Update (November 2015) - Germany declares that it has completed destruction of its cluster munition stockpile.

Five-Year Review: State Party Germany was among the first 30 ratifications that triggered the convention’s entry into force on 1 August 2010. It enacted a legislative amendment in 2009 to enforce its implementation of the convention. Germany has participated in all of the convention’s meetings and served as the convention’s first coordinator on stockpile destruction and retention in 2011–2013. Germany regularly promotes universalization of the convention and has condemned new use of cluster munitions, including in Syria. Germany has elaborated its views on several important issues relating to interpretation and implementation of the convention.

In its initial transparency report for the convention, provided in 2011, Germany confirmed it never used cluster munitions, but produced, exported, and imported them in the past. By the end of 2014, Germany had destroyed 99% of a stockpile that once consisted of 573,700 cluster munitions and 58 million submunitions. Germany is retaining 587 cluster munitions and more than 54,800 submunitions for training and research purposes.

Policy

The Federal Republic of Germany signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 3 December 2008 and ratified on 8 July 2009. It was among the first 30 ratifications that triggered the convention’s entry into force on 1 August 2010.

Germany’s War Weapons Control Act was amended in June 2009 to enforce its implementation of the convention’s prohibitions and includes penal sanctions of up to five years imprisonment for violations.[1]

Germany submitted its initial Article 7 transparency report for the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 27 January 2011 and has provided annual updated reports since, most recently on 20 April 2015.[2]

Germany participated throughout the Oslo Process that produced the Convention on Cluster Munitions and its position evolved significantly to support an immediate and comprehensive prohibition on cluster munitions.[3]

Germany plays a leading role in the work of the convention. It hosted an international conference on the destruction of cluster munitions in Berlin in June 2009 and served as co-coordinator on stockpile destruction and retention in 2011–2013.

Germany has participated in every Meeting of States Parties of the convention, including the Fifth Meeting of States Parties in San José, Costa Rica in September 2014, where it made a number of statements. Germany has attended all of the convention’s intersessional meetings in Geneva, including in June 2015. German officials also attended an international symposium on mine action in Biograd, Croatia on 27–29 April 2015 that included a session on cluster munitions.[4]

Promotion of the convention

Germany has continued to promote universalization of the Convention on Cluster Munitions. At the Fifth Meeting of States Parties in September 2014, Germany described universalization of the convention as “imperative for the effective stigmatization of cluster munitions.” It encouraged states that had not yet acceded to the convention to join and explicitly called on those states that had signed but not yet ratified to do so.[5] Germany has made similar appeals in previous years and the German Federal Foreign Office informed the Monitor in 2014 that it remained committed to promoting the convention’s standards and continued to raise the matter of accession to the convention in ongoing bilateral consultations with states not party.[6]

Germany has condemned new use of cluster munitions, including in South Sudan and Syria. At the Fifth Meeting of States Parties in September 2014, Germany expressed concern at the use of cluster munitions in Syria and South Sudan and called on both governments to stop using them.[7] During a June 2015 meeting of the convention, Germany expressed concern at reported use of cluster munitions in “Africa and eastern Europe.”[8]

Germany has often condemned the use of cluster munitions in Syria since October 2012, when Minister of Foreign Affairs Guido Westerwelle condemned the cluster munition use “in the strongest terms.”[9] Germany has voted in favor of UN General Assembly (UNGA) resolutions condemning the use of cluster munitions in Syria, including Resolution 69/189 on 18 December 2014, which expressed “outrage” at the continued use.[10] It has voted in favor of four Human Rights Council resolutions condemning the use of cluster munitions in Syria, most recently on 2 July 2015.[11]

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

Interpretive issues

In 2012 and 2013, Germany elaborated its views on several important issues relating to interpretation and implementation of the convention, including the prohibitions on assistance during joint military operations with states not party that may use cluster munitions, on transit, and investment in cluster munitions production.

During the negotiations of the convention, Germany advocated strongly for provisions on “interoperability” (joint military operations with states not party). In June 2012, the German Federal Foreign Office reaffirmed to the Monitor that prior to the convention’s entry into force “clear orders” were issued for the German armed forces that “forbade German soldiers from using cluster munitions themselves, and from requesting or ordering the use of cluster munitions.” The instructions also “further prohibited the transport of cluster munitions using Bundeswehr [Federal Armed Forces] vehicles and/or personnel. Ordering or assisting such transport was also banned.”[12]

Germany’s implementation legislation prohibits the transit of cluster munitions.[13]

Germany has yet to express clear views on the prohibition on foreign stockpiling of cluster munitions, but United States (US) diplomatic cables made public by Wikileaks in 2011 show that Germany has engaged with the US on the matter of cluster munitions stored by the US in Germany.[14]

Germany’s implementation legislation does not explicitly prohibit investment in cluster munition production and in June 2013, the Federal Foreign Office reaffirmed its position, previously expressed to the Monitor, that “the Federal Government expects the German private sector including financial institutions to implement their voluntary commitments aimed at disinvesting in business segments related to CM [cluster munitions]. It is following the relevant developments closely.”[15]

In 2011 and 2012, motions submitted to and rejected by the German parliament called for Germany’s national implementation legislation, the War Weapons Control Act (Kriegswaffenkontrollgesetz) of 2009, to be amended to include a comprehensive ban on direct and indirect investment in cluster munition producers.[16]

Facing Finance and other German NGOs have continued to campaign for a comprehensive ban on financing cluster munition production.[17]

Use, production, and transfer

According to the Federal Foreign Office, Germany has never used cluster munitions.[18] It unilaterally renounced the use of all types of cluster munitions on 29 May 2008, one day before it agreed to adopt the Convention on Cluster Munitions in Dublin.[19]

