Online event
Additive manufacturing (AM), often referred to as 3D printing, has been an important topic on the agenda of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), the multilateral export control regime focused on missiles and other uncrewed delivery systems. AM has become an attractive technology for the aerospace sector due to its ability to produce a wide range of complex items, including intricate missile engine components with internal cooling channels. At the same time, AM poses proliferation risks because it could help enable states and non-state actors to circumvent states’ export controls and produce items with new performance characteristics for missile programmes.
This webinar brings together a distinguished panel of technical and policy experts to discuss the challenges AM poses to export controls, and how they can be addressed through national and multilateral export control instruments such as the MTCR. The panel will explore what the MTCR does to address the proliferation challenge AM poses in the area of missiles, why a diverse set of stakeholders contributes to this proliferation risk, and how strengthened outreach to industry, research and AM service providers may be part of the solution to reducing these risks.
The webinar is the first in a series within a larger project conducted by SIPRI on ‘Quo Vadis MTCR: The Missile Technology Control Regime at a Crossroads’, with generous support from the German Federal Foreign Office and the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs.
Welcoming remarks
Dr Sibylle Bauer, Director of Studies, Armament and Disarmament, SIPRI; Chair, European Union Non-Proliferation and Disarmament Consortium.
Nicolas Plattner, Head of the Arms Control, Disarmament and Non-Proliferation Section; Deputy Head, International Security Division, Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs.
Moderator
Kolja Brockmann, Researcher, Dual-use and Arms Trade Control Programme, SIPRI; Project lead, ‘Quo Vadis MTCR: The Missile Technology Control Regime at a Crossroads’.
Speakers
Andrew Horton (personal capacity), Chair, Technical Experts Meeting, MTCR; Government Senior Advisor on Export Control Technical Policy, British Government.
Robert A. Shaw, Program Director, Export Control and Nonproliferation Program, James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Middlebury Institute of International Studies.
Dr Andrea Viski, Director, Strategic Trade Research Institute; Editor-in-Chief, Strategic Trade Review; Adjunct Professor, Schar School of Policy and Government, George Mason University.
Watch a recording of the webinar here.