The Wassenaar Arrangement on Export Controls for Conventional Arms and Dual-Use Goods and Technologies, also known simply as the Wassenaar Arrangement, is a multilateral export control regime governing the international transfer of conventional arms and dual-use goods and technologies. It was established on 12 July 1996 in Wassenaar, Netherlands, as the successor to the Cold War–era Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls (CoCom), which restricted certain goods to the Eastern Bloc.
The Wassenaar Arrangement was established to "contribute to regional and international security and stability by promoting transparency and greater responsibility" among participating states, which coordinate their national policies to ensure certain technologies are not transferred or otherwise diverted to countries that undermine these goals. There are 42 participating states, including many former Comecon (Warsaw Pact) countries such as Russia. A secretariat for administering the agreement is based in Vienna, Austria.
The Wassenaar Arrangement is considerably less strict than CoCom, focusing primarily on the transparency of national export control regimes and not granting veto power to individual members over organizational decisions; like CoCom, it is not a treaty and therefore not legally binding. Every six months, member countries voluntarily exchange information on deliveries of conventional arms to non-Wassenaar members that fall under eight broad weapons categories: battle tanks, armoured fighting vehicles, large-calibre artillery, military aircraft, military helicopters, warships, missiles or missile systems, and small arms and light weapons.
Control lists
The outline of the arrangement is set out in a document entitled "Guidelines & Procedures, including the Initial Elements". The list of restricted technologies is broken into two parts, the "List of Dual-Use Goods and Technologies" (also known as the Basic List) and the "Munitions List". The Basic List is composed of ten categories based on increasing levels of sophistication:
Category 1 – Special Materials and Related Equipment
Category 2 – Materials Processing
Category 3 – Electronics
Category 4 – Computers
Category 5 – Part 1 – Telecommunications
Category 5 – Part 2 – Information Security
Category 6 – Sensors and Lasers
Category 7 – Navigation and Avionics
Category 8 – Marine
Category 9 – Aerospace and Propulsion
Basic List has two nested subsections—Sensitive and Very Sensitive. Items of the Very Sensitive List include materials for stealth technology—i.e., equipment that could be used for submarine detection, advanced radar, and jet engine technologies.
Within each of the categories, there are 5 types of controlled item. These are approximately as follows: