The Italian Republic signed the Mine Ban Treaty on 3 December 1997 and ratified it on 23 April 1999, becoming a State Party on 1 October 1999. Export of antipersonnel mines ceased in 1993 and a moratorium on production and export was declared in 1994. Legislation to enforce the antipersonnel mine prohibition domestically was enacted on 29 October 1997. With amendments, this was used for implementation of the Mine Ban Treaty when the ratification legislation was approved on 26 March 1999.

In 2012, Italy submitted its 13^th Mine Ban Treaty Article 7 report. Italy voted in favor of UN General Assembly resolution 66/29 on antipersonnel mines on 2 December 2011.

Italy completed destruction of its stockpile of 6,529,811 antipersonnel mines on 20 November 2002, well in advance of its 1 October 2003 deadline mandated by the treaty.[1] Italy initially retained 811 mines for training and development purposes; this number was reduced to 643 by May 2012.[2] During the 2012 intersessional meetings, Italy stated that “…the number of personnel trained in mine detection, clearance and destruction remains the main indicator of a correct (or inaccurate) compliance with…article 3.”[3]

Italy attended the Eleventh Meeting of States Parties to the Mine Ban Treaty in Phnom Penh in November–December 2011 and the intersessional Standing Committee meetings in Geneva in May 2012.

Italy is party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons and its Amended Protocol II on landmines and Protocol V on explosive remnants of war.

Campaigners in Italy participated in the Lend Your Leg global action in March-April 2012 by sending 900 Lend Your Leg postcards to all members of parliament. Twenty ministers of parliament from the Chamber of Deputies subsequently supported this campaign action.[4]

Italy has no known mined areas, though unexploded ordnance from World War I and World War II is still found occasionally.

Commitment to the Convention on Cluster Munitions

Policy

The Republic of Italy signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 3 December 2008 and ratified on 21 September 2011. The convention entered into force for Italy on 1 March 2012.

Legislation to ratify and implement the convention was unanimously adopted by the Senate on 16 March 2011 and then by the Chamber of Deputies on 18 May 2011. It was promulgated by President Giorgio Napolitano on 14 June 2011. “Law on the Ratification and Implementation of the Oslo Convention on the ban on cluster munitions” (Law No. 95) took effect on 5 July 2011 and serves as Italy’s national implementation legislation for the convention.[1]

Italy’s Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Vincenzo Scotti, deposited its instrument of ratification with the UN in New York on 21 September 2011, International Peace Day, during the annual UN Treaty Event. Italy was the 65^th State Party to the convention.[2]

Italy’s initial Convention on Cluster Munitions Article 7 transparency report is due by 28 August 2012.

Italy participated in the Oslo Process that produced the convention, and its position evolved significantly to support the prohibition on cluster munitions.[3] Italy has continued to engage in the work of the convention in 2011 and the first half of 2012. It attended the Second Meeting of States Parties to the convention in Beirut, Lebanon in September 2011, where it provided an update on ratification. At the intersessional meetings of the convention in Geneva in April 2012, Italy provided an update on its stockpile destruction progress.

Italy is a State Party to the Mine Ban Treaty.

Law No. 95 requires that Italy work to prevent the use of mines and cluster munitions, advocate for adherence to the total ban on mines and cluster munitions, and seek to universalize the Convention on Cluster Munitions.[4]

Interpretive issues

Italy has not yet stated its views on a number of issues important for the interpretation and implementation of the convention, including the prohibition on assistance with prohibited acts in joint military operations, the prohibition on transit of cluster munitions, and the prohibition on foreign stockpiling. Italy’s national implementation legislation allows for the retention of cluster munitions for training and research purposes.

The US is believed to store cluster munitions in Italy (see Foreign stockpiling section below).

Disinvestment

Law No. 95 bans financial assistance to anyone for any act prohibited by the convention. This provision supports a ban on investment in the production of cluster munitions. However, the Italian Campaign to Ban Landmines has advocated for a separate, more detailed law.[5]

On 26 April 2010, draft legislation was introduced in the Senate to prohibit all Italian financial institutions from providing any form of support to Italian and foreign companies involved in a range of activities including the production, use, sale, import, export, stockpiling, or transport of antipersonnel mines as well as cluster munitions and explosive submunitions.[6] On 26 May 2010, the draft legislation was referred to the Senate Financial and Treasury Commission.[7]On 1 June 2011, the Commission agreed to examine the draft legislation in the “coming weeks.”[8]The bill was expected to be examined in the second half of 2011, but no further progress had been reported as of June 2012.

