Commitment to the Convention on Cluster Munitions

Policy

The Republic of Nicaragua signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 3 December 2008 and ratified on 2 November 2009. It was thus among the first 30 ratifications that triggered the convention’s entry into force on 1 August 2010.

Nicaragua submitted its initial Convention on Cluster Munitions Article 7 report on 28 April 2011, for the period from 1 August 2010 to 28 April 2011. Under national implementation measures, Nicaragua lists the 2009 decree approving ratification of the convention.[1] In May 2011, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs official informed the Monitor that Nicaragua has taken “legal and administrative measures at the national level” to implement the convention, which it notes has legal effect both “in and out of Nicaragua.”[2] In addition, the Arms, Ammunition and Explosives Act (Law 510) includes a prohibition of cluster munitions and Nicaragua’s Penal Code “provides for a series of restrictive norms and prohibitions regarding the use of such munitions.”[3]

Nicaragua played an active and positive role in the Oslo Process that created the convention.[4] Nicaragua continued to show strong interest in the convention in 2010 and 2011. It attended the First Meeting of States Parties to the Convention on Cluster Munitions in Vientiane, Lao PDR in November 2010, but did not make any statements. Nicaragua did not attend intersessional meetings of the convention in Geneva in June 2011.

In a May 2011 response to the Monitor, Nicaragua made known its views on important issues related to interpretation and implementation of the convention. In relation to military cooperation by States Parties, Nicaragua “considers that assistance in prohibited acts performed in joint military operations is not permitted to the States Parties.” On the prohibition on transit, Nicaragua said that the convention states that States Parties may not “assist, encourage or induce anyone to engage in any activity prohibited to a State Party,” including transfer.[5]

Nicaragua has not made its views known on the need for retention of cluster munitions and submunitions for training and development purposes.

Nicaragua is party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) and its Protocol V on explosive remnants of war. It has not engaged in the CCW deliberations on cluster munitions in recent years.

Use, production, transfer, and stockpiling

The Article 7 report states that, “the government of Nicaragua does not use, develop, produce, acquire, stockpile, retain or transfer cluster munitions.”[6] Nicaragua has stated on several occasions that it has never used, produced, or stockpiled cluster munitions.[7]