Although the text of the Defense Trade Cooperation Treaty signed last week by Bush and Blair has not yet been released to the public, the Society of British Aerospace Companies has published a summary of key points of the treaty. The summary answers some of the preliminary questions that were raised by conflicting press accounts of the treaty that we previously reported here.

Of key interest are what items will be subject to the treaty. Apparently the answer to that is almost everything on the USML. According to the SABC summary:

All USML items, with a small number of exceptions for highly-sensitive technologies that will be agreed between the UK and US, will be included in the coverage of the treaty. Subject to final agreement, the exceptions are likely to relate to low-observable technology and countermeasures, “anti-tamper” technology and communication security technology.

Additionally, dual-use items on the U.S. Commerce Control List will not be subject to the treaty, whereas “dual use” items on the U.K. Strategic Export Control List would be subject to the treaty. The reason for the different treatment of U.S. and U.K. dual use items is not clear and is not explained in the summary.

The SBAC summary also provides some interesting details on the export of technical data. The treatment of technical data in the treaty will be the subject of a separate post.

Credit is due to Jim Bartlett at Northrop Grumman for finding the SBAC summary. When a text of the treaty is made available, we will post it here.

UPDATE: SBAC removed the key points summary of the treaty from its website. We have fixed the link above to point to our archive of the key points document. You can also see that document by clicking here.

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