Five-Year Review: State Party Liechtenstein ratified the convention on 4 March 2013 after amending legislation to implement the convention’s provisions. It has not attended any of the convention’s Meetings of States Parties. Liechtenstein provided its initial transparency report for the convention in March 2014 and has confirmed it has never used, produced, transferred, or stockpiled cluster munitions.

Policy

The Principality of Liechtenstein signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 3 December 2008, ratified on 4 March 2013, and the convention entered into force for the country on 1 September 2013.

Liechtenstein has reported that its Customs Union Treaty with Switzerland governs implementation of the convention’s provisions.[1] It also lists an amendment to the Law on Brokering in War Material, which took effect on 1 September 2013.[2] Liechtenstein has stated that its domestic legislation “goes beyond” what is required by the convention and prohibits the “funding of cluster munitions, both directly and indirectly.”[3]

Liechtenstein submitted its initial Article 7 transparency report for the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 20 March 2014 and provided its first annual updated report on 28 April 2015, indicating no change.[4]

Liechtenstein participated in the Oslo Process that created the convention.[5]

It has not attended any meetings of the Convention on Cluster Munitions since a conference on cluster munition stockpile destruction in Berlin in June 2009. Liechtenstein has voted in favor of recent 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.[6]

Liechtenstein has not elaborated its views on a number of interpretive matters relating to the convention, such as the transit of cluster munitions across, or foreign stockpiling of cluster munitions on the national territory of States Parties. It has not made an explicit statement explaining its views on the prohibition on assistance with acts prohibited under the convention, but under the Swiss legislation applicable in Liechtenstein, “assistance or encouraging” is a violation of the Convention on Cluster Munition’s core prohibitions.[7]

The amendment to Liechtenstein’s Law on Brokering in War Material expressly prohibits “brokering and direct, as well as indirect, financing of cluster munitions.”[8]

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

Use, production, transfer, and stockpiling

Liechtenstein has stated that it has never used, produced, transferred, or stockpiled cluster munitions.[9] It has reported that there are no production facilities, stockpiled cluster munitions, or any areas contaminated by cluster munitions in the country.[10]

Policy

Liechtenstein signed the Mine Ban Treaty on 3 December 1997 and ratified it on 5 October 1999, becoming a State Party on 1 April 2000. National implementation legislation was passed by Parliament on 9 September 1999.[1]

Liechtenstein submitted its annual Mine Ban Treaty Article 7 report in 2011, confirming that information from earlier reports is unchanged. The Article 7 report of 14 May 2002 stated that the “provisions of the Convention are fully implemented.... Due to the fact that Liechtenstein has never produced, stockpiled or used anti-personnel landmines, there is nothing to report... and no implementing measures have been necessary.”[2]

Liechtenstein attended the Tenth Meeting of States Parties to the Mine Ban Treaty in Geneva in November–December 2010 but did not attend the intersessional Standing Committee meetings in June 2011.

Liechtenstein is party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) and its Amended Protocol II on landmines and Protocol V on explosive remnants of war. Liechtenstein submitted its Article 13 report on 12 September 2011 for Amended Protocol II.