Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM)

Overview

Potential Facility Impacts

Current Activities

Overview

Purpose and Background

The Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM) (also referred to as the Oslo Convention) is an international ban of unlimited duration on the use, acquisition, transfer, or development of cluster munitions. The Convention is directly modeled after the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on Their Destruction (also referred to as the Ottawa Convention or Mine Ban Treaty), but it does not apply to mines.

The Convention draft text was adopted at the Dublin Conference on May 30, 2008. The Convention opened for signature on December 3, 2008, in Oslo, Norway, and will enter into force (EIF) six months after it is ratified or acceded to by thirty States Parties. For states acceding to or ratifying the Convention after it enters into force, the Convention will take effect six months after accession or after the instruments of ratification are deposited with the UN Secretary General.

The Convention defines cluster munitions as “a conventional munition that is designed to disperse or release explosive submunitions each weighing less than 20 kilograms, and includes those explosive submunitions.” The Convention will not apply to munitions designed to avoid indiscriminate area effects which have all of the following characteristics:

• contains less than ten explosive submunitions; and
• each explosive submunition weighs more than four kilograms; and
• each explosive submunition targets a single target; and the munition
• contains an electronic self-destruct function as well as a self-deactivation function.

States Parties will be obligated to destroy their current cluster munitions stockpiles within eight years after ratification or accession, and to decommission all cluster munition production facilities. States Parties may request four-year extensions to this deadline when necessary. Cluster munitions may only be transferred to another state for destruction purposes, and recipient States are obligated to provide a full accounting of all actions taken.

Each State Party will also be obligated to assist with removing cluster munitions it has deployed on the territories of other states. The deadline for removing all such remnants of cluster munitions is ten years from the date the Convention enters into force. In addition, each State Party will agree to provide victim assistance within its territory, including “medical care, rehabilitation and psychological support, as well as ... [providing] social and economic inclusion.”

The first Meeting of States Parties will occur one year after the Convention enters into force. These meetings will be held annually until the first Review Conference is conducted five years after entry into force. These meetings and the Review Conference will be open to all non-member states and to relevant organizations.

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Potential Facility Impacts

Key Verification Measures

The CCM contains no on-site inspection provisions. To verify compliance, States Parties will be obligated to participate in annual data exchanges. Information pertaining to the previous calendar year will be submitted to the U.N. Secretary-General by April 30th each year.

Within 180 days after the Convention enters into force, each State Party will be obligated to submit an initial data declaration. The information to be provided includes:

• national implementation measures on the destruction and clearance of cluster munitions, including technical descriptions and quantities of cluster munitions;
• cluster munitions development prior to ratifying the Convention and information on any states to which that technology was transferred;
• the size and location of any contaminated area within the state’s territory, and the clearance actions taken; and
• national implementation of victim assistance programs, including risk reduction education.

This information will serve as a baseline for, and will be updated in, the annual data exchanges.

If a State Party has concerns about whether another State Party is in compliance with the Convention, the concerned state may submit a Request for Clarification to the U.N. Secretary-General. If the concerned state is not satisfied with the response from the Secretary-General, the matter can be addressed at the next Meeting of States Parties. At these meetings, the States Parties may recommend or adopt appropriate measures to obtain satisfactory clarification of compliance.

The United States does not intend to sign the Convention. As stated in a February 2008 White Paper, the Department of State detailed the following concerns:

• cluster munitions should be addressed within the framework of the humanitarian impact of all explosive remnants of war (ERW), of which cluster munitions are a small percentage;
• redundant single-weapon mechanisms can divert necessary resources from efforts to eradicate all ERW by focusing on only one sub-type;
• the U.S. Humanitarian Mine Action Program assists survivors regardless of what ERW injured them;
• cluster munitions are still a strategically viable alternative to other, non-discriminating munitions types;
• the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) already has support for ERW consequence management and can be amended to include a Protocol addressing cluster munitions.

The Convention on Cluster Munitions does not prohibit States Parties from engaging in military cooperation and operations with non-member States that engage in activities prohibited by the Convention. However, States Parties cannot assist in the development, stockpile or transfer of cluster munitions during that cooperation, nor can States Parties encourage the use of cluster munitions during operations with non-member States.

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Current Activities

Recent Developments

The CCM opened for signature on December 3, 2008, in Oslo, Norway. The Convention was signed by 94 countries and was immediately ratified by four States Parties: Norway, Ireland, the Holy See, and Sierra Leone. In 2009, Tunisia signed the CCM on January 12, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo signed it on March 18, which brought the number of signatories to 96. In addition, the Lao People's Democratic Republic ratified the CCM on March 18, 2009, which brought the total ratifications to five.

On June 19, 2008, the U.S. Secretary of Defense released the DoD Policy on Cluster Munitions and Unintended Harm to Civilians. The Policy reiterates the U.S. position on cluster munitions, which is that the United States considers cluster munitions strategically viable for minimizing hazards to civilians and civilian infrastructure.

DoD policy defines cluster munitions as “munitions composed of a non-reusable canister or delivery body containing multiple, conventional explosive submunitions.” The new policy expands the previous 2001 DoD policy on submunition reliability, which placed a ban after 2018 on the employment of cluster munitions containing submunitions that do not have an unexploded ordnance rate of one percent or less. Until 2018, cluster munitions with more than the one percent unexploded ordnance rate must have Combatant Commander approval for use, and can only be transferred to other States if the recipient State agrees to discontinue their use after 2018.

Also in accordance with DoD policy, cluster munitions that exceed operational planning requirements will be demilitarized within the constraints of funding and industrial capacity by June 19, 2009. If cluster munitions are employed, Combatant Commanders will record and retain information in accordance with the ERW Protocol of the CCW.

The U.S. Congress has imposed an annual export moratorium on cluster munitions since 2007. President Obama signed the Omnibus Appropriations Act of 2009 (H.R.1105, SEC 7056) into law on 12 March 2009, which imposed the following requirements on the Defense Department:

No military assistance shall be furnished for cluster munitions, no defense export license for cluster munitions may be issued, and no cluster munitions or cluster munitions technology shall be sold or transferred, unless--

(1) the submunitions of the cluster munitions have a 99 percent or higher functioning rate; and

(2) the agreement applicable to the assistance, transfer, or sale of the cluster munitions or cluster munitions technology specifies that the cluster munitions will only be used against clearly defined military targets and will not be used where civilians are known to be present.

In early 2009, legislation was put forward in both the House (H.R.981) and Senate (S.416) to immediately apply the DoD Policy on Cluster Munitions, rather than allow the 2018 deadline. Under the “Cluster Munitions Civilian Protection Act of 2009,” no funding would be made available for the procurement or use of cluster munitions which do not meet the 99% reliability standard and cluster munitions are barred from use in areas where civilians are present or those normally inhabited by civilians. Cluster munitions can be used with a Presidential waiver specifying that the use of cluster munitions is vital to protect the interests of the United States and that within 30 days of use, a report will be submitted to Congress specifying the steps taken to protect civilians, the failure rate of cluster munitions used, and the types of self-destruct devices which were present on the cluster munitions. Further, within 90 days the President will submit a report to Congress detailing the plan for the clean up of unexploded cluster munitions used.

The United States does not intend to sign the Convention. Instead, the United States supports an additional Protocol to the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) addressing cluster munitions.