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International Response: More Than 100 Countries Have Subscribed to Hague Code of Conduct By Mike Nartker In total, 102 countries subscribe to the code, which calls 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 calls on members to implement several confidence-building measures, such as making an annual declaration outlining their ballistic missile policies. The code was formally launched at a ceremony held in November at The Hague (see GSN, Nov. 26, 2002). Since the signing ceremony, nine additional countries have joined the code, including Niger, Guinea-Bissau and Vanuatu. A number of countries the United States believes are acquiring or proliferating ballistic missiles, such as China, North Korea, India and Pakistan, however, have refused to join the code for various reasons (see GSN, Nov. 20, 2002). For example, a spokesman for the Pakistani Embassy in Washington told Global Security Newswire in November, prior to the launching of the code, that his country opposed the agreement, in part, because it fails to adequately address complementary delivery systems such as cruise missiles. In a speech in early November before a nonproliferation conference sponsored by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Liu Jieyi, director general of the Chinese Foreign Ministry Arms Control and Disarmament Department, said his country opposed the code because it believed the agreement’s confidence-building measures should have been voluntary (see GSN, Nov. 15, 2002). The code’s members are tentatively scheduled to hold their first regular meeting this spring to consider further developments to the agreement. For further information, see: Hague Code of Conduct against Ballistic Missile Proliferation
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