Bolivia
Cluster Munition Ban Policy
Summary: State Party Bolivia ratified the convention on 30 April 2013. It is not clear if Bolivia intends to prepare specific legislation to enforce its implementation of the convention, as it has not provided the initial transparency report for the convention, which was due in March 2014. Bolivia has not participated in any meetings of the convention, but it voted in favor of a UN resolution on the convention in December 2015. Bolivia is not known to have used, produced, transferred, or stockpiled cluster munitions.
Policy
The Plurinational State of Bolivia signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 3 December 2008, ratified on 30 April 2013, and the convention entered into force for the country on 1 October 2013.
It is not clear if Bolivia intends to undertake implementing legislation for the convention, in addition to the ratification law.[1]
As of 17 June 2016, Bolivia had not submitted its initial Article 7 transparency measures report for the convention, which was originally due by 30 March 2014.
Bolivia participated in several meetings of the Oslo Process that created the convention, including the Dublin negotiations in May 2008.[2]
Bolivia attended meetings on cluster munitions in 2009 and 2010, as well as a regional workshop on cluster munitions in Santiago, Chile in December 2013.[3] It has not participated in any of the convention’s Meetings of States Parties or intersessional meetings and did not attend the First Review Conference in Dubrovnik, Croatia in September 2015.
On 7 December 2015, Bolivia voted in favor of a UN General Assembly (UNGA) resolution on the Convention on Cluster Munitions, which urges states outside the convention to “join as soon as possible.”[4]
Bolivia has not condemned recent use of cluster munitions.
Bolivia is a State Party to the Mine Ban Treaty. Bolivia is also party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons.
Use, production, transfer, and stockpiling
Bolivia is not known to have used, produced, transferred, or stockpiled cluster munitions. In May 2011, Bolivia’s Vice Minister of Defense, General José Luis Prudencio, informed a CMC representative that Bolivia does not have a stockpile of cluster munitions and has never used the weapon.[5]
[1] Email from Marcelo Zambrana, Officer in Charge of Security and Defense Issues, Unit for International Organizations, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 16 April 2012.
[2] For details on Bolivia’s policy and practice regarding cluster munitions through early 2009, see Human Rights Watch and Landmine Action, Banning Cluster Munitions: Government Policy and Practice (Ottawa: Mines Action Canada, May 2009), p. 43.
[3] A representative from the Ministry of Defense attended the workshop, but did not make any statements. See list of participants.
[4] “Implementation of the Convention on Cluster Munitions,” UNGA Resolution 70/54, 7 December 2015.
[5] Meeting of Centro Zona Minada (Chile) with Gen. José Luis Prudencio, Vice Minister of Defense of Bolivia, La Paz, 23 May 2011.