Missile Technology Control Regime

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The Missile Technology Control Regime or Missile Technology Control Regime ( English Missile Technology Control Regime , shortly MTCR ) is a voluntary and not legally binding treaty supported international organization. It develops the guidelines with the aim of preventing the proliferation of ballistic missiles for nuclear, biological and chemical weapons as well as cruise missiles and drones, which are to be implemented in national law through the creation of domestic export controls . It was established in 1987 by the G-7 states; in 2005, 34 states belonged to it.

Its objectives are similar to the International Atomic Energy Agency IAEA, founded in 1955 . While the IAEA tries to limit the proliferation of nuclear material, the MTCR tries to prevent the proliferation of long-range launch vehicles. The working method was modeled on the CoCom (a committee created by Western states to coordinate export controls to enforce the strategic east embargo imposed by the USA and its Western allies during the Cold War), as well as the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) and the Australia Group (AG) oriented. The following common characteristics can be identified:

  1. The aim of these export control agreements is the multilateral coordination of export controls of goods that are sensitive to security policy (e.g. weapons of mass destruction (nuclear, biological, toxins or chemical weapons), missile technology, strategic armaments and dual-use goods).
  2. The list of criteria and procedural principles for the design of domestic export control legislation is carried out by consensus of the participating states. These criteria and principles are laid down in guidelines. The individual participants are responsible for their implementation.
  3. The goods and technologies to be subjected to export controls are listed in control lists.
  4. In the relevant specialist literature, it is almost unanimously claimed that there is no underlying international agreement.
  5. Membership in the individual groups consists primarily of industrialized countries, which are the main exporters of the controlled goods. Membership depends on certain criteria set by the participants and the acceptance of a new participant usually requires the consent of the other participants.

For Category I of the guidelines ( Guidelines for Sensitive Missile-Relevant Transfers ) include rockets and cruise missiles with a range greater than 300 kilometers and a payload of more than 500 kg. According to this, they may only be traded in exceptional cases if, for example, they are non-military space missiles. The guidelines exclude the transfer of production equipment. The category II includes goods for human spaceflight. Here, too, the MTCR advises caution, but the restrictions are not as extensive as under Category I.

At the moment only a few countries have intercontinental missiles ( USA , France , Great Britain , Russia , Ukraine , Japan , China , India , Israel and the ESA , but for the peaceful use of space to explore space ). So far, long-range missiles have only been passed on twice. England received the Polaris and Trident II submarine missiles from the USA . In 1988, China sold 50 CSS-2 medium-range missiles with a range of nearly 3,000 km to Saudi Arabia .

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