Australia Group

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The Australia Group is an informal group of countries (now joined by the European Commission) established in 1985 (after the use of chemical weapons by Iraq in 1984) to help member countries to identify those of their exports which need to be controlled so as not to contribute to the spread of chemical and biological weapons .

The group, initially consisting of 15 members, held its first meeting in Brussels in September 1989. It now has 41 members, including all Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) members except Mexico, the European Commission, all 27 Member States of the European Union, Croatia, Ukraine and Argentina. The name comes from Australia's initiative to create the group. Australia manages the secretariat.

The initial members of the group had different assessments of which chemical precursors should be subject to export control. Later adherents initially had no such controls. Today, members of the group maintain export controls on a uniform list of 54 compounds, including several that are not prohibited for export under the Chemical Weapons Convention, but can be used in the manufacture of chemical weapons. Delegations representing the members meet every year in Paris.^[1]