The Kingdom of Sweden signed the Mine Ban Treaty on 3 December 1997 and ratified it on 25 November 1998, becoming a State Party on 1 May 1999. Sweden is a former antipersonnel mine producer and exporter, and Swedish forces stockpiled antipersonnel mines. National implementation of the Mine Ban Treaty was achieved primarily by additions to existing legislation, including penal sanctions for violations of the treaty’s prohibitions, which also entered into force on 1 May 1999.[1] In 2012, Sweden submitted its 14^th Mine Ban Treaty Article 7 report.

Sweden destroyed 3,365,000 stockpiled antipersonnel mines between 1996 and December 2001, including 2,348,149 after the treaty entered into force on 1 May 1999. Sweden initially announced it would retain 13,948 antipersonnel mines for training and development purposes, but revised this total upwards to 16,015 in 2003. As of the end of 2011, Sweden still retained 7,094 antipersonnel mines.[2] In May 2012, Sweden stated that “each deminer must detect and clear at least one live anti-personnel mine during training in Sweden in order to become a certified deminer.”[3]

Sweden served as co-rapporteur and then co-chair of the Standing Committee on Mine Clearance from 2003–2005.

Sweden attended the Eleventh Meeting of States Parties to the Mine Ban Treaty in November–December 2010 in Phnom Penh, Cambodia and the intersessional Standing Committee meetings in Geneva in May 2012.

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

 

Commitment to the Convention on Cluster Munitions

Policy

The Kingdom of Sweden signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 3 December 2008 and ratified on 23 April 2012. The convention will enter into force for Sweden on 1 October 2012.

Sweden enacted implementing legislation for the ban convention on 4 April 2012 (see the Implementing legislation section below).

Sweden’s initial Article 7 report is due by 30 March 2013.

On 15 December 2011, the government introduced ratification legislation to the Swedish Parliament (Riksdag), as well as draft implementation legislation to enforce the convention.[1] The legislative package was referred to the parliamentary Committee on Foreign Affairs for consideration, which issued a report on 23 February 2012 recommending ratification of the convention.[2] Parliament debated the committee’s report on 14 March 2012 and voted in favor of the ratification proposal on 15 March 2012.[3] Sweden deposited its instrument of ratification with the UN in New York on 23 April 2012, becoming the 71^st State Party to the convention. Sweden actively engaged in the Oslo Process that created the Convention on Cluster Munitions and its position changed considerably to support the adoption of the convention in Dublin in May 2008. Sweden decided to sign the convention in Oslo in December 2008, although apparently only after hesitation and deliberation over the cost implications of destroying its stockpile of BK-90 cluster munitions.[4]

Sweden continued to engage in the work of the Convention on Cluster Munitions in 2011 and the first half of 2012. Sweden attended the Second Meeting of States Parties to the Convention on Cluster Munitions in Beirut, Lebanon in September 2011, where it provided an update on ratification. Sweden attended the intersessional meetings of the convention in Geneva in April 2012, where it gave an update on its ratification as well as stockpile destruction.

The Swedish Network Against Cluster Munitions, a group of 10 organizations founded by the Swedish Peace and Arbitration Society in June 2007, conducted outreach in 2011 and 2012 in support of Sweden’s ratification of the convention.[5]

National implementation legislation

Draft implementation legislation was recommended by a 2009 report prepared by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.[6] Law 179, entitled “Penalties for Illicit Dealing with Cluster Munitions,” was approved by the Parliament on 15 March 2012 and enacted on 4 April 2012. [7]

Article 1 of the law contains penalties of imprisonment up to four years (or up to 18 years to life if the offense is considered to be serious) for any person who uses, develops, manufactures, acquires, holds, or transfers cluster munitions. An offense is considered serious if the use of cluster munitions endangers the lives or health of many people. The law applies extraterritorially to all Swedish citizens regardless of where the offense was committed, and to all foreign residents residing within the territory of Sweden. It also applies to natural persons and companies.

The law contains no reference to the ban convention’s prohibition on assistance and does not indicate if foreign stockpiling is also prohibited.

The Foreign Affairs Committee report states that the government should strive to promote universalization of the convention by inviting states not party to join.[8]

Interpretive issues

Sweden has expressed its views on certain important issues related to interpretation and implementation of the convention.

On the prohibition on assistance with prohibited acts in joint military operations, a government report on the convention published in January 2011 states that “Article 21.3 makes clear that States Parties can participate in military cooperation and military operations with states not party to the Convention and which may engage in activities that are prohibited for a State Party. This does not imply any right of States Parties in these situations to violate the obligations of Article 1 of the convention or to explicitly request that cluster munitions shall be used in situations where the State Party has exclusive control over the selection of the munition used.”[9]

The report also noted that in relation to Article 1(1)(c) of the convention on the prohibition of assistance, encouragement, or inducement of any act prohibited by the convention, such acts would be essentially regarded as “incitement” or “complicity” under Chapter 23 of Sweden’s penal code. The report, therefore, holds that no specific domestic regulations are necessary to meet this obligation of the Convention on Cluster Munitions.[10]

The Foreign Affairs Committee report issued on 23 February 2012 and approved by Parliament on 15 March 2012 puts forth the views of the Swedish government on the issues of transit of cluster munitions and investment in cluster munitions production.[11] According to the report, Sweden does not consider the transit of cluster munitions across the territory of States Parties to be prohibited under the convention, but it noted that any allegations or complaints shall be put forward to the national courts for decision.[12]

Sweden has yet to provide its views on the prohibition on foreign stockpiling of cluster munitions.

