Commitment to the Convention on Cluster Munitions

Policy

The Republic of Peru signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 3 December 2008, ratified on 26 September 2012, and the convention entered into force for the country on 1 March 2013.

Under national implementation measures, Peru has declared its ratification law as well as a 10 June 2011 directive on the standardization of weapon disposal procedures.[1] It is not known if Peru will enact specific legislation to enforce the provisions of the convention.

Peru submitted its initial Article 7 transparency report for the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 1 August 2013 and provided an annual updated report on 7 May 2014.[2] As one of the small core group of nations that took responsibility for the Oslo Process that created the Convention on Cluster Munitions, Peru hosted an international conference on cluster munitions in Lima in May 2007.[3]

Peru has continued to engage in the work of the Convention on Cluster Munitions. It has participated in every Meeting of States Parties of the convention, except the Fourth Meeting of States Parties in Lusaka, Zambia in September 2013. Peru has attended all of the convention’s intersessional meetings in Geneva, including in April 2014. Peru attended a regional workshop on cluster munitions in Santiago, Chile in December 2013.

Peru has voted in favor of recent UN General Assembly (UNGA) resolutions condemning the Syrian’s government’s use of cluster munitions, 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.”[4]

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

Use, production, and transfer

Peru is not known to have ever used, produced, or exported cluster munitions.

Stockpiling and destruction

In the initial Article 7 report provided in August 2013, Peru declared a stockpile of 675 cluster munitions of three types and 86,200 submunitions, as listed in the following table.[5]

Cluster munitions stockpiled by Peru (August 2013)[6]

Previously, in May 2007, Peru’s Minister of Defense publicly disclosed that the Peruvian Air Force possesses stocks of BME-330 cluster bombs of Spanish origin and RBK-500 cluster bombs of Russian/Soviet origin as well as CB-470 cluster bombs of South African origin.[7]

Under Article 3 of the Convention on Cluster Munitions, Peru is required to declare and destroy all stockpiled cluster munitions under its jurisdiction and control as soon as possible but not later than 1 March 2021.

In April 2014, Peru expressed its commitment to destroy the stockpile by the deadline provided by the convention and said it has requested international cooperation and assistance from countries that have undergone a similar process, as well as support from regional and international organizations and NGOs.[8] Peru stated that it is studying the resource needs for the planned destruction of the stockpiled cluster munitions.

In the 2013 Article 7 report, Peru states that it is committed to begin the process of stockpile destruction, in accordance with existing national regulations and lists the Peruvian Air Force as the institution responsible for the stockpiled cluster munitions and their destruction.[9]

Retention

In the 2013 Article 7 report, Peru declared no cluster munitions or submunitions retained for training.[10] Previously, it expressed its intent to retain cluster munitions for the purposes of training in detection, clearance, and destruction techniques, but said it had not yet identified the number of cluster munitions or submunitions to be retained.[11]