Bolivia

Last Updated: 12 August 2014

Cluster Munition Ban Policy

Policy

The Plurinational State of Bolivia signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 3 December 2008, ratified on 30 April 2013, and the convention entered into force for the country on 1 October 2013.

It is not known if legislation in addition to the ratification law will be undertaken to ensure implementation of the convention.[1]

As of 27 June 2014, Bolivia had not submitted its initial Convention on Cluster Munitions Article 7 report, originally due by 30 March 2014.

Bolivia participated in several meetings of the Oslo Process that created the convention, including the Dublin negotiations in May 2008.[2]

Bolivia attended meetings on cluster munitions in 2009 and 2010, but it has never attended a Meeting of States Parties to the Convention on Cluster Munitions or intersessional meetings of the convention held in Geneva. It participated in a regional workshop on cluster munitions in Santiago, Chile in December 2013.[3]

Bolivia has not condemned the Syrian government’s use of cluster munitions.

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

Use, production, transfer, and stockpiling

Bolivia is not known to have used, produced, transferred, or stockpiled cluster munitions. In May 2011, Bolivia’s Vice Minister of Defense, General José Luis Prudencio, informed a CMC representative that Bolivia does not have a stockpile of cluster munitions and has never used the weapon.[4]

 



[1] Email from Marcelo Zambrana, Officer in Charge of Security and Defense Issues, Unit for International Organizations, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 16 April 2012.

[2] For details on Bolivia’s policy and practice regarding cluster munitions through early 2009, see Human Rights Watch and Landmine Action, Banning Cluster Munitions: Government Policy and Practice (Ottawa: Mines Action Canada, May 2009), p. 43.

[3] A representative from the Ministry of Defense attended the workshop, but did not make any statements. See list of participants.

[4] Meeting of Centro Zona Minada (Chile) with Gen. José Luis Prudencio, Vice Minister of Defense of Bolivia, La Paz, 23 May 2011.