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Peddling Peril Index (PPI) for 2019

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Peddling Peril Index (PPI) for 2019

by David Albright, Sarah Burkhard, and Andrea Stricker

May 23, 2019

The Institute for Science and International Security is pleased to announce the release of the Peddling Peril Index (PPI) for 2019. The PPI is a biennial project that evaluates the effectiveness of national strategic trade controls in 200 countries, territories, and entities. Since its inception in 2016, the PPI has tracked the progress of national strategic trade controls and measured the real status of their implementation, with a focus on efforts to prevent nuclear, other WMD, and missile commodity trafficking.

The Peddling Peril Index for 2019, the second report, provides compelling evidence for where countries are either improving or lagging in implementing strategic trade controls. It provides information useful to countries seeking to improve their efforts. It is our hope that the PPI will motivate strengthened strategic trade control systems worldwide and reduce the chances that additional states or non-state actors will obtain the dangerous wherewithal to fabricate nuclear and other destructive weapons.

In many ways, the PPI for 2019 applies higher standards than the 2017 edition and strengthens the assessment. It evaluates 101 indicators, and features dozens of new data sources. Much like the PPI for 2017, the 2019 update found that only a fraction of the world’s national trade control systems received more than 50 percent of the available points, and no country received more than 80 percent. Given the unstoppable pace of globalization and the central importance of strategic trade controls in stopping proliferation, this overall performance is alarming.

The state of strategic trade controls for 2019 is not adequate. A priority should be developing and maintaining effective national strategic trade control systems throughout the world.

The report, which includes the full ranking, detailed discussions of the results, and key recommendations, can be found as a PDF version here.

We will also soon make the report available as an e-book from Amazon and in various electronic reader formats.