Curriculum Guide · Courses

Professors Larry Christensen and David Hardin

LL.M Course 962 (cross-listed) | 2 credit hours

As the role of exports has grown within the U.S. economy and as the threats to the United States have changed given the nuclear threat of Iran, fighting in Syria, missile development in North Korea, and conventional military tensions between the U.S. and China, understanding and dealing with U.S. export control and sanction laws have become an increasingly important skill for lawyers advising manufacturing, service enterprises, financial institution, and companies licensing their technology abroad. This course surveys the federal laws and implementing regulations governing the export and reexport of goods, services, technology and software from the U.S. or by persons subject to U.S. jurisdiction (including U.S. Government agencies), the extraterritorial reach of reexport controls, prosecution strategies, restrictions on dealings with or in sanctioned countries, prohibitions in dealing with blacklisted parties, and other sanctions that apply to non-U.S. companies and non-U.S. natural persons.

The course will give you practical skill sets to use and understand five complex regulatory systems that implement national security rules related to technology and high-tech transfers, including restrictions on release of technology to non-U.S. persons and foreign policy restrictions and licensing requirements. The regulations are implemented under various statutes, such as the Export Administration Act, International Emergency Economic Powers Act, Trading with the Enemy Act, Arms Export Control Act, and Atomic Energy Act, and issued by various federal agencies, such as the U.S. Departments of Commerce, Treasury, State, and Energy and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. We will also address the limited case law.

In addition, the course will address multilateral export control regimes, the role they play in shaping U.S. trade laws, the impact of new regimes (such as those under the Chemical Weapons Convention) and the direction of U.S. export controls and sanctions policy in response to the changing threats. We will focus on the U.S. Government’s use of embargoes and other economic sanctions to achieve national security and foreign policy goals of target countries, including Iran. This course will also provide skill sets to communicate with licensing agencies and the Defense Department regarding key issues of agency jurisdiction and classification and direct investment in the United States.

The course will also address the enforcement environment with ever-increasing fines such as the Department of Treasury’s $1.9 billion fine against HSBC in December 2012, the use of extradition, and imprisonment. We will also discuss enforcement strategies and the potential for global settlements with the Departments of Justice, State, Treasury, and Commerce.

The course will emphasize developing the working knowledge necessary for hands-on practice and problem-solving in this field. In addition, the course will provide skills sets to assess proposed legislations and regulations in depth, as well as advocacy skills related to legislation and rulemaking.

Recommended: Administrative Law; International Law I: Introduction to International Law (or the equivalent International Law I).