On February 26, 2025, the Department for Business and Trade's Export Control Joint Unit ("ECJU") issued two new notices to exporters, which address the removal of Rwanda as a permissible destination under four Open General Export Licences ("OGELs") relating to military goods and guidance as to how the ECJU assesses export licence applications involving Common High Priority List ("CHPL") items included on the UK's strategic export controls list. Affected businesses should familiarise themselves with the new guidance and assess the impact of these changes on their business activities where necessary.
New Restrictions on Military Exports to Rwanda
The ECJU's NTE 2025/04 announced the removal of Rwanda as a permitted destination under the following four OGELS on February 26, 2025, with immediate effect: (i) Military Goods: For Demonstration; (ii) Export for Repair/Replacement Under Warranty: Military Goods; (iii) PCBs and Components for Military Goods; and (iv) Software and Source Code for Military Goods. Each of the affected OGELs covers a differing range of military items included on the UK Military List.
This move follows indications by Foreign Secretary Lammy at the G20 Foreign Minister Meeting in South Africa and Ambassador Kariuki, the UK Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN, last week that the UK government was discussing possible action with the UK's international partners in response to the Rwandan Defence Force's operations in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo ("DRC"). Foreign Secretary Lammy described those operations as "a blatant breach of the UN Charter that risks escalating into a regional conflict." This UK action follows the announcement of sanctions on a number of individuals and entities in response to the situation in the DRC by the US on February 20, 2025.
New Guidance on Export Licensing for CHPL Items
The ECJU's NTE 2025/03 announced an update to the guidance for UK exporters on countering Russian sanctions evasion and circumvention originally published by the Office of Trade Sanctions Implementation ("OTSI") on January 7, 2025. The updated guidance provides additional information on the level of risk the UK government is willing to accept when assessing export licence applications for CHPL items subject to UK export controls in circumstances where there is a lack of certainty regarding the end-use or end user of the item or when the UK government assesses a risk of the item's diversion to Russia.
The updated guidance includes a new section on export controls and CHPL, which reiterates that export controls licence applications for CHPL items are assessed on a case-by-case basis against the UK's strategic export licensing criteria, which provide a robust risk assessment framework that requires the ECJU to carefully consider the impact of providing equipment and its capabilities.
The updated guidance makes clear that the UK government (acting through the ECJU) will not issue an export licence when doing so would be inconsistent with the strategic export licensing criteria. This includes, among other things, Criterion Seven (i.e., the existence of a risk that the items will be diverted to an undesirable end-user or for an undesirable end-use). In assessing Criterion Seven risk, the strategic export licensing criteria make clear that the UK government will consider the:
- legitimate defence and domestic security interests of the recipient country, including any involvement in United Nations or other humanitarian or peace-keeping activity;
- technical capability of the recipient country to use the items;
- capability of the recipient country to exert effective export controls;
- risk of re-export to undesirable destinations;
- risk of diversion to terrorist organisations, individual terrorists or to transnational organised crime;
- risk of reverse engineering or unintended technology transfer; and
- risk of an undesirable end-use either by the stated end-user or another party.
The updated guidance indicates that the UK government will consider, in particular, the risk of re-export of items to undesirable destinations when assessing the risk of diversion of export controlled items as part of the determination of export licence applications for CHPL items. An area of particular focus will be the capability of the recipient country to exert effective export controls on CHPL items exported from the UK, with the ECJU being minded to refuse export licence applications with uncertain end-use or end-user such as items for stock where a risk of diversion to Russia is identified. Affected businesses should assess the impact of this policy clarification on their export licensing activities.
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