Security, Technology, and Cooperation: The Future of the HCoC - HCoC

Supporting the Hague Code of Conduct

an FRS project funded by the European Union

Security, Technology, and Cooperation: The Future of the HCoC

5 December 2025

Geneva

This event explored how the Hague Code of Conduct can continue to curb ballistic missile proliferation amid new geopolitical and technological challenges.

OVERVIEW

The seminar, Held in Geneva on 5 December 2025, successfully convened international experts and diplomats to address the evolving relevance of the Hague Code of Conduct (HCoC) after more than two decades. While ballistic proliferation remains a global phenomenon, the HCoC has long served to create restraint in WMD-able ballistic missile transfers and testing; however, new developments in geopolitics and technology create additional challenges and opportunities for the Code.

The event navigated the complex intersection of rising geopolitical tensions and rapid technological advancements, with high-level panels assessing the role the HCoC can play in the current context and in the future.

Featuring key figures such as HCoC Chair Amb. Alejandro Garofali and EU Special Envoy Amb. Stefan Klement, participants explored how the Code can adapt to new security realities, ultimately reinforcing its critical status as a flexible yet essential instrument for transparency and restraint.

First Session: Role of the HCoC in a tense international environment

MODERATOR:

Mr Alexandre Houdayer, Secretary General, FRS

PANELLISTS:

Amb. Alejandro Garofali, Representative of Uruguay to the United Nations (Vienna), Chair of the HCoC (2025-2026)
Amb. Stefan Klement, EU Special Envoy for Non-proliferation and Disarmament, EEAS
Mr Andrey Baklitskiy, Senior Researcher, UNIDIR
Amb. George-Wilhelm Gallhofer, Director for Disarmament, Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, MFA, Austria (Executive Secretariat of the HCoC)

Second Session: The HCoC and the evolution of missile and launcher technologies

Mr Etienne Marcuz, Associate Fellow, FRS
Dr Laetitia Cesari, Consultant, UNIDIR
Ms Emmanuelle Maitre, Senior Research Fellow, FRS

March
2022

The Hague Code of Conduct in the Middle East

The HCoC holds special significance in the Middle East as the region is fraught with the development of ballistic arsenals, the use of missiles on the battlefield and the proliferation of such systems towards both states and non-state actors. Moreover, several ballistic missile programmes have been closely associated with WMD acquisition.

October
2021

Research Papers

The HCoC and China

China is currently the main ballistic missile possessor and spacefaring nation which remains outside the Hague Code of Conduct against Ballistic Missile Proliferation (HCoC). This can be explained by China’s traditional opacity regarding its deployment of strategic missiles, but also its exports of ballistic systems or technologies abroad. This absence is nonetheless problematic for a regime based on voluntary transparency and confidence-building which aims at universality.

March
2021

The HCoC and South Asia

India’s and Pakistan’s ballistic missiles are mostly designed as delivery vehicles for their nuclear weapons. While intrinsically linked to their national security, ballistic missiles also have regional security implications for South Asia. Non-proliferation and arms control efforts have so far been aimed at the bilateral level. Subscription to other instruments including the HCoC remains low in the region, although India joined the HCoC in 2016.