The Special Regime for Dual-Use Cargo Export
Dual-use products — products, including software and technology, that can be used for both civil and military purposes — form a separate universe of control, and three features distinguish a dual-use cargo file from a military-product file: a different issuing organ, a catch-all obligation that operates beyond the control lists, and a special regime for star-marked positions. Under the law, permits for dual-use products are issued by the public-law legal entity, the Revenue Service, from the sphere of governance of the Ministry of Finance of Georgia: export, import, transit, brokering and technical-assistance permits. A difference should be noted as well: the general export authorisations and statute-consolidated control lists familiar from European instincts do not exist in the Georgian system — the lists live in a government decree, and the catch-all obligation is built on the issuer's notification, not on the exporter's self-assessment alone.
The Issuing Organ and the Star Regime
The permits issued by the Revenue Service are, in addition, granted on the basis of a recommendation of the Ministry of Defence's permanent Military-Technical Commission in two situations: where the dual-use product is marked in the control list with one or two stars, and in the special cases determined by the law — including the case where the export of products not included in the list requires a permit by the issuer's notification. The stars are an instrument of internal tension within the list: they determine which positions require the commission's recommendation and thereby change the route of the application. The same logic governs the transit contour: the transit of military products defined by the control list takes place on the basis of a permit, and the transit of dual-use products marked with one or two stars also requires a permit — which means that even cargo merely passing through Georgian territory may fall under the Georgian permit regime.