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International Response: More Than 40 Countries Expected to Sign Missile Code By Mike Nartker “The ICOC conference will open a new chapter in the international struggle against missile proliferation,” the Dutch Foreign Ministry said in a recent press statement. “This new multilateral instrument, with the potential for universal adherence, will provide the international community with an additional means of increasing the security of us all.” Code negotiators have invited nearly all U.N. members to join the agreement. Iraq, however, “was not invited because of their previous refusal to adhere to U.N. Security Council resolutions concerning their military arsenal and secondly because they are officially not supposed to have missiles with a reach of more than 150 kilometers,” a Dutch Foreign Ministry spokesman said. So far, 43 countries have indicated that they plan to attend the signing ceremony, including the United States, France, the United Kingdom, Ukraine, Saudi Arabia and several countries regarded as posing little ballistic missile threat, such as East Timor and the Vatican, according to the Dutch Foreign Ministry. Several countries that the United States believes are acquiring or proliferating ballistic missiles have declined to participate in the ceremony. Although such countries — including China, Iran, North Korea, Israel, India and Pakistan — have rejected the code, their position has not doomed it to failure, according to experts. There is hope that they will join later, a U.S. State Department official said. As in other international agreements, such as the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, not every country is expected to choose to join at the beginning, the official said. China, India and Pakistan have outlined various reasons for rejecting the code. A spokesman for the Pakistani Embassy in Washington told Global Security Newswire this week that his country opposes the code, in part, because it fails to adequately address complementary delivery systems such as cruise missiles (see GSN, Nov. 20). India said it has rejected the code because it does too little to exempt peaceful uses of space launch technology (see GSN, Nov. 18). Beijing cited the code’s confidence-building measures, meant to increase transparency among members, as a reason for China’s opposition to the code (see GSN, Nov. 15). A notable expected attendee at the conference, however, is Libya, which has also been regarded by the United States as a country of concern (see GSN, Oct. 31). As recently as October, Reuters reported that the United States accused Yugoslav defense firms of aiding Libya’s development of long-range cruise missiles. “About the only bright spot at the moment is that Libya will be in The Hague,” Mark Smith of the Mountbatten Center for International Studies at the University of Southampton in the United Kingdom, said in response to a written inquiry from GSN. Code Details The voluntary code will not ban countries from possessing ballistic missiles. Instead, it will call on members to exercise “maximum possible restraint” in developing and deploying ballistic missiles and to not aid ballistic missile programs of any countries that might be developing weapons of mass destruction. To increase transparency, the code will call on members to implement several confidence-building measures. Members will agree to make an annual declaration outlining their ballistic missile policies, which could include information on missile systems and test sites, and to provide annual information on the number of missiles launched during the previous year. The code will take into account the similarities between ballistic missiles and space-launch vehicles. Code participants will agree to be vigilant in exporting space technologies for fear they could be used in systems to deliver weapons of mass destruction. In a manner similar to the ballistic missile provision, code members will also agree to provide annual information on space-launch vehicle polices and launches and to invite international observers to test sites. The code also calls on members to exchange pre-launch notifications for both ballistic missile and space launch vehicle flights. The pre-launch notifications are expected to include information such as the generic class of the missile or space-launch vehicle, the launch area and the planned direction of the flight. To further the development of the code, members plan to meet annually. According to the final text, all code decisions are to be made by a consensus of subscribing states. Effectiveness Although many observers consider the goals of the code to be worthwhile, several experts have said the agreement will probably be ineffective in addressing missile proliferation (see GSN, Feb. 15). One concern is that the code lacks adequate incentives to join. “If it doesn’t provide incentives and all you have are sticks, it’s not very effective,” Jon Wolfsthal of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace told GSN earlier this year. “First you set a code, then you find bilateral ways to provide incentives,” he added. The code might also create a rivalry with the other main missile nonproliferation system — the Missile Technology Control Regime, said Richard Speier, former Pentagon official who served on the U.S. negotiating team for the regime. Countries of concern might then be able to exploit such a rivalry to find the best regime that would allow them to continue pursuing their missile aims, he said. While acknowledging that the missile code of conduct does not entirely solve the issue of ballistic missile proliferation, the European Union has said it regards the code as the most “concrete and advanced” initiative to address the issue to date. “The ICOC is neither the first nor the only initiative in the field of missile nonproliferation. It is a first step toward further efforts that must be taken, in the U.N. and elsewhere, to prevent the continuing proliferation of ballistic missiles,” the Dutch Foreign Ministry said in its statement. “It is the most concrete and advanced initiative so far,” the ministry said. For further information, see: Draft International Code of Conduct (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute) Missile Technology Control Regime (U.S. State Department)
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