evidence: Uzbekistan is a member of the IMF, World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. It has observer status at the World Trade Organization and is a member of the World Intellectual Property Organization. It is a signatory to the Convention on Settlement of Investment Disputes Between States and Nationals of Other States, the Paris Convention on Industrial Property, the Madrid Agreement on Trademarks Protection, and the Patent Cooperation Treaty. In 2002, Uzbekistan was again placed on the special "301" Watch List for lack of intellectual copyright protection. Although Uzbekistan has patent, copyright, and trademark laws dating from 1996 and compiled with technical assistance from experts, nonenforcement has caused the country to again be placed on the Watch List. [...] DEFENSE Uzbekistan possesses the largest and most competent military forces in the Central Asian region, having around 85,000 people in uniform. Its structure is inherited from the Soviet armed forces, although it is moving rapidly toward a fully restructured organization which will eventually be built around light and Special Forces. The Uzbek Armed Forces' equipment is not modern and its training, while improving, is neither uniform nor adequate yet for its new mission of territorial security. The government has accepted the arms control obligations of the former Soviet Union, acceded to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (as a non-nuclear state), and has supported an active program by the U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) in western Uzbekistan (Nukus and Vozrozhdeniya Island).