15. Dual-use and arms trade controls

The set of global, multilateral and regional instruments that seek to establish and promote agreed standards for controls on the trade in military and dual-use items remained under significant strain during 2024 because of geopolitical tensions, armed conflicts and rapid advances in key technological areas. States are increasingly acting unilaterally or operating through alternative frameworks when creating new controls on transfers of items or restricting transfers to destinations. However, there were no significant efforts to dismantle the existing instruments, indicating that many states continue to value them.

The Arms Trade Treaty

Ten years after its entry into force, the 2013 Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) has yet to reach some of the goals that many states and non-governmental organizations hoped it would. Several key arms exporters and importers have still not joined the treaty and there are notable gaps in terms of the number of initial reports and annual reports states are submitting. However, the substantive discussions held in 2024 about arms transfers to Israel indicated that the ATT can provide space for in-depth discussions of how states are applying the treaty when assessing arms exports to a particular destination. In addition, the political declaration adopted to mark the 10-year anniversary of the treaty has the potential to initiate an important discussion on the future focus of the ATT.

Number of Arms Trade Treaty states parties submitting annual reports, 2018–23

Multilateral arms embargoes

There were 13 United Nations embargoes and 22 European Union (EU) embargoes in force during 2024. The Global Export Control Coalition, a grouping of 39 states established in 2022, sought to expand and implement its arms embargoes on Belarus and Russia. No new multilateral arms embargoes were imposed. There continue to be major divisions about imposing, main-taining and complying with UN arms embargoes. The United States and several European states opposed the adoption of an arms embargo on Israel called for by most states in the UN General Assembly. There was clear evidence of large volumes of arms transfers to Libya and Yemen in contravention of multilateral embargoes, while Russia openly violated the UN arms embargo on the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) and vetoed the continuation of the work of the UN panel of experts charged with monitoring its implementation. However, support from Russia and China for maintaining the arms embargo on Sudan (Darfur) indicated that there are cases where they see these policy instruments as legitimate and necessary.

Export control regimes

The repercussions of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continued to impact, to varying degrees, the work of the multilateral export control regimes—the Australia Group (on chemical and biological weapons), the Missile Technology Control Regime, the Nuclear Suppliers Group, and the Wassenaar Arrangement on Export Controls for Conventional Arms and Dual-use Goods and Technologies. The third UN General Assembly resolution on ‘inter-national cooperation on peaceful uses’ adopted in 2024 also highlighted many states’ criticism of both the regimes and national export control measures. Despite these challenges, the regimes were still able to make incremental updates to the control lists and to advance technical discussions.

EU controls

During 2024 the EU took steps to strengthen its common legal framework for controls on the export, brokering, transit and trans-shipment of military items and dual-use items. The European Commission proposed a range of measures aimed at creating more harmonized controls under the EU dual-use regulation and the EU foreign direct investment screening regulation, with a view to supporting the 2023 EU Economic Security Strategy and responding to the challenges facing the work of the multilateral export control regimes. A review of the EU common position on arms exports that 
was planned to finish by the end of 2024 continued into 2025.