Five-Year Review: State Party Nicaragua was among the first 30 ratifications that triggered the convention’s entry into force on 1 August 2010. It views existing legislation as sufficient to enforce its implementation of the convention. Nicaragua has attended a couple of meetings of the convention. Nicaragua provided an initial transparency report for the convention in 2011 confirming it has not used, produced, transferred, or stockpiled cluster munitions and does not possess any for research and training.

Policy

The Republic of Nicaragua signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 3 December 2008 and ratified on 2 November 2009. It was among the first 30 ratifications that triggered the convention’s entry into force on 1 August 2010.

Nicaragua has reported its 2009 decree approving ratification of the convention under national implementation measures, indicating it does not intend to enact any specific legislative measures.[1] In May 2011, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs informed the Monitor that Nicaragua has necessary legal and administrative measures in place to ensure its adherence the convention both “in and out of Nicaragua” and provided the examples of the country’s Penal Code and the Arms, Ammunition and Explosives Act (Law 510).[2]

Nicaragua provided its initial Article 7 transparency report for the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 28 April 2011 and an annual updated report on 30 April 2012.[3] As of 4 June 2015, Nicaragua had not provided any more of the annual updates due by 30 April.

Nicaragua played an active and positive role in the Oslo Process that created the Convention on Cluster Munitions.[4]

Nicaragua has expressed support for the convention in the period since. At the UN General Assembly First Committee on Disarmament and International Security in October 2014, it welcomed the establishment of Central America as the world’s first cluster munition-free zone, following Belize’s September 2014 accession to the Convention on Cluster Munitions, completing universalization of the sub-region.

Nicaragua participated in the convention’s First Meeting of States Parties in Vientiane, Lao PDR in November 2010, but has not attended subsequent meetings, such as the Fifth Meeting of States Parties in San Jose, Costa Rica in September 2014. It participated in the convention’s intersessional meetings in Geneva in 2012 and 2014.

Interpretive issues

Nicaragua elaborated its views on important issues related to interpretation and implementation of the convention in a May 2011 response to the Monitor. In relation to military cooperation by States Parties, it “considers that assistance in prohibited acts performed in joint military operations is not permitted to the States Parties.” On the prohibition on transit, it said that the convention states that States Parties may not “assist, encourage or induce anyone to engage in any activity prohibited to a State Party,” including transfer.[5]

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

Use, production, transfer, and stockpiling

Nicaragua has declared that it “does not use, develop, produce, acquire, stockpile, retain or transfer cluster munitions.”[6]

Nicaragua does not retain any cluster munitions for training purposes.