodies, licensing decisions and enforcement procedures—are rooted in each state's unique historical normative framework.

Evidence is also presented of policy convergence within the EU as a whole. While COCOM was the main instrument of convergence during the cold war, the most significant instrument of convergence in the 1990s was EU integration.

The main conclusions are that the process of European integration in the 1990s led to a significant but incomplete convergence of the three states' arms and dual-use export controls; convergence has gone further for dual-use technologies than for military goods; convergence accelerated during the late 1990s as a result of the introduction of the EU Code of Conduct on Arms Exports and common measures to combat illicit trafficking in small arms; convergence is more advanced for policy-making structures than for policy-execution structures; and further convergence can be expected in the next decade.