El Salvador
Cluster Munition Ban Policy
Summary: State Party El Salvador ratified the convention on 10 January 2011. It has participated in most of the convention’s meetings and voted in favor of a UN resolution on the convention in December 2015. El Salvador has condemned new use of cluster munitions. El Salvador provided its initial transparency report for the convention in August 2014, confirming it has never used, produced, transferred, or stockpiled cluster munitions.
Policy
The Republic of El Salvador signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 3 December 2008, ratified on 10 January 2011, and the convention entered into force for El Salvador on 1 July 2011.
It is not clear if El Salvador intends to enact specific legislation to implement the convention.[1] Under national implementation measures in its Article 7 transparency report, it reported the Executive Order 1064/2010 of 21 July 2010, which approved its ratification of the convention.[2]
El Salvador provided its initial Article 7 report for the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 31 August 2014.[3] As of 26 June 2016, El Salvador had not submitted any of the annual updated reports due by 30 April.
El Salvador participated actively in the Oslo Process that created the Convention on Cluster Munitions, frequently aligning itself with the views of many Latin American states in favor of the strongest, most comprehensive convention text possible.[4]
El Salvador has participated in every Meeting of States Parties to the convention and intersessional meetings in 2011–2015. It was invited to, but did not attend the First Review Conference of the convention in Dubrovnik, Croatia in September 2015. El Salvador has participated in regional workshops on the convention, most recently in Santiago, Chile in December 2013.
On 7 December 2015, El Salvador 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.”[5]
El Salvador has strongly condemned “all forms of cluster munition use.”[6] It has voted in favor of UNGA resolutions condemning the use of cluster munitions in Syria, most recently in December 2015.[7]
El Salvador has not elaborated its views on certain important issues relating to the convention’s interpretation and implementation, such as 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, the prohibition on investment in production of cluster munitions, and the need for retention of cluster munitions for training and development purposes.
El Salvador is a State Party to the Mine Ban Treaty. It is also party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons.
Use, production, transfer, and stockpiling
In its initial Article 7 report, El Salvador confirmed it has never used, produced, transferred, or stockpiled cluster munitions.[8]
El Salvador has not retained any cluster munitions for research or training purposes.
[1] El Salvador has enacted legislation to implement the Mine Ban Treaty. Decree 471 entered into force on 30 November 2004 and includes penal sanctions of five to 10 years imprisonment for anyone found guilty of using, developing, producing, purchasing, stockpiling, or transferring one or more antipersonnel mines. See ICBL, Landmine Monitor Report 2005: Toward a Mine-Free World (Ottawa: Mines Action Canada, October 2005), p. 331.
[2] Convention on Cluster Munitions Article 7 Report, Form A, 31 August 2014.
[3] The report, which covers the period until 31 July 2014, was originally due by December 2011.
[4] For details on El Salvador’s cluster munition policy and practice through early 2009, see Human Rights Watch and Landmine Action, Banning Cluster Munitions: Government Policy and Practice (Ottawa: Mines Action Canada, May 2009), p. 73.
[5] “Implementation of the Convention on Cluster Munitions,” UNGA Resolution 70/54, 7 December 2015.
[6] Statement of El Salvador, Convention on Cluster Munitions Fifth Meeting of States Parties, San Jose, September 2014.
[7] “Situation of human rights in the Syrian Arab Republic,” UNGA Resolution 70/234, 23 December 2015.
[8] Convention on Cluster Munitions Article 7 Report, Forms B, C, E, and F, 31 August 2014; and interview with Francisco González, Security and Defense Policy, and Gustavo Argueta, Multilateral Issues, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, San Salvador, 24 March 2010.