Five-Year Review: State Party Luxembourg was among the first 30 ratifications that triggered entry into force of the convention on 1 August 2010. Luxembourg’s 2009 ratification law also serves as its implementing legislation for the convention and includes an explicit ban on investment in the production of cluster munitions. Luxembourg has attended all of the convention’s meetings, promotes universalization of the convention, and has elaborated its views on important issues for the interpretation and implementation of the convention. Luxembourg has condemned new use of cluster munitions, including in Libya, South Sudan, Syria, Ukraine, and Yemen.

In its initial transparency report provided in 2011, Luxembourg confirmed it has never used, produced, transferred, or stockpiled cluster munitions and does not possess any for research or training.

Policy

The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 3 December 2008 and ratified on 10 July 2009. It was among the first 30 ratifications that triggered entry into force of the convention on 1 August 2010.

Luxembourg’s 2009 ratification law also serves as its national implementation legislation and includes a comprehensive prohibition on cluster munitions as well as penal sanctions for violations.[1]

Luxembourg submitted its initial Article 7 transparency report for the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 30 March 2011 and has provided annual updated reports ever since, most recently on 15 June 2015.[2]

Luxembourg participated in the Oslo Process that created the Convention on Cluster Munitions and was one of a small number of states that began national legislative initiatives on cluster munitions before the Oslo Process was launched.[3]

Luxembourg engages in the work of the Convention on Cluster Munitions.  It has participated in all of the convention’s Meetings of States Parties since 2011, including the Fifth Meeting of States Parties in San José, Costa Rica in September 2014. Luxembourg has attended all of the convention’s intersessional meetings in Geneva since 2011.

Luxembourg promotes universalization of the Convention on Cluster Munitions through public declarations and bilateral contacts.[4] It sought to include cluster munitions in the reporting by the UN Security Council’s Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict in 2014, when it chaired the group.[5]

During the June 2015 meeting of the convention, Luxembourg strongly condemned recent use of cluster munitions, including in Libya, South Sudan, Syria, Ukraine, and Yemen.[6]

As a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council, Luxembourg expressed concern at the use of cluster munitions in eastern Ukraine during a Security Council debate on 24 October 2014 and encouraged the government Ukraine to “cooperate with an impartial and independent investigation to shed light on those serious allegations” and stated “we expect the separatists to do the same.”[7] In May 2014, Luxembourg voted in favor of Security Council Resolution 2155, which expressed concern at the use of cluster munitions in South Sudan and called for “all parties to refrain from similar such use in the future.”[8]

Since 2013, Luxembourg has condemned the use of cluster munitions in Syria on several occasions.[9] It has also voted in favor of UN General Assembly (UNGA) resolutions condemning the cluster munition use in Syria, most recently Resolution 69/189 on 18 December 2014, which expressed “outrage” at the continued use.[10]

Interpretive Issues

Luxembourg has elaborated its views on a number of important issues for the interpretation and implementation of the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

Concerning the issue of the prohibition on assistance during joint military operations with non-signatories, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has described Article 21 on relations with states not party as “an important clause to allow continued collaboration with countries that are not yet ready to relinquish the possession of cluster munitions, but also to convince them to join the many countries which have decided to abandon this class of weapons.”[11]

In 2011 and 2012, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that the text of Article 1 of the convention enumerates the prohibitions on cluster munitions, including stockpiling, but “does not make a reference to transit.”[12]

The Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Minister of Justice issued a joint statement in September 2011 expressing Luxembourg’s “full compliance” with its obligations under NATO and the Convention on Cluster Munitions and stating that there is “no information or evidence to believe that the airport of Luxembourg or its infrastructure capacity can be or has been used in the context of NATO, or any other capacity, for a purpose prohibited by the Convention on Cluster Munitions.”[13] In September 2011, Wikileaks released a United States (US) diplomatic cable detailing a 12 December 2007 meeting with Luxembourg officials that claimed Luxembourg “will not allow” for the convention “to hinder the transshipment of CM [cluster munitions] through Findel International Airport” or “CM related procurement services at the Luxembourg-based NATO Maintenance and Supply Agency (NAMSA).”[14]

Disinvestment

Luxembourg’s 2009 ratification law prohibits investment in cluster munitions, making it one of the convention’s leaders on disinvestment.[15]

In 2010, the Ministry of Finance acknowledged the need to address the law’s use of the term “knowingly” with respect to financial investment and to develop a list of producers of cluster munitions.[16] The government said that the Social Security Compensation Fund would establish a blacklist of companies active in the field of manufacturing cluster munitions that would permit their exclusion from the fund.[17] The fund published its first exclusion list in 2011, identifying more than a dozen companies.[18] The fund’s administrative council ordered fund managers to immediately sell all assets held in any of the companies identified.[19] In 2012, the fund presented its new policy on socially responsible investments and list of excluded companies to the Parliament Committee of Health and Social Affairs.[20] In 2013, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed that all incriminated assets from the fund had been sold and said it would ensure compliance by other government investments with the 2009 law prohibiting investment in cluster munitions.[21]

In 2010, Luxembourg proposed the creation of an ethics council to check and verify its current and future public investments in order to prevent any improper investments in companies involved in the production of cluster munitions.[22] As of July 2015, however, the proposed council had not been put in place.[23]

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

Use, production, transfer, and stockpiling

Luxembourg is not known to have ever used or transferred cluster munitions.

In its initial Article 7 report provided in 2011, Luxembourg declared that it has not produced cluster munitions and has not stockpiled any, including for research or training purposes.[24]