Nov
27

BIS Finds Montenegro on Map, Amends Country Chart

Posted by Clif Burns at 5:19 pm on November 27, 2006
Category: BIS

MontenegroBIS released a public notice today revising the country chart to reflect that Montenegro seceded from Serbia and Montenegro. Not surprisingly, the column entries for Montenegro and the column entries for Serbia on the country chart will be identical.

Updating the Country Chart probably shouldn’t be one of the highest priorities over at BIS, but then again Montenegro has been independent of Serbia since June 3, 2006. The State Department got the news and only 10 days later, on June 13, 2006, recognized Montenegro as an independent state.

Of course, we shouldn’t complain since this is, frankly, a relatively rapid response by BIS. Western Sahara is still listed on the Country Chart even though it has been part of Morocco since 1979. And Hong Kong is still hanging on with its own row on the country chart even though it became part of the PRC on July 1, 1997.

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MARK YOUR CALENDARS. I’ll be participating in an Audio Briefing with Mike Turner, Director of BIS’s Office of Export Enforcement, on Wednesday, November 29, at 2:00 pm E.S.T. The briefing was put together by Export Practitioner and Washington Tariff & Trade Letter. A brochure for the briefing, with sign-up and phone-in information, can be downloaded here.

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7 Comments:

  • Western Sahara is an occupied territory. No country officially recognizes Morocco’s occupation and the United Nations considers it a non-self-governing territory. On the other hand, over 50 countries officially recognize the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic as the legitimate government of the Western Sahara. In other words, it is totally correct for BIS to list the Western Sahara on its country chart.

    Comment by Charles Liebling on November 27th, 2006 @ 7:46 pm

  • This reminds me of that one Seinfeld where they were playing Risk on the Subway. NEWMAN!

    Comment by Pinko Punko on November 27th, 2006 @ 10:35 pm

  • I knew that my comment on Western Sahara would provoke a response. And, thanks for responding because I believe that there are valid arguments on both sides of the issue, even though I don’t necessarily agree with the argument that the claims of the SADR to Western Sahara should affect export policy to that region.

    First, my count is that 43 countries recognize SADR, not 50. The United States is not among those countries. I also count 24 countries that recognized SADR that have withdrawn that recognition.

    Second and more importantly, the BIS list is not an exercise in diplomatic subtlety. Rather, it should be a pragmatic list of how to regulate exports of dual use items to particular territories.

    To that extent, if Morocco controls Western Sahara that’s all that needs to be considered in evaluating exports there, and maintaining a separate country chart row for Western Sahara seems pointless. It’s rather like maintaining separate rows for the Gaza Strip and the West Bank even though they have an actual government in place rather than a government-in-exile like the SADR.

    Comment by Clif Burns on November 27th, 2006 @ 11:02 pm

  • And then of course, if de facto control is the primary criterion, what do you do with those places that are “de facto” independent but which nobody recognizes. Take Somaliland for instance. Or for that matter South Ossetia, Abkhazia, and Transdnestr from the ex-Soviet Union. It would seem that a “pragmatic list of how to regulate exports of dual use items” should then include these.

    Comment by Charles Liebling on November 28th, 2006 @ 8:18 am

  • Charles – I agree that the country list should include “de facto” independent areas. That argument seems particularly compelling in those situations where goods can be shipped to those areas without a license because they are still diplomatically a part of another country which doesn’t require licenses for those goods. In that case, BIS doesn’t even get the opportunity to decide whether it is in our national interest to export goods to that region.

    Comment by Clif Burns on November 28th, 2006 @ 8:37 am

  • Under U.S. law, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) and China (or Mainland China) continue to be treated as two separate destinations for export control purposes.

    Comment by Bill Jaynes on November 28th, 2006 @ 4:09 pm

  • Bill, I know that BIS treats Hong Kong and China as two separate countries for export control purposes even after “one country, two systems” went into place. I was questioning whether this made sense. BIS has always defended the policy by saying that Hong Kong export control authorities are cooperative, but I’m not sure that this is enough.

    Comment by Clif Burns on November 28th, 2006 @ 4:46 pm

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