DFG Project "Arms Export Control in a Multi-Level System" (2022-2027)

DFG project "Arms export controls in a multi-level system"

Arms export control is as topical as it is under-researched. Many states, including the Federal Republic of Germany, are resonding to new foreign policy challenges (Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine, the rise of China, conflicts in the Middle East and the Mediterranean, Brexit and AUKUS, and a weakening of NATO) by increasing defence investment, which is fuelling trade in military equipment. Germany now ranks fourth among the world's arms-exporting countries. This has triggered a surge in the regulation of arms exports at international, European, and national levels in recent years: the Arms Trade Treaty came into force in 2014. The European Commission is attempting to further integrate the arms market by issuing various directives and setting up its own Directorate-General for Defence Industry and Space. In addition, the European Defence Fund and the Structured Cooperation on Defence (PESCO) were launched in 2017 to bring Europe closer to “strategic autonomy“ by developing a common defence industrial base. In 2019, Germany and France established framework conditions for export authorisation procedures for joint defence projects. Finally, Germany has recently adopted various measures to make arms exports more transparent and less susceptible to misuse.

At the same time, arms exports remain under-researched in legal, political and historical scholarship: during the Cold War, the focus was largely on nucelar disarmament regime; since 1989, attention has shifted towards interdependence, juridification, and democratisation of European and international relations.

Against this background, this DFG project aims to record, contextualise and classify the emerging multi-level system of arms export control: How does the democratic and judicial control of exports present itself? Is it convincing that the deployment of soldiers around the world requires a mandate from the Bundestag, while arms exports are taken by secret executive bodies? Is there access to legal protection for those threatened by the exported weapons? As Germany and France are cooperating ever more closely in terms of armaments policy: What rules apply to exports? What role do international law requirements play in this? Finally, in what framework are these issues discussed and decisions made? The project aims to analyse these questions from the perspective of administrative, constitutional, European and international law and to identify ways to further develop a coherent multi-level system of arms export control that is legitimate from a constitutional and democratic perspective.