Executive Office for Control & Non-Proliferation (EOCN)

• What is the Executive Office for Control & Non-Proliferation?

The Executive Office for Control and Non-Proliferation (EOCN) is actively involved in executing export control regulations as well as preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and related technology through local and international collaborations and legislation. The EOCN was established in the United Arab Emirates in 2009 as a body in charge of carrying out the provisions of Federal Decree Law No. 43 of 2021 On Commodities Subject to Non-Proliferation, which replaces Federal Law No. 13 of 2007 Concerning Commodities Subject to Import and Export Controls. This is done to prohibit the illicit and unauthorized circulation of dual-use commodities that contribute to the manufacturing or development of weapons of mass destruction, as well as the technology and delivery methods that go with them.

• What is the role of the Executive Office for Control & Non-Proliferation?

The Executive Office for Control and Non-Proliferation works closely with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation (MoFAIC) and other government agencies to ensure that the United Nations Security Council's and other relevant international and regional organizations' resolutions and requirements are followed. EOCN also coordinates and supervises the implementation of targeted financial sanctions related to the terrorist list system, as well as the implementation of Security Council resolutions on the prevention and suppression of terrorism, its financing, the cessation of arms proliferation and financing, and other relevant resolutions, in collaboration with competent stakeholders.

The Executive Office serves as the technical focal point for following up on the UAE's duties under the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Storage, and Use of Chemical Weapons. This represents the UAE government's objective of ensuring security and stability both within and outside the country, as well as supporting collaboration with regional and global partners to eliminate weapons of mass destruction.

• What is the role of targeted financial sanctions with EOCN?

Sanctions evasion is defined as any attempt to hide or conceal the presence of sanctioned persons, entities, or groups in a financial or non-financial transaction or service in order to evade financial sanctions imposed by the United Nations or the Local Terrorist List. FIs, DNFBPs, and VASPs should take proactive measures to identify sanction evasion transactions, such as understanding emerging threats and vulnerabilities that can be exploited by terrorist financiers or proliferators, conducting proper CDD and maintaining up-to-date sanctions lists, raising awareness of sanction evasion techniques, and submitting suspicious PF or TF transactions to the FIU via goAML. In order to combat sanction evasion schemes, the private sector should work closely with the public sector by building private-public partnerships and effective interagency cooperation and sharing of information.