Abstract
3D printing is on the verge of confronting Customs and other security agencies with a whole new set of mind-boggling problems. With the tremendous reach of the Internet worldwide, virtual blueprints to weapon parts, components and accessories of drones, narcotic drugs and psychoactive substances, all strategic trade items, as well as other restricted items such as pornographic material, can be proliferated and printed out swiftly by any individual or organization with access to a 3D printer. Intellectual Property Rights are also endangered by these machines. Technology is forever outpacing fast antiquating legal institutions, and security systems, which require revamping to tackle impending threats looming ominously in the horizon. Upgrading the Multilateral Export Control Regimes well in time to incorporate novel trade control challenges posed by 3D printing is the need of the hour. This article proposes to look into the impending threats looming ominously in the horizon in this brave new world of manufacturing evolution and revolution, and the means to counter them.
Highlights
Three-dimensional printers—the magical devices capable of printing prosthetics, violins, and even aircraft parts—have the potential, as US President Barack Obama observed, “to revolutionize the way we make almost everything.” The flipside to all their good uses, is the fact that these same machines can be used to create weapons and other harmful substances and equipment that can be used with pernicious intent
Three-dimensional printing is on the verge of introducing security agencies
Modern technological innovation is currently outpacing the legislative response from legal institutions and security systems
Summary
Three-dimensional printers—the magical devices capable of printing prosthetics, violins, and even aircraft parts—have the potential, as US President Barack Obama observed, “to revolutionize the way we make almost everything.” The flipside to all their good uses, is the fact that these same machines can be used to create weapons and other harmful substances and equipment that can be used with pernicious intent. While this paper faithfully catalogs the various security challenges of 3D printing so far conceived, it builds upon previous literature in two ways It traces which nations are the primary manufacturers of 3D printers and provides a picture of the global hubs of 3D printing technology. It focuses on various proliferation pathways previously not explored in detail—the most sensitive ones relating to nuclear technology and missile component manufacturing (as most research looks at gun control only)—to try to determine whether the extant legal and regulatory frameworks for countering those pathways are sufficiently robust, and offers policy recommendations based on that analysis
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