The Republic of Lithuania signed the Mine Ban Treaty on 22 February 1999 and ratified it on 12 May 2003, becoming a State Party on 1 November 2003. Production and import/export of antipersonnel mines have not been licensed since 1990, and an export moratorium has been in place since 1998. Lithuania states that its law provides for the imposition of penal sanctions as required by the treaty. On 30 March 2012, Lithuania submitted its 10th Mine Ban Treaty Article 7 report.

Lithuania completed destruction of its stockpile of 4,104 antipersonnel mines on 7 June 2004. Lithuania retained 1,488 mines for training purposes by the end of 2011.[1] However, as in previous years, Lithuania did not report the purpose of the mines retained for training.

Lithuania attended the Mine Ban Treaty intersessional Standing Committee meetings in May 2012. Previously, Lithuania served as co-rapporteur and later co-chair of the Standing Committee on Stockpile Destruction from 2006-2009. In November-December 2010, Lithuania attended the Tenth Meeting of States Parties to the Mine Ban Treaty in Geneva, but did not attend the Eleventh Meeting of States Parties the following year in Phnom Penh.

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

Lithuania is contaminated by unexploded ordnance from World War II but there are no known mined areas.

Policy

The Republic of Lithuania signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 3 December 2008, ratified on 24March 2011, and the convention entered into force for the country on 1 September 2011.

Under national implementation measures, Lithuania has declared its 2010 ratification law and the Criminal Code of 26 September 2000.[1] A Ministry of Foreign Affairs official informed the Monitor in 2011 that international treaties are applied directly under Lithuania’s legal system so specific implementation legislation is not necessary for the Convention on Cluster Munitions.[2]

Lithuania submitted a voluntary Article 7 transparency report for the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 30 March 2010 and provided annual updated reports in 2012, 2013, and on 25 March 2014.[3]

Lithuania actively participated in the Oslo Process that created the convention.[4]

Since 2008, Lithuania has continued to engage in the work of the Convention on Cluster Munitions. It participated in the convention’s Meeting of States Parties in 2011 and 2012, but did not attend the Fourth Meeting of States Parties in Lusaka, Zambia in September 2013. Lithuania attended intersessional meetings of the convention in Geneva in 2011, 2012, and 2013, but did not attend those held in April 2014.

At the UN General Assembly (UNGA) First Committee on Disarmament and International Security in October 2013, Lithuania expressed its support for the comprehensive ban on cluster bombs that is provided by the Convention on Cluster Munitions.[5] Lithuania also condemned the use of cluster munitions, stating that it was “deeply concerned about their use, including recent reported attacks against civilians in Syria.”[6]

Lithuania has voted in favor of recent UNGA resolutions condemning the Syrian government’s cluster munition use, including Resolution 68/182 on 18 December 2013, which expressed “outrage” at Syria’s “continued widespread and systematic gross violations of human rights…including those involving the use of…cluster munitions.”[7] Lithuania, as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council, endorsed Security Council Resolution 2155 on 27 May 2014, which expressed concern at the use of cluster munitions in South Sudan and called for “all parties to refrain from similar such use in the future.”[8]

During the Oslo Process, Lithuania supported the inclusion of provisions on interoperability (joint military operations with states not party), but in the period since it has not expressed its views on assistance with acts prohibited by the convention or other important interpretive matters, such as the transit of cluster munitions through, and foreign stockpiling of cluster munitions on, the national territory of States Parties, and investment in production of cluster munitions.[9]

Lithuania is a State Party to the Mine Ban Treaty. It is party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons.

Use, production, transfer, and stockpiling

Lithuania has declared that it “does not possess cluster munitions and has never produced, used, stockpiled or transferred such weapons in the past.”[10]

In 2012, the Republic of Lithuania contributed US$9,687 in mine action funding to the UN Mine Action Service through the UN Voluntary Trust Fund for Afghanistan and to the Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Demining.[1] This represents a significant decrease from 2011 when Lithuania contributed $42,967.

Summary of contributions: 2008–2012[2]