Five-Year Review: State Party Norway was among the first 30 ratifications to trigger the convention’s entry into force on 1 August 2010. Norway adopted implementing legislation two weeks before it signed and ratified the convention in December 2008. Norway hosted and served as president of the convention’s Third Meeting of States Parties in Oslo in September 2012. It has participated in all of the convention meetings and has elaborated its views on several important issues relating to the interpretation and implementation of the convention.

Norway has served as the convention’s co-coordinator on universalization since September 2013, convening regional workshops to encourage new accessions and ratifications. It has repeatedly condemned new use of cluster munitions, including in Ukraine, Syria, and Yemen.

In its initial transparency report for the convention provided in 2011, Norway confirmed that it has never used or produced cluster munitions. It completed the destruction of a stockpile of 52,190 cluster munitions and 3 million submunitions in June 2010, prior to entry into force. Norway has not retained any cluster munitions for research or training.

Policy

The Kingdom of Norway signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 3 December 2008 and ratified that same day. It was among the first 30 ratifications to trigger the convention’s entry into force on 1 August 2010.

On 20 November 2008, Norway adopted legislation allowing it to sign and simultaneously deposit its instrument of ratification.[1] The law prohibits use, development, production, acquisition, stockpiling, or transfer of cluster munitions and provides sanctions for violations.[2] Since 2011, Norway has reported that armed forces personnel are “given appropriate education and training on the Convention” as are all Norwegians officially deployed in international operations.[3]

Norway submitted its initial Article 7 transparency report for the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 27 January 2011 and has provided annual updated reports since then, most recently in May 2015.[4]

Norway was an early supporter of action to deal with the harmful impact of cluster munitions and played an unparalleled leadership role in bringing about the Convention on Cluster Munitions. It initiated the Oslo Process in November 2006 after failed efforts to address cluster munitions within the framework of the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW).[5] Norway held the first international diplomatic conference of the process in Oslo in February 2007 and provided crucial support for all of the meetings through to the Convention on Cluster Munitions Signing Conference, which it also hosted in Oslo in December 2008. Norway was key to ensuring the strongest, most comprehensive convention text possible and also promoted a prominent and influential role for the CMC and civil society, including cluster munition survivors.[6]

Norway continues its leadership role in the work of the Convention on Cluster Munitions. Its Permanent Representative to the UN in Geneva, Ambassador Steffen Kongstad, served as president of the convention’s Third Meeting of States Parties, which Norway hosted in Oslo in September 2012.[7] Norwayhas participated in every Meeting of States Parties of the convention, including in San José, Costa Rica in September 2014. It has attended all of the convention’s intersessional meetings in Geneva, most recently in June 2015.

Promotion of the convention

Norway has served as the convention’s co-coordinator on universalization since September 2013, together with Ghana, and has undertaken a range of efforts to encourage new accessions, including convening regional workshops.

At the Fifth Meeting of States Parties, Norway affirmed that the convention “has delivered” and cited considerable achievements particularly in stockpile destruction and clearance. Norway found that while “challenges remain…they are no longer of the global urgency and magnitude we were faced with at the start of the process,” and urged a greater focus on addressing challenges that “exist mainly at the national level in affected states,” where it described “political will” as “the crucial enabling or preventing factor.”[8]

At the Fifth Meeting of States Parties, Norway called on all states that are not yet party to the convention to expedite their processes to join.[9] It reported that it continues to engage bilaterally, through meetings and demarches, with signatories and non-signatories and prioritizes its engagement with states where cluster munitions have been used. Norway described universalization workshops on the convention that it convened in Geneva in 2014 and 2015 for diplomats from Francophone African, Anglophone African, and Arabic speaking countries in cooperation with its co-coordinator Ghana, the ICRC, the CMC, and New Zealand as coordinator on national implementation measures.[10] A workshop for Spanish-speaking states took place in San José during the Fifth Meeting of States Parties, while Chile also convened a regional universalization workshop in Santiago in December 2013. Costa Rica, Lebanon, Togo, and Zambia also contributed to the workshops.[11]

Norway has repeatedly condemned new use of cluster munitions and sought to ensure a strong collective response to the use, which has occurred only by states outside the convention.

At a June 2015 side event during the convention’s intersessional meetings, Norway acknowledged research by Human Rights Watch documenting credible evidence of new use of cluster munitions and urged all states to express concern at this new use. At a preparatory meeting for the convention’s First Review Conference held later that week, Norway stated it condemns any use of cluster munitions and is deeply concerned at new use of cluster munitions in Ukraine, Syria, and Yemen.[12] Norway called on States Parties to clearly condemn new use of cluster munitions in order to send a strong political message and strengthen the norms that underpin the convention.[13]

In May 2015, Norway’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Børge Brende, issued a statement in response to reports of new use of cluster munitions in Yemen that said, “Norway condemns all use of cluster munitions,” and called on “all countries to refrain from using cluster munitions and to join the Convention banning these weapons.”[14] Previously, in February 2014, Brende condemned the use of cluster munitions in South Sudan.[15]

In February 2015, Norway’s State Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Bård Glad Pedersen, cited a report by the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine describing a cluster munition rocket attack on Luhansk on 27 January and said, “It is completely unacceptable that cluster munitions have been used in the conflict in Ukraine. Norway condemns all use of cluster munitions.” Pedersen called on the parties concerned “to make a clear commitment to refrain from all use of cluster munitions” and join the convention.[16]

