Commitment to the Convention on Cluster Munitions

Policy

The Swiss Confederation signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 3 December 2008, ratified on 17 July 2012, and the convention entered into force for the country on 1 January 2013.

Switzerland’s 1996 Federal Law on War Material was amended on 1 February 2013 to provide for penal sanctions and fines to enforce the provisions of the Convention on Cluster Munitions.[1] Switzerland has also declared that the Criminal Procedure Code was also amended in line with the Federal Act on War Material in 2013. Further to these legal measures, the Chief of the Armed Forces issued a directive effective 1 June 2013 “that regulates and adapts military instruction of artillery, as well as the technical amendments to artillery systems and simulators.”[2]

Switzerland submitted its initial Article 7 transparency report for the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 30 June 2013 and provided an updated annual report on 30 April 2014.[3]

Switzerland was among the first countries to propose international action on cluster munitions. During the Oslo Process that produced the convention, Switzerland’s position shifted to fully endorse the comprehensive prohibition of cluster munitions.[4]

Switzerland has continued to actively engage in the work of the Convention on Cluster Munitions since 2008. It has participated in every Meeting of States Parties of the convention, including the Fourth Meeting of States Parties in Lusaka, Zambia in September 2013, where it made several statements, including international cooperation and assistance, clearance, and stockpile destruction. Switzerland has attended all of the convention’s intersessional meetings in Geneva including those held in April 2014, where it made a number of statements including on stockpile destruction and international cooperation and assistance.

In September 2013, Switzerland was made co-coordinator of the convention’s work on clearance and risk education together with Lao PDR.

In September 2013, Switzerland told States Parties that “it is clear that the universalisation is one of the major challenges of this convention, for which we need to remain fully and steadily engaged.” It noted that “The credibility of the Convention depends, among others, on the universalisation, but also on the concrete implementation, which will lead to positive changes in the life of the affected populations.”[5]

Switzerland was one of the first states to acknowledge and respond to reports of cluster munition use in Syria in October 2012, with a national statement and an intervention at the UN General Assembly (UNGA) First Committee on Disarmament and International Security.[6] In September 2013, Switzerland expressed its regret that “cluster munitions are still used in conflict settings” and said that “recent conflicts show, especially in Syria: the victims of cluster munitions are in dire need of our full support.”[7] At the UNGA First Committee on Disarmament and International Security in October 2013, its representative stated that “Switzerland is deeply concerned about the use of cluster munitions and antipersonnel landmines in Syria” and said “it is essential that all parties to the conflict abide by their obligations under international law.”[8] Switzerland has voted in favor of recent UNGA resolutions condemning the Syrian 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.”[9]

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

Interpretive issues

During the Dublin negotiations of the ban convention, Switzerland chaired challenging informal sessions on “interoperability” (joint military operations with states not party) that resulted in Article 21, a provision that the CMC has criticized as the worst element of the convention.[10]

In an October 2010 explanatory report on the convention, the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs noted that the concepts of assistance or encouragement that are contained in the Convention on Cluster Munitions are not defined in Swiss law or other international law. On the prohibition on assistance with prohibited acts in joint military operations, the report stated the Federal Council’s view that, under the convention, Switzerland cannot ask its allies to use cluster munitions in the framework of joint military operations, provided that the choice of munitions used is under its exclusive control.[11]

Switzerland’s 2013 amendment to the Federal Law on War Material prohibits the direct financing of the development, manufacture, or acquisition of cluster munitions.[12] The indirect financing of these activities is also prohibited, but with a clause stipulating “if the intention is to bypass the prohibition on direct financing.”[13] NGOs PAX (formerly IKV Pax Christi) and FairFin have expressed concern that the wording of the amendment prohibiting indirect investment would “constitute a major exception to the prohibition” and noted that the amendments did not set criteria to identify which companies are involved in the development, manufacturing, or acquisition of cluster munitions.[14]

In 2011, Credit Suisse announced the enactment of a policy that excludes companies producing cluster munitions and mines from its credit, investment banking, and asset management activities.[15]

In their updated 2013 report on worldwide investment in cluster munitions, IKV Pax Christi (PAX) and FairFin listed several Swiss financial institutions that they identified as investing in cluster munitions producers.[16] According to the report, Swiss financial institution Vontobel has enacted guidelines on investment in cluster munitions producers.[17]

In February 2013, the Swiss bank UBS announced that further to the entry into force of Switzerland’s implementation legislation for the Convention on Cluster Munitions, it had decided that it “will not provide credit facilities, capital market transactions as well as buying and holding equity and/or bonds (including derivatives) of companies that are involved in the development, production or purchase of these controversial weapons.”[18]

Use, production, and transfer

Switzerland has never used or exported cluster munitions.[19] The Article 7 reports declare that the “Swiss Armed Forces have never fired cluster munitions in Switzerland, also not for training purposes.”[20]

Switzerland imported cluster munitions from Israel and the United Kingdom.[21]