In the past, German industry was very active in the production and export of cluster munitions. According to the Federal Foreign Office, Germany stopped production and transfer of cluster munitions in 2005.[20]

In its initial Article 7 report, Germany declared that “all former production capabilities were dismantled prior to 2008.”[21] The last known export was in 2004–2005 when Germany sent M26 rockets with submunitions to Slovakia.[22]

The company Diehl GmbH and numerous subcontractors were involved in the production of M26 rockets for the 227mm multiple launch rocket system (MLRS) as part of the MLRS European Producers Group.[23] Lenkflugkörpersysteme GmbH produced the MW-1 dispenser (that deploys submunitions) for aircraft.[24]

The company Rheinmetall produced several types of 155mm artillery projectiles containing dual-purpose improved conventional munition (DPICM) submunitions.[25] These were produced for the German armed forces as well as for export customers including Austria, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Italy (co-production), and Norway.[26]

Germany also imported cluster munitions from the United Kingdom (UK) and the US.

A consortium of Diehl, Gesellschaft für Intelligente Wirksysteme GmbH(GIWS), and Rheinmetall produce the SMArt-155 artillery projectile, a weapon that employs two submunitions but 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.[27] This has been produced for the German Armed Forces and for export customers Australia, Greece, Switzerland, and the UK.[28] The consortium granted licensed co-production rights to Alliant Techsystems in the US for the SMArt-155, and Alliant has marketed the munitions in the United Arab Emirates. According to the NGO Actiongroup Landmine.de (now Facing Finance), more than 25,000 SMArt-155 projectiles have been produced.[29]

Stockpiling and destruction

Germany once possessed a total of 573,700 cluster munitions containing 62,923,641 submunitions, including weapons destroyed prior to entry into force of the Convention on Cluster Munitions. By the end of 2014, Germany had destroyed 565,978 cluster munitions and 58 million submunitions, representing 98.6% of the original stockpile of cluster munitions and 92% of the submunitions. The remaining stockpile to be destroyed consisted of 7,526 cluster munitions and 4.8 million submunitions.[30]

Cluster munitions stockpiled and destroyed by Germany (as of 31 December 2014)[31]

Stockpile destruction

Under Article 3 of the Convention on Cluster Munitions, Germany is required to destroy all stockpiled cluster munitions under its jurisdiction and control as soon as possible, but not later than 1 August 2018.

Germany has often expressed its intent to complete stockpile destruction by the end of 2015.[32] In September 2014, Germany informed States Parties that it was still on track to complete the destruction of its stockpiled cluster munitions during 2015.[33]

A total of 7,526 cluster munitions and 4.8 million submunitions remained to be destroyed by the end of 2014:

• 7,524 M26 rockets containing 4,845,456 M77 submunitions; and
• Two BL755 bombs containing 294 Mk1 submunitions.[34]

During 2014, Germany destroyed a total of 41,740 cluster munitions and 5,325,898 submunitions.[35] Germany’s cluster munitions stockpile has been destroyed in Germany at three locations (Nammo Buck in Pinnow, Spreewerk Lübben in Lübben, and Muniberka in Dietersdorf) and in Norway (at Lökken Verk outside of Bergen).[36] The Article 7 reports describe the safety and environmental standards observed.[37]

Germany started destroying the BL755 cluster bombs in 2001, while destruction of DM612 155mm artillery projectiles began in 2007, and destruction of the other types followed in 2009.[38] In April 2013, Germany reported that it spent a total of €11.8 million on stockpile destruction prior to the entry into force of the convention and a further €29.6 million was allocated from 1 August 2010 to 2016, making a total of €41.4 million (US$53.2 million).[39]

Retention

In its April 2015 Article 7 report, Germany declared that it is retaining a total of 587 cluster munitions and 54,811 submunitions for explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) training and research purposes, as listed in the following table.[40]

Cluster munitions retained in accordance with Article 3 (as of 31 December 2014)[41]

Germany initially reported in 2012 that it would retain 782 cluster munitions and 71,872 submunitions so the 2015 total represents a 24% reduction from the original number retained.[42] Germany has been progressively reducing the number of cluster munitions retained by using them during EOD training. In 2011–2014, it consuming a total of 195 cluster munitions and 17,061 submunitions in EOD training as follows: 70 cluster munitions and 4,744 submunitions in 2014, 28 cluster munitions and 3,125 submunitions in 2013, 58 cluster munitions and 6,330 submunitions in 2012, and 39 cluster munitions and 2,862 submunitions in 2011.[43]

Despite this reduction, Germany still retains the largest number of submunitions of any State Party. The CMC has expressed concern at the retention of such high numbers of cluster munitions and submunitions and asked if Germany’s training program is large enough to require the consumption of so many submunitions.

In 2015, Germany reported that it continues to review of the amount of retained submunitions needed for EOD training.[44] In September 2013, it reported that “the calculations and plans for retention of selected items are kept under constant review, thus upholding the spirit of this convention. Thus, we can ensure that we retain only the very minimum quantity of cluster munitions necessary for permitted development and training.”[45]

Previously, in September 2012, Germany informed States Parties that it planned to intensify EOD training in light of the increasing dangers faced by German armed forces from improvised explosive devices (IEDs). As a result, it stated there would be “an estimated increase in consumption of individual submunitions of approximately 30% from 2013 onwards.”[46] In June 2012, the Federal Foreign Office provided the Monitor with a list of criteria used by the Federal Office of Defence Technology and Procurement to determine the number of cluster munitions to be retained for training.[47]