Commitment to the Convention on Cluster Munitions

Policy

The Portuguese Republic signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 3 December 2008, ratified on 9 March 2011, and the convention entered into force for the country on 1 September 2011.

The Constitution of the Portuguese Republic is viewed by the government as binding Portugal’s adherence to the Convention on Cluster Munitions and the ban convention’s provisions are deemed “self-executing.”[1] In its Article 7 reports, Portugal has also declared that Law 37/2011 adopted 22 June 2011 allows for “a more efficient supervision and control of activities regarding the transfer and circulation of defense-related products.”[2] The law primarily sets up a licensing regime for the transfer of defense-related items, however, and does not explicitly refer to cluster munitions.[3]

Portugal submitted its initial Article 7 transparency report for the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 4 April 2012 and provided annual updated reports in 2013 and on 1 April 2014.[4]

Portugal participated in the Oslo Process that created the Convention on Cluster Munitions and made substantial contributions throughout, including at the negotiations in Dublin in May 2008.[5] It was one of the few countries that completed destroying its entire stockpile of cluster munitions prior to ratifying the convention.[6]

Portugal has continued to contribute substantively to the work of the convention. 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. It has also attended the convention’s intersessional meetings in Geneva, including those held in April 2014.

Portugal served as co-coordinator on universalization in 2011–2013, at first with Japan and then Ghana. At the Fourth Meeting of States Parties, Portugal reported on joint efforts taken over the past two years to promote the convention’s universalization and appealed to all States Parties to renew efforts to achieve full universalization.[7] The work included 113 demarches to states not party promoting universalization of the ban convention.[8] Portugal has committed “to do its utmost to promote” universalization of the Convention on Cluster Munitions.[9]

Portugal has condemned the ongoing use of cluster munitions by Syria on a number of occasions since November 2012.[10] At the UN General Assembly (UNGA) First Committee on Disarmament and International Security in October 2013, Portugal said, “Recent reports on the use of cluster munitions in Syria are very alarming, and cast a gloomy shadow over the prospects of an already deeply embattled population. Portugal strongly condemns the use of these weapons and urges all parties involved to refrain from their use.”[11] In September 2013, its representative informed States Parties that “Portugal is appalled by recent reports of the use of cluster munitions…by the Syrian authorities in the ongoing conflict, which is bound to prolong the humanitarian consequences in years to come” and called on Syria to “refrain to deepen the suffering of its civilian population and not to use such weapons.”[12]

Portugal has voted in favor of recent UNGA resolutions condemning the Syrian government’s cluster munition use, 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.”[13]

Interpretive issues

Portugal has expressed its views on some of the issues that are important to the interpretation and implementation of the convention text regarding the prohibition on assistance with prohibited acts, particularly during joint military operations with states not party (interoperability). Portugal has stated that it will not use cluster munitions, “regardless of what country might be commanding military forces.”[14] While it supported the inclusion of a provision on interoperability during the negotiations of the convention, Portugal argued that it should not weaken the convention in any way and stated that future States Parties would have a duty to convince others not to use cluster munitions.[15]

Portugal has also stated, “It is the Portuguese view that the Convention does not unequivocally exclude the possibility of foreign stockpiling of cluster munitions on, or the transit of this type of armament across the national territory of a State Party. In the latter case, the transit could be authorized once it does not represent a transfer under the definition established in Article 2 of the Convention; in other words, only in the circumstance when the cluster munitions in transit are to remain under the control of the same non State Party that requested the passage.”[16]

Portugal has yet to provide its view on the prohibition on investment in cluster munition production.[17]

Portugal is party to the Mine Ban Treaty. It is also party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons.

Use, production, transfer, and stockpiling

Portugal has stated it has never produced or transferred cluster munitions, and has never used cluster munitions “except for the purpose of training our Armed Forces.”[18]

Portugal’s stockpile of 11 BL-755 cluster bombs containing a total of 1,617 Mk-1 submunitions was destroyed by the Portuguese company Desmilitarização è Defesa, SA in January and April 2011.[19]

Portugal destroyed its entire stockpile of cluster munitions in 2011 and has committed not to acquire cluster munitions ever again, including for training and research purposes.[20]