Commitment to the Convention on Cluster Munitions

Policy

The Republic of Montenegro signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 3 December 2008 and ratified on 25 January 2010. It was among the first 30 ratifications that triggered the convention’s entry into force on 1 August 2010.

Montenegro has declared that its existing legislation is sufficient to implement the convention.[1] According to Article 9 of the country’s constitution, international treaties ratified by Montenegro are an “integral part of the domestic legislation, and have supremacy over domestic legislation and are directly implemented when dealing with issues differently than domestic legislation.”[2]

Montenegro submitted its initial Article 7 report for the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 27 January 2011 and provided its annual updated Article 7 report on 31 March 2013.[3]

Montenegro participated actively in the Oslo Process that led to the creation of the Convention on Cluster Munitions.[4] Since 2008, it has continued to engage in the work of the convention. Montenegro attended the convention’s Third Meeting of States Parties in Oslo, Norway in September 2012. It participated in the intersessional meetings of the convention in Geneva in April 2013, where it made a statement on clearance and risk reduction. Montenegro also participated in a regional workshop on implementation of the Convention on Cluster Munitions held in Skopje, FYR Macedonia in May 2013.[5]

At the UN General Assembly (UNGA) First Committee on Disarmament and International Security in October 2012, Montenegro reaffirmed its commitment to the universalization and full implementation of the Convention on Cluster Munitions.[6]

Montenegro has not made a national statement to express concern at Syria’s cluster munition use, but it voted in favor of a UNGA resolution on 15 May 2013 that strongly condemned “the use by the Syrian authorities of...cluster munitions.”[7]

Interpretive issues

Montenegro has expressed its views on a number of important issues relating to the interpretation and implementation of the convention. On the issue of the prohibition on assistance with prohibited acts in joint military operations with states not party, Montenegro has elaborated its understanding that “the participation in the planning or conducting of operations, exercises or any other military activities by the armed forces of Montenegro, or by any of its nationals, if carried out in conjunction with armed forces of the non-State Parties to the Convention on Cluster Munitions, which engage in activities prohibited under the Convention, does not in any way imply an assistance, encouragement or inducement as referred to in subparagraph 1(c) of the Convention.”[8] Montenegro has also stated that it “does not intend to invest in the production of cluster munitions.”[9] Montenegro has not yet expressed its views on the matters of foreign stockpiling or transit of cluster munitions.

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

Use, production, and transfer

Montenegro is not known to have used cluster munitions, but cluster munitions were used by NATO forces in air strikes on Serbian and Montenegrin military positions during the Kosovo conflict in 1999.

Recently, evidence emerged of Yugoslav army use of cluster munitions on Montenegrin territory in 1999. In November 2012, a long-standing court case awarded €85,000 in compensation to the Dacić family, whose son, Senad, was killed in the village of Besnik, near the Kosovo border, on 26 March 1999, a day after BL755 bombs were used in the area around Besnik and the neighboring village of Njegusi. The government had claimed the bombs were dropped by NATO aircraft, but written evidence submitted by the Ministry of the Interior Court, as well as the testimony of former police chief Šemsa Dedeić, unequivocally established that the bombs were dropped by planes of the Yugoslav Armed Forces. According to Dedeić, the pilots were supposed to drop the payloads in Kosovo, but they were ordered back and dumped the munitions before they returned.[10]

Montenegro has declared that there are no cluster munition production facilities in the country.[11]

Stockpiling and destruction

Montenegro inherited a stockpile of BL755 cluster bombs upon the dissolution of Serbia and Montenegro.[12] On 5 October 2010, Montenegro completed the destruction of its entire stockpile of 353 BL755 cluster bombs containing a total of 51,891 Mk1 submunitions. The stockpile was dismantled and then destroyed over a two-year period at facilities near the town of Nikšićas as part of a technical agreement with the United States for the disposal of surplus weapons and ammunition.[13]

Montenegro has not retained any cluster munitions for training and research purposes.[14] Montenegro has said it has no intention of retaining cluster munitions.[15]