Five-Year Review: State Party Peru ratified the convention on 26 September 2012. It has participated in most of the convention’s meetings and has condemned new use of cluster munitions, including in Syria, South Sudan, and Ukraine.

Peru has not used, produced, or exported cluster munitions, but it imported them and declared a stockpile of 676 cluster munitions and 86,200 submunitions in its initial transparency report for the convention provided in 2013. Peru is preparing to destroy the stockpile. It is not retaining any cluster munitions for research or training.

Policy

The Republic of Peru signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 3 December 2008, ratified on 26 September 2012, and the convention entered into force for the country on 1 March 2013.

Under national implementation measures, Peru has declared its 2012 ratification law and decree as well as directives issued in 2010 and 2011 on the standardization of weapons disposal procedures.[1] Peru has not indicated if it will prepare specific legislation to enforce the convention’s provisions.

Peru submitted its initial Article 7 transparency report for the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 1 August 2013 and provided annual updated reports in May 2014 and June 2015.[2]

As one of the small core group of nations that took responsibility for the Oslo Process that created the Convention on Cluster Munitions, Peru hosted an international conference on cluster munitions in Lima in May 2007.[3]

Peru engages in the work of the Convention on Cluster Munitions. It has participated in most of the convention’s Meetings of States Parties, including the Fifth Meeting of States Parties in San José, Costa Rica in September 2014. Peru has attended all of the convention’s intersessional meetings in Geneva, most recently in June 2015. Peru attended regional workshop on cluster munitions, for example in Santiago, Chile in December 2013.

At the Fifth Meeting of States Parties, Peru condemned the recent use of “horrendous” cluster munitions in Syria, South Sudan, and Ukraine, which it called “alarming news.”[4] Peru has also voted in favor of recent 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.[5]

Peru has not yet elaborated its views on certain important issues relating to interpretation and implementation of the convention, including the prohibition on transit, the prohibition on assistance during joint military operations with states not party that may use cluster munitions, the prohibition on foreign stockpiling of cluster munitions, and prohibition on investment in production of cluster munitions.

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

Use, production, and transfer

Peru is not known to have ever used, produced, or exported cluster munitions.

Stockpiling and destruction

In the initial Article 7 report provided in August 2013, Peru declared a stockpile of 676 cluster munitions of three types and 86,200 submunitions,[6] as listed in the following table.[7]

Cluster munitions stockpiled by Peru (August 2013)[8]

In May 2007, Peru’s Minister of Defense first publicly disclosed that the Peruvian Air Force possesses stocks of BME-330 cluster bombs of Spanish origin and RBK-500 cluster bombs of Russian/Soviet origin as well as CB-470 cluster bombs of South African origin.[9]

Under Article 3 of the Convention on Cluster Munitions, Peru is required to declare and destroy all stockpiled cluster munitions under its jurisdiction and control as soon as possible but not later than 1 March 2021.

At the UNGA First Committee on Disarmament and International Security in October 2014, Peru stated it is preparing to destroy its stockpiled cluster munitions.[10] The Peruvian Air Force is responsible for the stockpiled cluster munitions and their destruction.[11]

On 4–8 May 2015, Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA) stockpile destruction experts conducted a research and development mission to Peru in support of the government’s stockpile destruction plan. NPA demonstrated disassembly and destruction techniques for the cluster munitions stockpiled by Peru at the Peruvian Air Force’s Puntos Lobos Base, located south of Lima in Pucusana district. The NPA team had not previously encountered BME 330 cluster munitions, but after conducting research and risk assessments used this information to take apart the munitions to fully understand how they function and develop procedures for their destruction. On 3 June 2015, NPA stated that it is preparing a post-mission report with recommendations for the stockpile destruction, to present to Peru’s Ministry of Defense and Ministry of Foreign Affairs for their consideration.[12]

Previously, in April 2014, Peru expressed its commitment to destroy the stockpile by the convention’s deadline and stated it had requested international cooperation and assistance to do so.[13]

Retention

Peru reports that it is not retaining any cluster munitions or submunitions for research or training.[14] Previously, it expressed its intent to retain cluster munitions for the purposes of training in detection, clearance, and destruction techniques, but stated it had not yet identified the number of cluster munitions or submunitions to be retained.[15]