Summary: 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 voted in favor of a key UN General Assembly (UNGA) resolution promoting implementation of the convention in December 2016.

Peru has not used, produced, or exported cluster munitions, but it has imported them and reported a stockpile of 2,005 cluster munitions and 152,982 submunitions. Peru is preparing to destroy these cluster munitions and says it does not intend to not retain any 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.

Peru lists its 2012 ratification law and decree under national implementation measures as well as directives standardizing weapons disposal procedures.[1] Peru has not indicated if it will prepare additional legislative measures 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 it has provided annual updated reports since then, most recently in June 2017.[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, which it described in October 2015 as a “complete priority.”[4] At the Sixth Meeting of States Parties held in Geneva in September 2016, Peru reaffirmed its commitment to the principles and objectives of the convention and its willingness to coordinate with states and civil society to achieve universalization.[5]

Peru has participated in all of the convention’s Meetings of States Parties as well as the First Review Conference in Dubrovnik, Croatia, in September 2015 and intersessional meetings in Geneva in 2011–2015. It has attended regional workshops on cluster munitions, most recently in Rakitje, Croatia, in June 2017.[6]

In December 2016, Peru voted in favor of a UNGA resolution promoting implementation of the convention.[7]

Peru has condemned the “horrendous” use of cluster munitions in Syria and other countries, which it has called “alarming.”[8] It has voted in favor of UNGA resolutions expressing outrage at the use of cluster munitions in Syria, most recently in December 2016.[9]

Peru has not elaborated its views on certain important issues relating to the 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. It has imported cluster munitions and possesses a stockpile.

Stockpiling

Peru has declared a stockpile of 2,005 cluster munitions and 152,982 submunitions, as listed in the following table.

Cluster munitions stockpiled by Peru (December 2016)[10]

In its initial report submitted in August 2013, Peru reported a stockpile of 676 cluster munitions of three types and 86,280 submunitions.[11] In its report covering the year 2015, Peru reported an additional 1,331 cluster munitions of three types and another 66,894 submunitions.[12] Two cluster munitions containing a total of 192 submunitions were destroyed during 2016 in the process of researching how to destroy the stocks.[13]

During the Oslo Process, in May 2007, Peru’s Minister of Defense first publicly disclosed that the Peruvian air force possesses stocks of BME-330 cluster bombs from Spain and RBK-500 cluster bombs of Russian/Soviet origin as well as CB-470 cluster bombs of South African origin.[14]

Stockpile destruction

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

At the First Review Conference in September 2015, Peru reiterated that it expects to complete destruction before the 2021 deadline.[15]

The Peruvian Air Force is responsible for destroying the stockpiled cluster munitions, which are held at Puntos Lobos Base in the Pucusana district, south of Lima.[16] Since 2014, the humanitarian mine clearance organization Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA) has provided technical support and training to Peru for its stockpile destruction. In May 2015, NPA experts demonstrated disassembly and destruction techniques for the cluster munitions stockpile.[17] In May 2016, Peru completed a “preparation and testing” phase for the stockpile destruction.[18] In a presentation to a regional meeting in June 2017, Peru said that the NPA experts are scheduled to visit the country in August 2017 to provide a training on how to safely destroy the stocks.[19]

Retention

Since 2013, Peru has reported that it will not retain any cluster munitions or submunitions for research or training in detection, clearance, and destruction techniques.[20] Before 2013, Peru expressed its intent to retain cluster munitions for training.[21]