Disinvestment

The Foreign Affairs Committee report issued on 23 February 2012 and approved by Parliament on 15 March 2012 expresses the Swedish government’s view that the Convention on Cluster Munitions does not prohibit the investment in cluster munitions production.[13] According to the report, Sweden does not see the need for additional legislation prohibiting investment in companies that produce, but it believes it is important that ethical investment strategies are developed.

During the Foreign Affairs Committee review of the ratification legislation package in 2011 and 2012, the Green Party (Miljöpartiet), the Left Party (Vänsterpartiet), and the Social Democrats (Sveriges socialdemokratiska arbetareparti, SAP) submitted several parliamentary motions to prohibit transit and investment, but the motions were rejected by committee members from the major/governing parties. The Green Party and Left Party also put forward a motion calling for increased support for mine clearance and victim assistance.[14]

Since the convention was adopted in May 2008, several Swedish financial institutions have taken action to disinvest from companies involved in the production of cluster munitions. A June 2012 report on worldwide investment in cluster munition production by NGOs IKV Pax Christi and FairFin listed Sweden in its top ten countries with financial institutions ranked in a “hall of fame” for their policies on disinvesting from companies producing cluster munitions.[15]

Previously, in 2008, Swedish state-owned pension fund AP7 announced that it would not permit direct investment in companies developing or producing cluster munitions and nuclear weapons.[16] Swedish pension fund AP1-4 subsequently disinvested from cluster munition producers after the Swedish Ethical Council mandated a screening of companies suspected to be involved in cluster munition production.[17] Swedish pension fund KPA also does not invest in companies producing weapons, including cluster munitions, their delivery platforms, and related components.[18] The Swedish mutual insurance company Folksam has sold its interest in companies that produce or sell cluster munitions.[19] Nordea, the largest financial services group in the Nordic and Baltic Sea regions, excluded cluster munitions producers from its investments in 2009.[20] In 2009, SEB, a Swedish commercial bank and asset manager, decided to stop investing in companies involved in manufacturing or promoting cluster munitions and it has since developed a list of excluded companies and conducts bi-annual screenings.[21]

Convention on Conventional Weapons

Sweden is party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW).

At the outset of the CCW’s Fourth Review Conference in Geneva in November 2011, Sweden acknowledged its status as a member of the Convention on Cluster Munitions and said it is “committed to work to ensure that the ban convention’s norms are universally accepted,” but it also expressed full support for the conclusion of a CCW protocol on cluster munitions. Sweden stated, “[t]hese two tracks are, in our view, not contradictory. A state party to these two international instruments would be bound by the strictest regulations of both.” Sweden also said a CCW protocol on cluster munitions might serve as “a stepping stone” for states to join the Convention on Cluster Munitions.[22]

Sweden was not one of 50 countries that endorsed a joint statement on the final day of the Review Conference declaring that there was no consensus for adopting a proposed CCW protocol that would permit continued use of cluster munitions. The Review Conference ended without reaching agreement on the draft protocol, thus concluding the CCW’s work on cluster munitions.

In a media interview conducted the day after the CCW failed to agree on the cluster munitions protocol, Sweden’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Carl Bildt said that Sweden had supported the effort because a CCW protocol would have had “practical results on the ground” while the Convention on Cluster Munitions “is good from a general moral standpoint” but “has very limited effect in changing the existence of cluster munitions in the world, because practically all countries that are large-scale users are not a part of it.”[23]

Use, production, and transfer

According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “Sweden has never used or transferred cluster munitions as defined in the Convention [on Cluster Munitions].”[24]

Stockpiling and destruction

Under Article 3 of the Convention on Cluster Munitions, Sweden is required to declare and destroy all stockpiled cluster munitions under its jurisdiction or control as soon as possible but not later than 1 October 2020.

The Swedish Air Force stockpiles one type of cluster munition, the Bombkapsel BK-90 Mjölner, which dispenses MJ-1 fragmentation bomblets and MJ-2 anti-armor proximity-fuzed bomblets.[25] The German company LFK was the prime contractor for the BK-90 with participation of SAAB Bofors Dynamics.[26] In January 2010, the Minister of Foreign Affairs stated he was unable to reveal information on the number of BK-90s Sweden has in its stockpiles.[27]

In February 2011, the Swedish Armed Forces instructed the Defense Material Administration (Försvarets Materielverk, FMV) to initiate the process of stockpile destruction.[28] In April 2012, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs official informed the Monitor that the dismantling and destruction process of Sweden’s stockpile of BK-90 cluster munitions was “proceeding according to schedule” and was expected to be completed “no later than 2014.”[29] Sweden has stated on several occasions that it intends to complete destruction of the stockpile by 31 December 2014.[30]

The government’s January 2011 report states that the costs of implementing the convention and the destruction of Sweden’s stockpile of BK-90 cluster munitions will fall within the budget of the armed forces.[31] Previously, in 2008, the Minister of Foreign Affairs stated that it could take up to a decade to destroy its stockpile of BK-90 cluster bombs and that finding a replacement weapons system for the BK-90 could cost a total of approximately SEK500 million (US$76 million).[32]

Sweden also produces and stockpiles the BONUS Sensor Fuzed Weapon, a 155mm artillery projectile with two submunitions. BONUS is not considered a cluster munition under the terms of the Convention on Cluster Munitions because it meets the five technical criteria set out by negotiators as necessary to avoid the negative effects of cluster munitions.[33] BONUS is co-produced in Sweden by BAE Systems Bofors and is in service with the Swedish Armed Forces. French partners include Nexter (formerly GIAT Industries) and Intertechniques SA of Plaisir.[34]

Sweden intends to retain a number of BK-90 cluster munitions for training and educational purposes, but the armed forces had not decided on the quantity as of 15 July 2012.[35]