Pakistan's Rise to Nuclear Power and the Contribution of German Companies

In the 1970s and 1990s, German companies made a key contribution to Pakistan obtaining nuclear weapons. Inadequately equipped government agencies and a lack of legal authority made it impossible for acts of proliferation to be prosecuted. At the beginning of the 1990s steps were taken, including improvements in the regulations for granting licenses and in criminal law, allowing these deficits to be rectified. However, depending on the outcome of the legislative process, the impending revision of the German Foreign Trade and Payments Act (Außenwirtschaftsgesetz) might turn out to be a step backwards since export controls are to be modified to correspond to the low standards at the EU level. In a series of case studies, Klaus Peter Ricke outlines events in the past and makes recommendations on how export controls can be improved.