On 18 May 2011, the House of Deputies voted in favor of a motion (l’ordine del giorno) to consider increased controls on financial brokers and institutions to provide increased controlson activities relating to the financing, production, use, import, export, and stockpiling of antipersonnel mines banned by the Mine Ban Treaty in addition to cluster munitions and explosive submunitions banned by the Convention on Cluster Munitions. The motion also requests that the government consider producinga detailed annual list of all banks that invest in the arms trade.[9]Also on 18 May 2011, three other motions on disinvestment from cluster munition production were accepted by the government as recommendations, which means they do not carry the same weight as motions approved by a vote.[10]

Several Italian financial institutions have enacted policies to disinvest from companies producing cluster munitions. In their June 2012 report on worldwide investments in cluster munition production, NGOs IKV Pax Christi and FairFin listed three Italian financial institutions—Intesa Sanpaolo, Banca Etica, and UniCredit Group—as having policies on disinvestment from companies producing cluster munitions.[11]

Convention on Conventional Weapons

Italy is party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) and in 2011 actively engaged in CCW work to negotiate a protocol on cluster munitions.

At the outset of the Fourth Review Conference in November 2011, Italy said that the “the vast majority of the world’s stockpiles of cluster munitions” are held by CCW states that have not joined the Convention on Cluster Munitions and thus a CCW protocol on cluster munitions was needed.[12]

During the Review Conference, Italy proposed and endorsed a number of amendments to the chair’s draft text, including its proposal for cluster munition use to be allowed in extreme circumstances for national defense during a transition period.[13]

On the last day of the Review Conference, Italy did not join a group of 50 states that issued a joint declaration that the draft protocol did not enjoy consensus and was unacceptable from a humanitarian standpoint.[14] The conference ended without adopting a protocol and with no proposals to continue negotiations in 2012, marking the end of the CCW’s work on cluster munitions.

Use, production, and transfer

Italy is not known to have used cluster munitions, but it has imported and stockpiled them. Italy has reportedly produced cluster munitions as well, but the full extent to which Italian companies have in the past developed, co-produced, or otherwise assembled cluster munitions is not fully known. Italy participated in the “European Producers Group” of the Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS).[15]It is not known if Italy has exported cluster munitions.

According to standard reference works, the company Simmel Difesa SpA (formerly known as BPD Difesa e Spazio)[16] at one point produced 81mm mortar bombs called RS6A2 and S6A2 and a 120mm mortar bomb called S12B, which contained a dual-purpose improved conventional munition (DPICM) submunition.[17] Simmel reportedly also produced a 155mm projectile called the RB63 (also called 155mm IM 303 BCR) that was a copy of the German DM642 projectile and was the result of a joint development and marketing program between Simmel and the German company Rhienmetall. The projectile contained 63 DM1383 DPICM “self-destructing” submunitions.[18]

In April 2012, a military official told the Monitor that Simmel had the capability to produce cluster munitions, but never actually produced any. The official also stated that there are no records that any cluster munitions were ever exported.[19]

Stockpiling and destruction

Italy has stated that it once possessed a stockpile comprised of 610 Mk20 Rockeye cluster bombs, 414 RBL 755 cluster bombs, and 4,044 M26 cluster munition rockets.[20]

Under Article 3 of the Convention on Cluster Munitions, Italy is required to declare and destroy all stockpiled cluster munitions under its jurisdiction or control as soon as possible, but no later than 1 March 2020.

Law No. 95 requires the destruction of Italy’s stockpile of cluster munitions and budgets for the expenditure of funds for the destruction process.[21]In April 2012, Italy stated that a new plan for destruction had been prepared, with the timeframe for destruction reduced from five to four years and reaffirmed its commitment to complete the stockpile destruction by 2014 in a “safe and environmentally aware way.”[22]

In April 2012, Italy announced that its stockpile of Mk20 and RBL 755 cluster bombs had been destroyed. It said that 14% of its M26 rockets were disassembled in 2011 and 1% of their more than 2 million submunitions had been destroyed. According to Italy, a further 18% of the M26 rockets are scheduled for disassembly in 2012, 27% in 2013, and the remaining 41% in 2014. At the end of the destruction process, a total of 720 M26 rockets will have been be “transformed” into M28 practice rockets.[23]

Retention

Italy’s national implementation legislation allows for the retention of a “limited quantity” of cluster munitions not exceeding “1,000 units.” “Units” is believed to refer to individual submunitions.

In April 2012, Italy stated that it does not intend to retain any cluster munitions for training and research purposes.[24] In June 2012, a government official confirmed to the CMC that the Italian Armed Forces “do not currently intend to retain live cluster munitions” but cautioned that the decision “is not irreversible and it can be revised if required.”[25]

Previously, in September 2011, Italy informed States Parties that it intended to retain “a limited number of cluster munitions in the stocks of our Armed Forces, purely for training reasons.” Italy described the Mine Ban Treaty’s “similar provision” as “indispensable in order to enhance the safety and security of our personnel and of the civilian populations in areas affected by unexploded ordnances of that kind.”[26]

Foreign stockpiling

According to a US diplomatic cable dated 26 November 2008 and released by Wikileaks in 2011, US military forces store cluster munitions in Italy. The cable states, “Rome should note that cluster munitions are stored at Aviano and Camp Darby.”[27]

Italy has not indicated if it agrees with the views of a number of states and the Cluster Munition Coalition that foreign stockpiling of cluster munitions on the national territory of States Parties is prohibited by the Convention on Cluster Munitions.