Reforming Export Control Regimes: Addressing Emerging Technologies Through Responsible Innovation

The proliferation of dual-use emerging technologies—such as artificial intelligence (AI), quantum computing, and additive manufacturing—poses a growing challenge for multilateral export control regimes. Designed for tangible goods and slower innovation cycles, existing arrangements increasingly struggle to govern technologies that are intangible, fast-moving, and embedded in global research and supply networks. Although structural limitations of export controls such as regulatory lag, coordination constraints, and uneven implementation are well documented, reform debates have largely focused on institutional design and membership rather than on the governance processes that shape regime performance. This paper advances the discussion by translating governance capacities associated with responsible innovation (RI)—anticipation, institutional learning, and structured participation—into operational functions that can be embedded within existing multilateral frameworks. Rather than proposing a new regulatory architecture, it demonstrates how forward-looking risk assessment, regular review mechanisms, and structured engagement with non-state actors can strengthen export controls while preserving their multilateral foundations. By connecting export control scholarship with anticipatory governance approaches, the paper offers a scalable and policy-relevant framework for adapting export controls to technological uncertainty and geopolitical contestation.