Policy

The Republic of Argentina has not acceded to the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

During a regional workshop on cluster munitions in Santiago, Chile in December 2013, a representative from Argentina said the concerns raised by Argentina during the 2008 negotiation of the Convention on Cluster Munitions have not dissipated and there has been no change in the government’s position on joining.[1]

Argentina actively participated in the Oslo Process and joined in the consensus adoption of the Convention on Cluster Munitions at the conclusion of the negotiations in Dublin on 30 May 2008, but was absent from the Oslo Signing Conference in December 2008.[2] Officials cite two provisions in the convention that Argentina opposed during the negotiations as among the reasons for being hesitant to join. The first provision that it opposed excludes from the ban those munitions that contain submunitions but may not have the same negative humanitarian effects as cluster munitions.[3] The second provision it opposed is Article 21, which was designed to facilitate “interoperability” (joint military operations with states not party). Argentina continues to view these provisions of the Convention on Cluster Munitions as potential loopholes for ongoing use of cluster munitions.[4]

At the beginning of the Oslo Process, Argentina supported technical solutions to the cluster munition problem, noting that it was developing a new generation of cluster munitions with low failure rates.[5] It supported a definition that would exempt cluster munitions with submunitions that have self-destruct mechanisms.[6] This position evolved into support of a broad definition prohibiting all cluster munitions, and a total ban without exceptions.[7]

Argentine officials have stressed that the government is “firmly opposed” to the use, transfer, and production of cluster munitions,[8] and supportive of a ban on cluster munitions.[9]

Argentina has continued to participate in the Convention on Cluster Munitions. It has attended all of the convention’s annual meetings as an observer, including the Fourth Meeting of States Parties in Lusaka in September 2013, but did not make any statements at these meetings. Argentina participated in every intersessional meeting of the convention in Geneva including in April 2014, but has not made any statements since the 2011 meeting.

Argentina participated in a regional workshop on cluster munitions in Santiago, Chile in December 2013.

Argentina voted in favor of UN General Assembly (UNGA) 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.”[10]

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

Local NGO Association for Public Policy (Asociación Para Politicas Publicas, APP) is campaigning for Argentina to join the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

Use, production, transfer, and stockpiling

Argentina is not known to have ever used or exported cluster munitions, and does not currently produce or stockpile them. In the past, it imported and stockpiled cluster munitions, and had the beginnings of a production program.

In March 2009, Argentina stated, “At present, the Republic of Argentina doesn’t have cluster munitions, it hasn’t utilized or transferred them.”[11] The government has said it has no intention to produce cluster munitions in the future.[12]

In the past, the Armed Forces Center for Technical and Scientific Research (Centro de Investigaciones Técnicas y Científicas de las Fuerzas Armadas, CITEFA) developed and initiated production of the CME 155mm artillery projectile, which contains 63 dual purpose improved conventional munition (DPICM) submunitions equipped with a backup pyrotechnic self-destruct mechanism.[13] According to military officials, this effort did not reach full-scale production and was dismantled, and the projectiles were never fielded by the armed forces of Argentina.[14]

Argentina said in May 2007 that it had already destroyed its stocks of cluster munitions.[15] Military officials informed Human Rights Watch (HRW) in September 2006 that stocks of French BLG-66 Belouga and US Rockeye air-dropped bombs were destroyed by 2005.[16]