Not legal advice. A research and teaching aid. Classification of a real item turns on its exact specifications and the facts of a transaction. Texts verified 6 October 2026.
Pick an item or technology type. The list shows each regime that reaches it, the controlling provision, a one-line reading, and a link to the text.
Export controls reach information as well as hardware. Whether a document or file is controlled depends on what it enables and on how it has been made available.
Two US tests side by side
| Question | ITAR (State) | EAR (Commerce) |
|---|---|---|
| What is controlled | "Technical data": information required for the design, development, production, manufacture, assembly, operation, repair, testing, maintenance or modification of defense articles, incl. blueprints, drawings, plans and instructions. 22 CFR 120.33(a) | "Technology" and "software" for items on the Commerce Control List, e.g. ECCN 0E501 technology for firearms. 15 CFR part 774 |
| Main carve-out | "Public domain": published and generally accessible through listed channels such as bookstores, libraries, open conferences, patents, government-approved public release, or fundamental research. 22 CFR 120.34 | "Published": made available to the public without restrictions on further dissemination, incl. posting on public internet sites. 15 CFR 734.7(a) |
| Other exclusions | General scientific, mathematical or engineering principles commonly taught in schools; basic marketing information; general system descriptions. 22 CFR 120.33(b) | Exception to the exclusion: firearm production files posted online in a machine-ready format (e.g. AMF, G-code) stay subject to the EAR. 15 CFR 734.7(c) |
| Assistance, not documents | "Defense service": furnishing assistance, incl. training, to foreign persons in the design, production, operation, repair or use of defense articles. 22 CFR 120.32 | No direct equivalent in this comparison. |
Numbering note: the 2022 reorganization moved "technical data" from 22 CFR 120.10 to 120.33 and "defense service" from 120.9 to 120.32 (87 FR 16396, effective 6 Sep 2022). The Wassenaar Munitions List also excludes technology "in the public domain", defined as made available without restrictions on further dissemination (ML22 and definitions).
The 3D-printed gun file litigation
- Fifth Circuit affirms denial of a preliminary injunction sought by Defense Distributed against State Department control of its files, finding no abuse of discretion in weighing national security. Opinion, No. 15-50759
- Settlement: State agrees to a temporary USML modification and a letter authorizing online publication of certain files. Duke Center for Firearms Law
- W.D. Wash. (Judge Lasnik) holds the modification and letter unlawful under the APA, incl. failure to give Congress 30 days' notice, and sets them aside. KUT
- State and Commerce publish final rules moving most non-automatic and semi-automatic firearms and their technology to the EAR, with the new 734.7(c) rule for machine-ready files; effective 9 Mar 2020. 85 FR 4136
- Ninth Circuit vacates the district court's injunction against the State rule, holding that 22 U.S.C. 2778(h) bars judicial review of designating or removing defense articles. Washington v. Dep't of State, No. 20-35391
What this implies for AI-generated text
No court ruling on whether model outputs are "technical data" or "published" information is cited here, and none was found in the sources reviewed. The points below are a reading of the definitions, not settled law.
- The tests are about content and release, not authorship. The ITAR and EAR definitions turn on what information enables and how it is made available. Nothing in them exempts text because software wrote it.
- A tailored answer is not obviously "public domain". 22 CFR 120.34 lists specific channels of publication. A response generated for one user does not clearly pass through any of them, even if each fact in it appears somewhere public.
- Machine-ready output gets special treatment. 734.7(c) keeps firearm production files under the EAR even when posted publicly. Regulators have already drawn a line at executable files, separate from descriptive text.
- Interaction can look like assistance. The "defense service" definition covers assistance and training to foreign persons. Whether interactive help from a model could ever fit is untested.
- The legal floor is not the policy line. Export law sets minimums for transfers. A content policy can, and usually does, decline operational help that would be lawful to publish.
Regimes across the top, item types down the side. Select a cell to see the provision. Coverage is judged from the text of each instrument; "none" means no entry was found, not that the item is unregulated everywhere.
Scroll sideways to see all regimes →
Key dates
Treaty milestones, rule changes and court decisions, oldest first. Recent changes since 2025 are included where verified.
What this is
A structured index of 20 legal and policy instruments and 16 item types. Each link between an item and a regime records the controlling provision, a one-line plain reading, a coverage level, and a URL to the text it rests on. No data here is synthetic.
How it was built
- US regulations were read from the eCFR (text current through 2 Oct 2026), statutes from the US Code via Cornell LII (uscode.house.gov was down for maintenance on 6 Oct 2026), and rule histories from the Federal Register API.
- Treaty dates, party counts and withdrawals come from the UN Treaty Collection status pages as at 6 Oct 2026; Wassenaar and MTCR entries from their official sites.
- Court holdings were read from the opinions where available (Supreme Court, Fifth and Ninth Circuits). One 2026 district court ruling is cited from a secondary source and flagged as such.
- EUR-Lex was not fully available on 6 Oct 2026. EU entries were checked through European Commission pages, a Council document and the legislation.gov.uk archive of EU instruments.
- DoD Directive 3000.09 blocks automated retrieval; its content was checked through the Congressional Research Service primer IF11150 (updated 26 Mar 2026).
- Claims that could not be verified were left out. The data files are regimes.json, items.json and timeline.json.
Limits
- Coverage levels are judgments about how a class of item maps to an instrument. They are not commodity jurisdiction or classification determinations.
- Item types are generic. The tool does not classify any real product and gives no technical parameters beyond those printed in the cited texts.
- National implementation of multilateral regimes varies. State law, sanctions and embargo regimes are out of scope.
- Rules change. Each regime shows the date it was last checked.
How to cite
Walberg, Jonathan. "Conventional Weapons Regime Explorer." jwalberg.com, data verified 6 October 2026. Cite the primary texts linked in each entry for any legal point.