ABSTRACT
The Wassenaar Arrangement is the successor regime to the Coordinating Committee on Multilateral Export Control (COCOM), which coordinated western restrictions on trade with communist states during the Cold War.2 Named for the Dutch town near The Hague which hosted the negotiations to establish the arrangement, the Wassenaar Arrangement (WA) is primarily a transparency regime, meant to encourage restraint in the export of conventional arms and dual-use goods and technologies (items with both civilian and military applications) through information sharing and consultation among exporting states. Notwithstanding its name, the WA is headquartered not in the Netherlands but in Vienna, where the government of Austria donated space, resources and diplomatic provisions for a small secretariat.