At the Fifth Meeting of States Parties in September 2014, Norway stated it was “deeply concerned about reports of the use of cluster munitions in Syria, Ukraine and South Sudan and the humanitarian consequences that follow such use” and called on “all parties in these conflicts to make sure that no more use occurs.”[17] It noted the “generally limited” use of cluster munitions since the convention’s adoption and entry into force and observed that “cluster munitions have been thoroughly stigmatised, to the extent that most states, including many outside the Convention, consider their use unacceptable, illegal and unbefitting of responsible members of the international community.”[18] Norway has condemned the use of cluster munitions in Syria repeatedly since September 2012.[19] It has voted in favor of UN General Assembly (UNGA) resolutions condemning use of cluster munitions in Syria, including Resolution 69/189 on 18 December 2014, which expressed “outrage” at the continued use.[20]

Norway places particular emphasis on the importance of ensuring cooperative partnership between affected states and other states, as well as with international organizations and civil society.[21] Norway remains one of the largest mine action donors providing support to the implementation of the convention in a number of countries, including projects related to victim assistance, clearance, and stockpile destruction. With the support of the Royal Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the NGO Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA) has continued to clear cluster munition remnants, provide technical support on stockpile destruction, and play a leadership role in the CMC, promoting the Convention on Cluster Munitions in Norway and internationally.[22]

Interpretive issues

Through its statements and its national implementation legislation, Norway has elaborated its views on certain important issues relating to interpretation and implementation of the convention.

According to Norway’s implementation legislation, the convention’s prohibitions, including the prohibition on assistance, apply in all circumstances, even during joint military operations. The preparatory section of the implementation legislation states that “the exemption for military cooperation does not authorize states parties to engage in activities prohibited by the convention.”[23]

In September 2012, Norway stated:

Article 1(1) states the absolute prohibition on any use of all cluster munitions, linked to the unambiguous phrase “never under any circumstances”. This prohibition applies to all kinds of conflicts as well as situations falling below the threshold of armed conflict. The prohibition against use, production, etc., cannot be bypassed or circumvented by creative interpretations of other articles in the Convention. Article 21(4) of the Convention specifies that nothing in the Convention shall authorise a State Party to inter alia use cluster munitions. Article 9 requires that what is prohibited to States Parties must also be prohibited for all individuals.[24]

During the Oslo Process, Norway argued against the inclusion of language on “interoperability” (joint military operations with states not party), stating that it had yet to see any insurmountable difficulties with interoperability in the context of other legal instruments, including the Mine Ban Treaty. As a NATO member, Norway stated that the issue merited discussion, but it was unfounded to automatically assume that a future treaty would be an obstacle to joint military action. Norway noted that it had solved issues regarding criminal liability for its service personnel in its national legislation, which contained “penal provisions regulating issues such as command responsibility, effective control and individual culpability, in relation to international operations.”[25]

Norway’s national implementation legislation bans the transit of cluster munitions under its prohibition on assistance.[26] With regard to the issue of foreign stockpiling of cluster munitions on the national territory of a State Party, Norway stated in 2012 that “it would be contrary to the prohibition on assistance etc. in Article 1 c to allow another state to stockpile cluster munitions on its territory.”[27]

The US stockpiled cluster munitions in Norway until 2010. According to a Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs official, “After the adoption of the Convention on Cluster Munitions, Norway discussed with the USA the issue of their stockpile of cluster munitions on Norwegian territory. Norway offered to destroy these cluster munitions together with our own stockpiles. However, the USA decided to remove their stocks, something which happened during the spring of 2010.”[28]

In 2004, the Ministry of Finance decided to include cluster munitions in a category of indiscriminate orinhumane weapons to be excluded from investment under the Norwegian Government Pension Fund’s ethical guidelines, and eight foreign companies involved in the production of cluster munitions were excluded from the fund’s investments in 2005. Additional companies were excluded in 2006 and 2008.[29] A 2012 report by NGOs IKV Pax Christi (now PAX) and FairFin highlighted four Norwegian financial institutions for their policies prohibiting investments in cluster munitions producers.[30]

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

Use, production, and transfer

Norway has not used, produced, or exported cluster munitions, but imported them in the past.[31] It obtained Rockeye cluster bombs from the US, which it destroyed between 2001 and 2003.[32] Norway obtained 155mm artillery projectiles with dual-purpose improved conventional munition (DPICM) submunitions from Germany.[33]

Stockpile destruction

On 16 July 2010—two weeks before to the convention entered into force—Norway completed the destruction of a stockpile of 52,190 155mm DPICM artillery projectiles containing 3,087,910 submunitions.[34] The Norwegian Armed Forces and Nammo Demil Division carried out the destruction in 2009 and 2010.[35] The cluster munitions were destroyed 910m below ground in an old copper mine at Løkken Verk in Trøndelag, south of the city of Trondheim.[36]

In November 2003, Norway stated that on the basis of a 2001 parliamentary resolution, “All air-delivered cluster bombs previously in Norwegian stock have been destroyed, because of their low level of precision and high dud-rate.”[37] According to NPA, Norway had 745 Rockeye bombs, each with 247 bomblets.[38]

Norway has not retained any cluster munitions or submunitions for training or other permitted purposes.[39]

In 2009, Norway announced its decision not to retain any cluster munitions for training or research purposes and urged all states to do the same.[40] Norway has reiterated its view that it is unnecessary to retain live submunitions for training and research purposes on a number of occasions.[41] In 2011, Norway described the arguments in favor of retaining cluster munitions as “flawed.”[42] Norway has also stated that retention of large numbers of cluster munitions could be seen as undermining the categorical approach of the prohibitions of the convention.[43]