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The Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls (CoCom) was established in 1949^[1] at the beginning of the Cold War to coordinate controls on exports from Western Bloc countries to the Soviet Union and its allies. CoCom ceased to function on March 31, 1994, but the control list of embargoed goods was retained by the member nations until the Wassenaar Arrangement was established in 1996.

Membership

In its final years, CoCom had 17 member states:

Despite being neutral, Switzerland joined the CoCom sanctions against the Eastern bloc countries; see Hotz-Linder-Agreement [de].^[2]

Laws and regulations

In the United States, CoCom compliance was implemented by various statutes authorizing the President to regulate exports, including the Export Control Act of 1949, the Export Administration Act of 1969, the Export Administration Act of 1979, the Arms Export Control Act (AECA), the Trading with the Enemy Act, and the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, among others. Many of these statutes encouraged the coordination of controls with allies.^[3] However, throughout the Cold War, the United States maintained controls in excess of those agreed to in CoCom.^[4]

The Department of State and the Department of Commerce administered these coordinated controls via the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) and the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR).

Violations

Toshiba Machine Company of Japan and Kongsberg Group of Norway supplied eight CNC propeller milling machines to the Soviet Union between 1982 and 1984, an action that violated the CoCom regulations. The United States' position is that this greatly improved the ability of Soviet submarines to evade detection. Congress moved to sanction Toshiba and ban imports of its products into the United States.^[5]

In a related case, French machine tool company Forest-Liné (later acquired by Fives Group) exported several machines, used for fabricating aircraft fuselages and turbine blades for high-performance jet engines. This information came to light during an investigation by the Norwegian police into the Toshiba-Kongsberg scandal.^[6]

Legacy

GPS

In GPS technology, the term "CoCom Limits" also refers to a limit placed on GPS receivers that limits functionality when the device calculates that it is moving faster than 1,000 knots (510 m/s) and/or at an altitude higher than 12,000 m (39,000 ft).^[7] This was intended to prevent the use of GPS in intercontinental ballistic missile-like applications.

Some manufacturers apply this limit only when both speed and altitude limits are reached, while other manufacturers disable tracking when either limit is reached. In the latter case, this causes some devices to refuse to operate in very-high-altitude balloons.^[8]

The Missile Technology Control Regime's Technical Annex, clause 11.A.3, includes a speed limit on GNSS receivers, set at 600 m/s.^[9]