Summary: State Party Italy ratified the convention on 21 September 2011 after enacting implementing legislation. Italy has participated in all of the convention’s meetings and has condemned new use of cluster munitions, including in South Sudan, Syria, Ukraine, and Yemen. Italy voted in favor of a UN resolution on the convention in December 2015.

Italy has not used cluster munitions, but it imported and, reportedly, produced them. In December 2015, Italy announced the completion of the destruction of its stockpile of 4,963 cluster munitions and 2.8 million submunitions. Italy is one of a handful of States Parties retaining cluster munitions for research of training purposes.

Policy

The Republic of Italy signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 3 December 2008, ratified on 21 September 2011, and the convention entered into force for the country on 1 March 2012.

Law No. 95 on the Ratification and Implementation of the Oslo Convention on the ban on cluster munitions took effect on 5 July 2011 and serves as Italy’s national implementation legislation for the convention.[1]

Italy submitted its initial Article 7 transparency report for the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 28 August 2012 and has provided annual updates since then, most recently in May 2016.[2]

Italy participated in the Oslo Process that created the convention and its position evolved significantly to support the prohibition on cluster munitions.[3]

Italy participated in the convention’s First Review Conference in Dubrovnik, Croatia in September 2015. The director for disarmament and non-proliferation affairs of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation expressed his personal “pride and emotion” at being able to deliver Italy’s address to the high-level segment of the meeting because he was also present when the convention was adopted in Dublin on 30 May 2008. He described the convention as “an important milestone on the way to a more secure and peaceful world” that represents “a new, fundamental chapter of International Humanitarian Law.”[4]

Italy has attended all of the convention’s annual Meetings of States Parties as well as intersessional meetings in Geneva in 2011–2015.

Law No. 95 requires that Italy work to prevent the use of mines and cluster munitions, advocate for adherence to the total ban on mines and cluster munitions, and seek to universalize the Convention on Cluster Munitions.[5] Italy states that it views universalization of the convention as a high priority.[6]

Italy often highlights the positive partnership between the various actors involved in the work of the convention. In September 2015, Italy said it welcomes “the fundamental role that civil society has played since the very beginning of the Oslo process and is still playing” in the convention, describing the government’s “strong interaction” with Italian NGOs working to advance humanitarian disarmament.[7]

On 7 December 2015, Italy 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.”[8]

Italy has expressed concern at new use of cluster munitions on several occasions.[9] At the First Review Conference in September 2015, Italy stated that:

Reports of alleged use of cluster munitions in conflict areas further add to the importance of pursuing universal adherence. In this respect we are deeply concerned at the alleged use of such weapons in Cambodia, Libya, Myanmar; South Sudan; Sudan, Syrian Arab Republic, Ukraine and Yemen.[10] 

Italy has also voted in favor of UNGA resolutions condemning the use of cluster munitions in Syria, most recently in December 2015.[11]

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

Interpretive issues

Italy has not elaborated its views on several important issues relating to the convention’s interpretation and implementation, such as the prohibition on assistance with prohibited acts in joint military operations, the prohibition on transit of cluster munitions, and the prohibition on foreign stockpiling. Italy has not indicated if it agrees with the views of a number of states and the CMC that foreign stockpiling of cluster munitions on the national territory of States Parties is prohibited by the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

Law No. 95 bans financial assistance to anyone for any act prohibited by the convention. This provision supports a ban on investment in the production of cluster munitions. However, the Italian Campaign to Ban Landmines has advocated for a separate, more detailed law.[12]

Draft legislation to prohibit all Italian financial institutions from providing any form of support to Italian and foreign companies involved in a range of activities including the production, use, sale, import, export, stockpiling, or transport of antipersonnel mines as well as cluster munitions and explosive submunitions was introduced in the Senate in 2010.[13] As of July 2016, the legislation was being considered by relevant parliamentary committees.[14]

According to a 2016 report, several Italian financial institutions have enacted policies to disinvest from companies producing cluster munitions.[15]

Use, production, and transfer

Italy is not known to have used cluster munitions, but it has imported and stockpiled the weapons.

Italy has reportedly produced cluster munitions, but the full extent to which Italian companies have in the past developed, co-produced, or otherwise assembled cluster munitions is not fully known.[16]

In 2012, a military official informed the Monitor that the Italian company Simmel Difesa S.p.A. (formerly known as BPD Difesa e Spazio) once had the capability to manufacture cluster munitions, but never actually produced any.[17] According to standard reference works, Simmel Difesa at one point prior to 2008 produced 81mm mortar bombs called RS6A2 and S6A2 and a 120mm mortar bomb called S12B, which contained dual-purpose improved conventional munition (DPICM) submunitions.[18] Simmel Difesa reportedly also produced a 155mm projectile called the RB63 (also called 155mm IM 303 BCR), a copy of the German DM642 projectile, which was the result of a joint program between Simmel Difesa and the German company Rheinmetall.[19]

It is not known if Italy ever exported cluster munitions. In 2012, a military officer informed the Monitor that there are no records that Italy ever exported any cluster munitions.[20]

Stockpiling and destruction

Prior to destruction activities, Italy once possessed a total of 4,963 cluster munitions and 2,849,979 submunitions, as listed in the following table.

Cluster munitions formerly stockpiled by Italy[21]

Under Article 3 of the Convention on Cluster Munitions, Italy was required to declare and destroy all stockpiled cluster munitions under its jurisdiction and control as soon as possible, but no later than 1 March 2020.

On 14 December 2015, Italy announced the completion of the destruction of its stockpiled cluster munitions, four and a half years in advance of the deadline. A statement issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to announce the completion affirmed Italy’s support for the convention’s “universal application and its complete and detailed implementation.”[22]

Italy destroyed 1,010 cluster munitions and 231,070 submunitions prior to the convention’s 1 March 2012 entry into force.[23] It destroyed the rest of its stocks after entry into force, including 210 M26 rockets and 135,240 M77 submunitions in 2015.[24]

Law No. 95 mandated the destruction of Italy’s stockpile of cluster munitions, including the expenditure of €4.5 million.[25] Italy reports that it destroyed the stockpile through disassembly and/or destruction at facilities in Noceto in the north of the country.[26]

Retention

According to its transparency reports, Italy is retaining one sample of each of three types of cluster bombs that it formerly stockpiled and a total of 641 submunitions.[27] As of 31 December 2015, Italy had not used or consumed any of the cluster munitions retained for training or research purposes.[28]

Italy’s implementing legislation permits the retention of a “limited quantity” of cluster munitions not exceeding “1,000 units.”[29]

Foreign stockpiling

United States (US) military forces have stored cluster munitions in Italy in the past, but as of June 2016, it is unclear if the US still stockpiles cluster munitions in Italy.[30]