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Is there a benefit to membership?
The Wassenaar Arrangement provides a venue in which governments can consider collectively the implications of various transfers on their international and regional security interests. This is the principal security benefit that membership brings. Through transparency and consultation, suppliers of arms and dual-use items can develop common understandings of the risks associated with their transfer and assess the scope for coordinating national control policies to combat these risks. For example, at the Plenary Meeting in December 1996, Participating States shared detailed information on export policies to Sudan, Central Africa and the successor states of the former Yugoslavia. They also issued a public statement confirming that, as a matter of national policy, no participant transfers arms or ammunition to the parties to the conflict in Afghanistan. Valuable discussions have continued in 1997 and in 1998 on the need to exercise maximum restraint with respect to arms transfers to areas of conflict in Central Africa. Membership in the Wassenaar Arrangement does not provide an entitlement to obtain arms or dual-use goods or technologies from another member and no obligation to supply it. Members are expected, just as such trade between members and non-members, to exercise responsibility and appropriate vigilance in trade with other members. However, a country's record of consistent fulfillment of membership criteria and commitments clearly would be positive factors taken into account in members' export decisions.
Bureau of Industry & Security (BIS),USDOC
http://www.bis.doc.gov/wassenaar/default.htm
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