Summary: Non-signatory Finland acknowledges the humanitarian rationale for the convention, but is not actively considering accession, apparently due to defense-related concerns, including the cost of replacing its stockpiled cluster munitions with other weapons. Finland has participated as an observer in every meeting of the convention. It abstained from voting on key UN resolutions on the convention in 2015 and 2016. Finland has not used or produced cluster munitions, but has imported them and possesses a stockpile.

Policy

The Republic of Finland has not acceded to the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

On 22 May 2017, the director of the arms control, disarmament, and non-proliferation in Finland’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Sannamaaria Vanamo, responded to Cluster Munition Monitor’s request for updated information.[1] She acknowledged the convention’s important role in facilitating “international engagement with a view to alleviating the humanitarian consequences of cluster munitions.” According to the letter, “Finland continues to regularly evaluate progress in military technologies and developments. From the Finnish perspective no such changes in conditions have taken place which would as yet enable accession to the Convention.”

Previously, in April 2016, Finland’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, Timo Soini, informed the Monitor that, “we acknowledge the Convention’s role from the humanitarian perspective and its goals for universalization” but also explained that “no such changes in conditions have taken place which would enable accession.”[2]

Finland has provided a similar response to the Monitor every year.[3] Since 2009, the Cabinet Committee on Foreign and Security Policy has conducted annual reviews of Finland’s policy towards joining the convention, but has yet to recommend a change in policy.[4]

Finnish government officials have cited Ministry of Defence concerns about the costs of replacing stockpiled cluster munitions with other weapons as an obstacle to its accession.[5] Likewise, officials have cited costs of implementing the convention’s provisions as well as security concerns as reasons for the lack of accession.[6]

In December 2016, Finland abstained from voting on a key UN General Assembly (UNGA) resolution on the Convention on Cluster Munitions, which urges states outside the convention to “join as soon as possible.”[7]

In an explanation of the vote, Finland joined four other European Union (EU) member states that are not party to the convention—Estonia, Greece, Poland, and Romania—in a joint statement delivered by Poland, which repeated a statement made by the same group of states one year prior, upon abstaining from the vote on the first UNGA resolution on the convention.[8] The five countries state that, “we support the humanitarian goal of the Convention on Cluster Munitions” but “at the same time, we believe that humanitarian concerns must be balanced with States’ legitimate security concerns and military and defence needs.”[9]

Finland participated throughout the Oslo Process that created the Convention on Cluster Munitions, but consistently expressed reservations about the process and about the convention text and was not supportive of a broad categorical ban on cluster munitions.[10] Finland joined the consensus adoption of the Convention on Cluster Munitions in May 2008, but five months later announced that it would not sign the convention in Oslo in December 2008.[11] At the time, Minister of Defence Jyri Häkämies stated that “cluster munitions play an important role in the credibility [and] autonomy…of Finnish defense.” The Finnish military claimed that due to costs and other factors it would not be possible to replace Finland’s stockpile of cluster munitions with alternative weapons within five to 10 years.[12] It also cited security concerns over its border with Russia.[13]

Finland has participated as an observer in every Meeting of States Parties of the convention, including the Sixth Meeting of States Parties in Geneva in September 2016, and it attended the convention’s First Review Conference in Dubrovnik, Croatia, in September 2015, as well as intersessional meetings in Geneva in 2011 and 2014–2015.

In remarks provided on behalf of the Nordic countries at the UNGA First Committee in October 2015, Finland expressed concern at the use of cluster munitions against civilian populations.[14] Finland has voted in favor of UNGA resolutions expressing outrage at the use of cluster munitions in Syria, most recently in December 2016.[15]

Finland’s Ministry for Foreign Affairs often affirms the value it places on maintaining “good dialogue” and communication with civil society, including with national NGO Peace Union as well as the CMC.[16] In May 2017, Finland said it “commends the role that civil society continues to play within the arms control, disarmament and non-proliferation field,” and added that “our continued dialogue with representatives of civil society remains a priority.”[17]

Finland is a State Party to the Mine Ban Treaty and completed the destruction of its stockpiled antipersonnel landmines in 2015.

Finland is a State Party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW). It has not proposed any new CCW work on cluster munitions since the CCW failed in 2011 to adopt a new instrument on the weapons, effectively ending CCW deliberations on the topic and leaving the Convention on Cluster Munitions as the sole international instrument to specifically address the weapons.

Use, production, transfer, and stockpiling

According to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, “Finland does not produce cluster munitions nor has [it] used them.”[18]

In early 2005, Patria, a Finnish company, made arrangements to co-produce a 120mm cluster munition mortar bomb called MAT-120, then produced by the Spanish company Instalaza SA. The deal was canceled in 2009 by Patria and the Finnish Defence Forces after Spain signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions. During the development of the program, Patria imported to Finland 305 “live” MAT-120 from Spain in 2005–2007 and also acquired 230 inert MAT-120 bombs. As of July 2011, a total of 136 “live” MAT-120 remained in the custody of the Finnish Defence Forces; none of the MAT-120 imported to Finland were exported.[19]

Finland has acknowledged possessing one type of cluster munition: the DM-662 155mm artillery projectile, which contains 49 dual-purpose improved conventional munition (DPICM) submunitions with self-destruct fuzes.[20] The Monitor has requested, but never received information on the size and composition of the stockpile.[21]

In 2006, the Ministry of Defence of the Netherlands announced the transfer of 18 multiple launch rocket system (MLRS) launchers to Finland.[22] It was reported that 400 M26 rockets (each containing 644 M77 DPICM submunitions) were to be included in the sale for qualification testing and conversion into training rockets.[23]

According to standard international reference publications, Finland also possesses BM-21 Grad and RM-70 122mm surface-to-surface rocket launchers, but it is not known if the ammunition for these weapons includes versions with submunition payloads.[24]