Memorandum from the Secretary of State
for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform
AMENDMENT TO
THE MANAGING
THE RISKS
GUIDANCE FOR
ASSESSING EXPORT
LICENCE APPLICATION
As you will be aware, we currently assess Export
Licence Applications (ELAs) for normally non-controlled goods
under the Managing the Risks Guidance which was drawn up in 2002.
Under the guidance, Departments involved in
the export licensing process consider a range of questions including
whether the end-use country has a WMD programme of concern; whether
the goods are of high, medium or low utility in relation to such
a programme; whether the goods are relevant to the identified
procurement requirements of such a programme; whether the stated
end-use is credible; and whether the end-user, exporter, or third
party are known to be of concern.
The overall level of risk in relation to a case
is then assessed in the round bearing in mind these and other
relevant factors—including any specific links.
I am writing to you now to inform you that we
have amended this procedure and the Managing the Risks Guidance
to take account of the varying levels of overall concern that
HMG has about different foreign WMD programmes. Whilst all applications
will continue to be assessed on a case-by-case basis, the intention
is to introduce a more nuanced approach to managing risk so that,
for countries with programmes we are less concerned about, export
licences are denied only where we have substantive grounds for
doing so, rather than to avoid any possible risk of diversion
to a military programme. This approach will involve:
(i) ranking foreign WMD programmes as being
of "high", "medium" or "low" concern
to HMG, on the basis of advice from the Counter Proliferation
Committee;
(ii) utilising that ranking in the consideration
of cases where there are no substantive grounds for believing
that a dual-use item is in fact destined for a WMD programme.
For programmes of "high" concern, there will be a presumption
that application for uncontrolled dual use goods would be denied
if the goods have a utility in the particular programme, as the
existence of the programme itself will be held to present an unacceptable
risk of diversion, even in the absence of any substantive grounds
for believing that diversion will take place;
iii) for those programmes deemed to be of
"low concern", and where there are no substantive grounds
for believing that a dual-use export is destined for a WMD programme,
creating a presumption in favour of approving licences for uncontrolled
dual use goods which are potentially relevant to the programmes
of low concern.
The key purpose of this amendment is that it
will allow us to distinguish between WMD programmes of high concern,
such as Iran, and those where our concerns are less pronounced.
The amended guidance is compatible with our NPT obligations since
there will still be no exports where we know or ought to have
known that they were destined for a nuclear weapons programme.
I attach an amended version of the Managing
the Risks Guidance. [not published]
August 2007
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