Meeting on Missile Code of Conduct
Mark Smith 
In mid-June, 2002, delegations from nearly 100 countries met in Madrid to continue negotiations on an International Code of Conduct Against Ballistic Missile Proliferation (ICoC). Despite the fact that nearly 100 states turned up, the Madrid ICoC meeting was even more low-key than the previous meeting in Paris last February. Few substantial changes appear to have been made to the draft, which is fortunate since the Code is already stretched very thin indeed. The plan is still to launch the ICoC later this year at a meeting in the Hague, but the question of which states will sign up is still very much open.
The DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) has stayed away from both meetings and thus can probably be discounted as a signatory unless something changes in the near future. There have been some recent indications that Pyongyang is willing to begin talks with the US and Japan on various security issues, including missiles, but whether that will stretch to joining the ICoC remains to be seen. Iran attended the February meeting, but pulled out of Madrid. Iran of course was responsible for the UN Resolution setting up the UN Missile Study Group (due to report to the 57th General Assembly session) which suggests a willingness to work the problem through political means. However, the fact that the Bush Administration failed to make any substantial contribution to the Paris meeting and subsequently damned the DPRK and Iran as part of an axis of evil is hardly going to encourage constructive developments here. Israel was also heavily critical of the Code in the run-up to Madrid, to the extent that it leaked details of its submission to the UN Study Group. China has spoken supportively of the Code, but stressed the role of the UN in managing any regime, as have several developing countries. In fact, the ICoC itself might well run into the ground completely without the support of the European Union, which seems to be doing most of the leg-work in keeping the initiative moving. The Code will need a 'critical mass' of signatories from the missile states in the developing world if it is to get off the ground later this year If its membership turns out to be MTCR members and their allies, then its chances of success do not look promising.
So far, the ICoC's institutional form has yet to be decided. The options are for it to be a UN body like the Arms Convention, an independent body like the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), or for it to be run out of a participating Foreign Ministry like the MTCR (which is run from the point of contact in Paris). Several developing states have advocated the UN, but nothing is certain at the moment. However, some conjecture can be made about the most likely developments.
The ICoC involves little more than the annual provision of information about policy and holdings of ballistic missiles and space launch vehicles, and this thinness testifies to the thinness of international consensus over how to proceed in dealing with missile proliferation. This itself suggests that few are likely to look favourably on the establishment of some permanent institution such as the OPCW.
Regarding the UN option, developing states will favour an institution in which they will not be the subject of "missile apartheid" by MTCR members (i.e. the UN), while MTCR members (who drafted the original ICoC) will probably favour an option where they do not have to answer awkward questions about why ballistic missiles are a Bad Thing when the US, Britain, France, etc. have them aplenty (i.e. not the UN). Moreover, the Code only covers ballistic missiles, and its original drafters will probably want to keep it that way. The best way to do so is to avoid placing the ICoC in any institution that can also function as a negotiation forum.
In short, therefore, a process of finding the lowest common denominator points towards the MTCR model as the most likely. A Foreign Ministry (maybe the Dutch, who've been very active in the ICoC drafting) will volunteer to be the Point of Contact through which signatories submit their information. The ICoC does contain provision for regular meetings, an info exchange mechanism, and an "appropriate mechanism" for the resolution of questions about national declarations. All three could be taken care of through such a model.
Mark Smith, Mountbatten Centre for International Studies, University of Southampton, Highfield, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK; mjs10@soton.ac.uk.
