US Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) has issued a final rule amending various provisions of the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) to account for changes to controls on exports of arms and related materiel to Côte d’Ivoire, Liberia, Sri Lanka and Vietnam. These actions follow the recent termination of the arms embargos of Côte d’Ivoire and Liberia, which were initially imposed through United Nations Security Council Resolutions, and arms embargos of Sri Lanka and Vietnam imposed by the US State Department. Under the final rule, each country is now removed from Country Group D:5 in Supplement No. 1 to part 740 of the EAR, as well as Part 746 of the EAR. These changes mirror the rulemaking in September 2016 by the US State Department’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls (DDTC) removing these countries from the arms embargo provisions at Section 126.1 of the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR).
