Today, March 25, a decade after the EU first began soliciting views on export controls around dual use technologies — or tools that can have some peaceful aims but that can also be used to violate human rights — the EU Parliament has adopted the final text of the new rules.

Access Now, Amnesty International, Committee to Protect Journalists, FIDH (International Federation for Human Rights), Human Rights Watch, Privacy International, and Reporters Without Borders note positive elements within the text, but emphasize an overall lack of ambitious safeguards for human rights and security across the EU. The coalition has outlined a set of recommendations that must be adhered to, to bolster the written rules for the export of dual use items and better protect human rights.

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Recommendations

The new EU dual use regulation should be considered a minimum baseline. To fulfill their international obligations to protect human rights, and under close monitoring and clear guidance by the Commission, Member States must:

• Interpret “cyber-surveillance” to include mobile telecommunications interception or jamming equipment; intrusion software, IP network communications surveillance systems or equipment, and other invasive technology;
• Ensure that systems specially designed to perform biometric identification are subject to control within the EU control list and within the Wassenaar Arrangement in a transparent and consultative process and interpret these items to constitute “cyber-surveillance;”
• Ensure detailed reports describing export license applications — including details such as a description of the end user and destination, the value of the license, and the number of license applications per item — made to authorities concerning all dual use items are made publicly available on a regular basis;
• Ensure national legislation governing the assessment of export licenses takes into account relevant European human rights protections, such as the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights as well as those developed by the Court of Justice of the European Union and the European Court of Human Rights, and evidence from civil society and human rights experts; and
• Ensure European legislation requiring corporate actors to respect human rights and implement human rights due diligence measures as prescribed by the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs).

Read the full statement, including all recommendations.