By: Brooke Driver
In accordance with the US-Australia Defense Trade Cooperation Treaty, the Department of State has submitted a final revision of ITAR, 22 CFR Parts 120 and 126 to create a licensing exemption for export to the country of Australia Specifically, the rule amends ITAR §120.1 to provide updated authorities and editorial changes. ITAR §120.33 will also be added to provide a definition of the treaty itself, while ITAR §120.35 will define the Implementing Arrangement pursuant to the Treaty. ITAR §126.16 will actually describe the exemption and provide guidance on its use. Supplement No. 1 to part 126 will be amended to identify defense articles that may not be exported and defense services are not subject to the exemption. The supplement will also remove the phrase, “defense articles and services related to” from the row regarding USML Category I articles, and shift the USML citation for armored plates from USML Category XIII(c) to XIII(e).
The Department of State’s notice of the rule also includes a long list of comments and criticisms it received regarding the new rule and the State’s response to those suggestions. This section can basically be summarized, “people complained about this, this and this…and we didn’t listen.” Although the Department did incorporate certain small recommended changes, mainly those that helped clarified meaning, it did not simplify the requirements and procedure for the exemption, so you will be disappointed if you expect an easy-peasy solution to your Australian exporting issues. In fact, the rule is fairly similar to the ITAR UK exemption in its complexity, discussed in this article:
http://learnexportcompliance.bluekeyblogs.com/tag/itar-exemption-for-uk/
This rule will not come into effect until the treaty itself enters into force, and although June 6, 2013 is the current proposed effective date, we all know dates like these are tentative at best when the government is involved. We will post a more detailed analysis when the rule becomes effective.