The U.S. State Department on Monday marked the 30th anniversary of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), calling it “an outstanding example of multilateral nonproliferation cooperation.”
The Group of Seven nations – the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, and Japan – on April 16, 1987, announced the establishment of the MTCR, meant to restrict the export of missiles and associated technologies that can deliver weapons of mass destruction – specifically those missiles that can carry at least 500 kilograms to a range of 300 kilometers or more.
The MTCR’s membership has grown to 35 states, including South Korea, Russia, Turkey, Austria, and Ukraine. India is the newest member, as of last year. Other countries such as Israel have implemented export controls that adhere to MTCR standards without themselves becoming member states.
Partner countries are responsible for maintaining national export controls for nuclear-capable ballistic and cruise missiles, as well as unmanned aerial systems and related technology. The partnership features no enforcement mechanism, instead leaving compliance to each member state. The United States, for example, employs sanctions against entities that defy these export controls, including prohibitions against doing business with the U.S. government.
“The export controls of related items, information sharing, and patterns of cooperation that have been cultivated over the past 30 years have significantly reduced the availability to proliferators of the equipment, technology, and knowledge needed to develop, produce, and acquire WMD missile delivery systems, without hindering legitimate trade,” MTCR member states said in a joint statement released last week to celebrate the 30th anniversary. Their statement also encouraged nonmember states to unilaterally adhere to the group’s standards.
The Arms Control Association has noted that the MTCR played a role in restricting missile programs worldwide, including in the Middle East, South America, and Eastern Europe. “Argentina, Egypt, and Iraq abandoned their joint Condor II ballistic missile program,” it said in a fact sheet published last August. “Brazil, South Africa, South Korea, and Taiwan also shelved or eliminated missile or space launch vehicle programs. Some Eastern European countries, such as Poland and the Czech Republic, destroyed their ballistic missiles, in part, to better their chances of joining MTCR.”
