Wassenaar Arrangement

Why is in news? India to assume chairmanship of Wassenaar Arrangement for one year

India will assume the chairmanship of the plenary of the Wassenaar Arrangement on Jan 1, 2023 for one year.

The 42-member Wassenaar Arrangement is a voluntary export control regime that monitors transfers of conventional weapons and dual-use goods.

At the 26th annual plenary of the Wassenaar Arrangement held in Vienna during November 30-December 1, Ireland’s ambassador handed over the chairmanship to India’s ambassador Jaideep Mazumdar, who is the permanent representative to the UN and international organisations in Vienna.

India joined the Wassenaar Arrangement in December 2017 as its 42nd participating state.

The Wassenaar Arrangement is a multilateral export control regime that works to promote transparency and greater responsibility in transfers of conventional arms and dual-use goods and technologies through regular exchanges of information among its members in 1996.

The regime is aimed at tracking such transfers and preventing “destabilising accumulations” of conventional arms and dual-use goods.

Participating states seek, through their national policies, to ensure that transfers of these items do not contribute to the development or enhancement of military capabilities which undermine these goals, and are not diverted to support such capabilities.

It is the successor to the Cold War-era Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls (COCOM), and was established on 12 July 1996, in Wassenaar, the Netherlands, which is near The Hague.

The Wassenaar Arrangement is considerably less strict than COCOM, focusing primarily on the transparency of national export control regimes and not granting veto power to individual members over organizational decisions.

A Secretariat for administering the agreement is located in Vienna, Austria. Like COCOM, however, it is not a treaty, and therefore is not legally binding.

Every six months member countries exchange information on deliveries of conventional arms to non-Wassenaar members that fall under eight broad weapons categories: battle tanks, armoured fighting vehicles (AFVs), large-caliber artillery, military aircraft, military helicopters, warships, missiles or missile systems, and small arms and light weapons.

As the incoming chair of the body, India remains ready and committed to work in close cooperation with other members to further the Wassenaar Arrangement goal of contributing to regional and international security and stability.

Membership of the Wassenaar Arrangement has also bolstered India’s efforts to gain access to sensitive goods and technologies from leading players in the West.