Under the status and progress of programs for the conversion or decommissioning of production facilities, Switzerland’s initial Article 7 report stated that “Switzerland never had production facilities of cluster munitions as such. As indicated during the ratification process, according to a license agreement with the manufacturer, the munitions were purchased abroad and enterprises based in Switzerland (nowadays RUAG Munitions), after adding specific features to increase the reliability of the ammunitions, reassembled them exclusively for the Swiss Armed Forces.”[22]

Initially, in 2007, Switzerland stated that it “stopped the production of cluster munitions in 2003.”[23] However, in 2009 Switzerland issued the clarification later provided in the Article 7 report that it “did never per se produce cluster munitions” because “according to a license agreement with the manufacturer, the munitions were purchased abroad and enterprises based in Switzerland, after adding specific features to increase the reliability of the ammunitions, reassembled them (exclusively for the Swiss Armed Forces).” According to the clarification, “This process ended in the last quarter of 2004. Since then, no further treatment or assembly of cluster munitions has taken place in Switzerland.”[24]

In 2012, Switzerland informed States Parties that the 120mm and 155mm cluster munition projectiles containing M85 self-destructing submunitions were purchased during arms procurement programs in 1988, 1991, 1993, and 1999.[25] Swiss military officials previously informed Human Rights Watch (HRW) that 155mm artillery projectiles and 120mm mortar bombs with M85-type[26] submunitions were imported from Israel Military Industries and Swiss firms then modified (“Helveticized”) the submunitions’ safeguards and reassembled the weapons.[27]

Switzerland purchased DM702 SMArt-155 sensor-fuzed weapons from Germany as part of its 2001 Armament Program.[28] The SMArt 155 artillery round contains two submunitions, but it is not considered a cluster munition under the Convention on Cluster Munitions because it meets the five technical criteria set out by negotiators as necessary to avoid the negative effects of cluster munitions.[29]

Stockpiling

Switzerland once stockpiled a total of 205,894 cluster munitions and 12,203,035 submunitions.

In the initial Article 7 report, Switzerland declared a stockpile comprised of 201,895 cluster munitions and 11,615,282 submunitions, as shown in the following table. Four types of projectiles (projectiles cargos pour l’artillerie à tube) are stockpiled and all possess modified M85-type self-destructing submunitions used with the 155mm M-109 and M-109 Kawest self-propelled howitzers, 155mm Bison fortress cannons, and 120mm fortress mortars.[30] Switzerland has confirmed that the cluster munitions have been separated from stocks of operational weapons and “there is no possibility anymore for the troops of the Armed Forces to engage cluster munitions.”[31]

Switzerland has also formally declared that 3,999 cluster bombs (Fliegerbombe 79) and 587,853 BL755 Mk1 submunitions held by the Swiss Air Force were destroyed between 1997 and 2000.[32]

Cluster munition stockpiled by Switzerland (as of June 2013)[33]

Stockpile destruction

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

In April 2014, Switzerland reported that physical destruction of the stockpile began in December 2013 and the plan is to complete the destruction process in 2018.[34] It declared the destruction of 684 155mm KaG-88 cluster munitions and 43,092 submunitions as of 31 December 2013.[35]

In July 2013, the Federal Department of Defence, Civil Protection and Sport and Armasuisse, the government’s arms procurement agency, announced that Switzerland’s stockpile destruction contract had been awarded to Nammo Buck GmbH and the cluster munitions would be transferred to Germany for destruction at the company’s facilities in Pinnow. In April 2014, Switzerland listed Nammo NAD AS in Norway as a partner in the stockpile destruction process.[36]

According to the 2014 Article 7 report, the 122mm cargo projectiles are being destroyed by Nammo NAD AS in Norway, while “all models” of the 155mm cargo projectiles are being destroyed by Nammo Buck GmbH in Germany.[37] The 122mm cargo projectiles are being destroyed by controlled closed underground detonation, while destruction of the 155mm cargo projectiles involves the removal of the ejection charge, separation of submunitions, and destruction of the metal parts, pyrotechnics, and explosives.[38]

In 2013, Switzerland announced that a total of CHF40 million had been allocated for the stockpile destruction.[39] Previously, in 2012, it estimated the total cost of destruction at CHF25–35 million (€20–29 million).[40]

Retention

The amendments to the Law on War Material allow for the retention of cluster munitions for training and research purposes, but state that the number retained should not exceed that absolutely necessary for these purposes.[41]

In its initial Article 7 report, Switzerland declared the retention of 138 cluster munitions and 7,346 submunitions, as shown in the following table.

Cluster munitions retained by Switzerland (as of April 2014)[42]

None of these cluster munitions were consumed in training or research during 2013.[43]

Switzerland has listed the planned uses for the retained cluster munitions as: “Development of and training in cluster munition and explosive submunition detection, clearance or destruction techniques (by the Swiss EOD [explosive ordnance disposal] Centre); development of cluster munition counter-measures.” It emphasized that “the numbers [of retained cluster munitions provided in the report] refer to the *planned* retention of cluster munitions and submunitions.”[44]