Goods Control Act

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The Goods Control Act of Switzerland with full name, the "Federal Law on the Control for Civilian and Military Use Goods and Specific Military Goods (Goods Control Act, GKG)" regulates in Switzerland , the export control of military and dual-use goods, as well as the military equipment that is not the War Material Act (KMG) or the Nuclear Energy Act (KEG). With the GKG, decisions of international agreements and non-binding international control measures (the international export control regimes) are implemented.

Emergence

Since the mid-1980s, international arms control and disarmament efforts in the field of conventional weapons as well as weapons of mass destruction have led to substantial results ... With the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, there were international fears that weapons of mass destruction from the arsenals of the Soviet Army in fall into the hands of terrorists or dictatorial states. The need for protection against proliferation therefore became stronger. Against this background, international agreements were concluded on the one hand to prevent this and, on the other hand, states came together to agree control mechanisms on a non-binding basis under international law.

Switzerland has joined such agreements and mechanisms, which resulted in the need for a legal basis to be able to carry out such export control measures. Analogous to the international discussion, export controls were extended to all armaments and dual-use goods.

The popular initiative launched in 1991 for a ban on the export of war material triggered a discussion that was also part of the history of the GKG.

In February 1995 the Federal Council presented a draft for the GKG and in December 1996 the law was passed by the National Council and the Council of States . The law replaced the ABC ordinance that was valid until the end of 1995.

International agreements and associations

Switzerland has joined the following international agreements / associations on the export control of military equipment:

Federal popular initiative for a ban on the export of war material

The popular initiative was based on a resolution of the party congress of the Social Democratic Party of Switzerland (SPS) on 2/3. Launched March 1991. In a ruling of December 24, 1992, the Federal Chancellery stated that the initiative had formally come about with 108,762 valid signatures.

The core of the ban aimed at by the popular initiative was: The export, transit and brokering of war material and services that are used exclusively for technical purposes, as well as the necessary financing transactions, are prohibited.

In its message on the people's initiative “for a ban on the export of war material” and the revision of the Federal Act on War Material of February 15, 1995, the Federal Council recommended that the people's initiative be rejected and at the same time submitted a draft for the total revision of the Federal Act on War Material. The reasons for the rejection include the following: If accepted, the initiative would have negative consequences for national defense, for key sectors of the export industry as well as for federal armaments companies.

The federal popular initiative to ban the export of war material was rejected on June 8, 1997 with 77.5 percent of the vote.

The failure to revise the law in 2009

Exports by Pilatus Flugzeugwerke AG in Stans had already played a role in the 1995 discussion . After the government of Chad Pilatus used planes against refugee camps in Darfur , on February 20, 2009 the Federal Council was forced to submit a draft for the revision of the GKG to parliament.

The Federal Council wanted to tighten the rejection criteria in the Goods Control Act. He wanted to refuse to export goods if Switzerland's essential interests are at stake. Without the revision of the law, an export permit can only be rejected if the recipient country is on an international embargo list.

In the political discussion, the Greens and the Social Democratic Party support the Federal Council's proposal, while the bourgeois majority declared a revision to be superfluous because the Federal Council already had sufficient powers to stop exports of dual-use goods, although it was referring to the emergency law should be called.

The Council of States (September 10, 2009) and the National Council (March 1, 2010) have decided to reject the Federal Council's proposal, which means that the law has not been revised.

relevance

According to the statistics "Development of war material exports 1983 - 2016", exports of war material in 2016 amounted to 411.9 million Swiss francs, which corresponds to 0.14% of total exports. Record years were 2011 with CHF 872.7 million and 2019 with around CHF 728 million.

Competent authority

Responsible for export controls and export permits is within the Federal Department of Economic Affairs (DEA) , the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) and the Foreign Economic Affairs Directorate.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Federal Act on War Material (War Material Act, KMG) (PDF; 159 kB)
  2. ↑ Nuclear Energy Act (KEG)
  3. ↑ Message of the Federal Council (PDF; 3.3 MB)
  4. ^ Entry in the business database of the Swiss Parliament in 1995
  5. ^ Homepage of the Australian group ( Memento of March 2, 2006 in the Internet Archive )
  6. ↑ The Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC) website ( Memento of the original from April 10, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.opbw.org
  7. ^ Homepage of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons
  8. ↑ Homepage of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
  9. ↑ Homepage of the Missile Technology Control Regime ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.mtcr.info
  10. ↑ Homepage of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (English)
  11. ^ Homepage of the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs
  12. ↑ Homepage of the Wassenaar Agreement ( Memento of the original from May 27, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.wassenaar.org
  13. ↑ Homepage of the Zangger Committee (English) ( Memento of the original from February 1, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.zanggercommittee.org
  14. ↑ Message of the Federal Council (PDF; 3.3 MB)
  15. ↑ Message of the Federal Council (PDF; 3.3 MB)
  16. ^ Homepage of the Swiss Federal Chancellery
  17. ↑ Message from the Federal Council (PDF; 476 kB)
  18. ↑ SECO homepage with statistics "Development of War Material Exports 1983 - 2016" (PDF, 111 kB, February 16, 2017)
  19. ↑ Exports of war material rose by 43 percent in 2019 . ( Memento from March 4, 2020 in the Internet Archive ) In: bielertagblatt.ch , March 3, 2020.