Trade, tariffs and industry

Executive Order 12868: Measures To Restrict The Participation By United States Persons In Weapons Proliferation Activities

President: Bill Clinton

Authorized Commerce, consulting with State, to regulate U.S.-person participation in weapons-of-mass-destruction proliferation activities; later orders consolidated the broader framework.

Status: Superseded. Is Executive Order 12868 still in effect? No. Executive Order 12868 was superseded. See Federal Register record.

What does Executive Order 12868 do?

EO 12868 declared a national emergency concerning nuclear, biological and chemical weapons proliferation and directed Commerce, consulting with State, to regulate U.S.-person activities that could contribute to such proliferation through the Export Administration Regulations. EO 12938 established a broader WMD-proliferation emergency in 1994 and repeated the Commerce function. The reviewed official texts do not expressly revoke EO 12868, so this guide describes functional incorporation rather than asserting an unsupported formal disposition.

Administration position: The order declared WMD proliferation an unusual and extraordinary threat. That presidential finding supported emergency action; it was not an adjudication that any named person had violated export law.
SignedSeptember 30, 1993
Lead departmentCommerce, consulting with State
SubjectU.S.-person participation in WMD proliferation activities

Before and after

Before the order

The end of EO 12730’s emergency arrangement created a need to identify authority for continuing these U.S.-person controls.

After the order

Commerce retained the directed control function; EO 12938 later placed substantially the same function inside a broader nonproliferation framework.

Who had to do what

Agency / officeActionTiming / position
CommerceIssue or amend regulations restricting covered U.S.-person activitiesAs necessary
StateConsult on the Commerce controlsDuring development and administration
Regulated personsFollow applicable Export Administration RegulationsAs the rules require

What happened next

EO 12868 declared the emergency and assigned the Commerce function.

EO 12938 created a broader WMD framework and repeated that function.

Official disposition review found no express revocation of EO 12868 in the cited texts.