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The use of cluster munitions has caused civilian harm in several countries in 2015. In Ukraine, Ivan Fedorovich, 83, holds fragments that wounded his hand and stomach during a cluster munition attack on Hrodivka on February 10. © 2015 Human Rights Watch

(Washington, DC) – Slovakia acceded to the Convention on Cluster Munitions on July 24, 2015, ahead of a key international meeting of the treaty. The accession is especially significant because Slovakia previously manufactured and exported cluster munitions, Human Rights Watch said today.

“Slovakia’s accession should spur other nations that haven’t joined the treaty to take a fresh look at why getting rid of cluster munitions is the right thing to do,” said Steve Goose, arms director at Human Rights Watch and chair of the Cluster Munition Coalition.

Cluster munitions pose an immediate threat to civilians by scattering submunitions or bomblets over a wide area. They continue to pose a threat after a conflict ends by leaving remnants, including submunitions, that fail to explode upon impact and become de facto landmines.

Slovakia deposited its instrument of accession to the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions with the United Nations in New York on July 24, becoming the 117th country to sign or accede. The convention comprehensively bans cluster munitions, and requires destruction of stockpiles as well as clearance of cluster munition remnants and assistance to victims of the weapons.

The convention’s First Review Conference will be hosted by Croatia in Dubrovnik on September 7-11, 2015.

Slovakia participated throughout the Oslo Process that created the Convention on Cluster Munitions, but repeatedly expressed its opposition to a categorical ban on the weapons. Its decision to join the treaty came in January 2014 when the government adopted a draft action plan committing to begin the process of accession with the aim of depositing the instrument by June 30, 2015. The plan included an explanatory note that found “it is undoubtedly beneficial and appropriate to accede to the convention” not least because of the “strong normative impact” created by the Convention on Cluster Munitions and pressure to join it from nongovernmental organizations.
 

Slovakia’s accession should spur other nations that haven’t joined the treaty to take a fresh look at why getting rid of cluster munitions is the right thing to do.
Steve Goose

Arms director at Human Rights Watch and chair of the Cluster Munition Coalition

Slovakia is not known to have ever used cluster munitions, but it produced, exported, and imported cluster munitions in the past and has a stockpile. Slovakia had previously cited economic concerns as a reason preventing it from joining the Convention on Cluster Munitions, but the explanatory note concluded that any “possible further export activities of cluster munitions can seriously damage the reputation of the foreign policy of the Slovak Republic” and found “it is clear that under the influence of the convention, the markets for trading in banned cluster munitions will increasingly narrow and investment in this area will have little prospect.”

Slovakia has declared a stockpile of 899 cluster munitions containing thousands of explosive submunitions. The Ministry of Defense is responsible for ensuring the destruction of Slovakia’s stockpile of cluster munitions using a budget prepared by the Ministry of Finance. In an April 16, 2015 letter, Slovakia’s Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs informed Human Rights Watch that destruction of the cluster munition stocks has already started and should be completed well within the eight-year stockpile destruction deadline required by the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

“Slovakia’s accession underscores the urgent need for all nations to join, especially its European neighbors,” Goose said. “The best way to protest civilian harm from the use of cluster munitions in Syria, Ukraine, and elsewhere is to embrace and reinforce international law banning their use.”

Cluster munitions have been used in more than 30 countries since the end of World War II, including in the former Yugoslavia (Bosnia, Croatia, Serbia, and Kosovo) in the late 1990s and in 2000. In 2015, Human Rights Watch has reported credible evidence of the use of cluster munitions in Libya, Sudan, Syria, Ukraine, and Yemen. None of these states are part of the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

Slovakia has engaged as an observer in several meetings of the Convention on Cluster Munitions, despite not joining. It will attend the convention’s high-level First Review Conference this September, which is open to all states.

With Slovakia’s accession, a total of 21 European Union member states are now party to the Convention on Cluster Munitions, while Cyprus has signed but not yet ratified. The EU states that have not joined are: Estonia, Finland, Greece, Latvia, Poland, and Romania.

Human Rights Watch is a co-founder of the international Cluster Munition Coalition and serves as its chair. 

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