The Czech Republic signed the Mine Ban Treaty on 3 December 1997 and ratified it on 26 October 1999, becoming a State Party on 1 April 2000. The former Czechoslovakia produced and exported antipersonnel mines. Production ceased in 1989 and a transfer moratorium was enacted in 1994. National implementation legislation entered into force on 3 December 1999 and the criminal code was amended to provide penal sanctions for violations of the treaty. In 2012, the Czech Republic submitted its 14^th Mine Ban Treaty Article 7 report.

The Czech Republic completed destruction of its stockpile of 324,412 antipersonnel mines on 15 June 2001, far in advance of its 1 April 2004 treaty-mandated destruction deadline. The Czech Republic initially retained 4,849 mines for training and development purposes, which was reduced to 2,443 by 2012.[1]

The Czech Republic attended the Eleventh Meeting of States Parties in Geneva in November–December 2011 and the intersessional Standing Committee meetings in Geneva in May 2012. In December 2011, the Czech Republic voted in favor of UN General Assembly resolution 66/29 on antipersonnel mines.

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

The Czech Republic has no known mined areas, but unexploded ordnance (UXO) from World War II are still found. In 2004, the Czech Republic finished clearing two military areas contaminated by World War II UXO.

Commitment to the Convention on Cluster Munitions

Policy

The Czech Republic signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 3 December 2008, ratified on 22 September 2011, and the convention entered into force for the country on 1 March 2012.

Law No. 213 on the Prohibition of the Use, Development, Production, and Transfer of Cluster Munitions and their Destruction, which took effect on 1 March 2012, serves as the Czech Republic’s implementing legislation for the convention.[1] The legislation does not include penal sanctions for violations as provisions of the general Criminal Code of the Czech Republic apply instead.[2]

The Czech Republic submitted its initial Article 7 transparency report for the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 28 August 2012 and provided updated annual reports in 2013 and on 30 April 2014.[3]

The Czech Republic participated in the Oslo Process that created the Convention on Cluster Munitions and its position evolved over time to support the comprehensive prohibition on cluster munitions.[4]

The Czech Republic has continued to actively engage in the work of the Convention on Cluster Munitions. It has attended every Meeting of States Parties of the convention, including the Fourth Meeting of States Parties in Lusaka, Zambia in September 2013. It has attended all of the convention’s intersessional meetings in Geneva, with the exception of those held in April 2014.

At the Fourth Meeting of States Parties, the Czech Republic described its efforts to promote the universalization of the convention, including through its bilateral consultations with neighboring countries and countries that the Czech Republic considers “high foreign policy priorities.”[5]

In relation to the ongoing use of cluster munitions by the Syrian government forces, in September 2013 the Czech Republic said it had co-sponsored UN General Assembly (UNGA) resolution 67/262, adopted on 15 May 2013, which strongly condemns “the use by the Syrian authorities of…cluster munitions.”[6] On 18 December 2013, the Czech Republic voted in favor of another UNGA Resolution 68/192, which expressed “outrage” at Syria’s “continued widespread and systematic gross violations of human rights…including those involving the use of…cluster munitions.”[7]

The Czech Republic is a State Party to the Mine Ban Treaty. It is also party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons.

Interpretive issues

The Czech Republic has provided its views on a number of important issues related to interpretation and implementation of the Convention on Cluster Munitions, including the prohibition on assistance during joint military operations with states not party that may use cluster munitions, the prohibition on transit of cluster munitions, the prohibition on foreign stockpiling of cluster munitions, and the prohibition on investment in production of cluster munitions.

According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Czech Republic considers that assistance with prohibited acts in joint military operations prohibited under the convention and any assistance with states not party during joint operations “shall not go beyond Article 21 together with Article 1 of the Convention.” The Czech Republic believes that “the transit of cluster munitions across the territory of the Czech Republic as well as the stockpiling of foreign cluster munitions on the territory of the Czech Republic is prohibited by the Convention.” The ministry also expressed the Czech Republic’s view that under the Convention on Cluster Munitions, “investment in the production of cluster munitions is prohibited.”[8]

Use, production, and transfer

The Czech Republic has stated that it “has never used any cluster munitions in military operations.”[9] It has formally declared the “Czech Republic has no production facilities for cluster munitions.”[10]

Stockpiling and destruction

The Czech Republic once possessed a stockpile consisting of 191 RBK-500 cluster bombs containing PTAB-2.5, AO-10, and AO-2.5RT submunitions and 289 BFK cartridges (also called “blocks”) containing AO-2.5RT, and PTAB-2.5 submunitions for KMG-U dispensers, as well as 16,400 individual submunitions of five types.[11] The stockpile was completely destroyed in 2010—prior to entry into force of the convention for the Czech Republic.[12]

Cluster munitions destroyed by the Czech Republic[13]

All cluster munitions were removed from operational stockpiles in 2006 and the stockpile was destroyed between 2007 and 2010 by the Czech Army at military bases as well as by civilian commercial contracting partners at facilities in the Czech Republic. The initial Article 7 report provides a detailed listing of the types of cluster munitions and the dates, locations, and methods of destruction use.[14]

Retention

The Czech Republic’s national law allows the army to retain explosive submunitions for training purposes as permitted under Article 3 of the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

In its April 2014 Article 7 report, the Czech Republic declared the retention of a total of 100 explosive submunitions for training and research purposes as permitted under the convention as of 31 December 2013.[15] It has stated that these submunitions have “no air or surface-fired means of delivery.”[16]

The 100 submunitions the Czech Republic has retained for training represent a small fraction of the 796 submunitions that it said initially in November 2010 would be retained for training explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) personnel. The number of submunitions consumed over the course of training has fallen from 796 submunitions in November 2010, to 653 in May 2011, to 461 in May 2012, to 293 in December 2012, and to 100 in December 2013.[17] The Czech Republic reported using 193 submunitions for the training of its armed forces in cluster munitions detection and clearance techniques in 2013.[18]