Five-Year Review: State Party Portugal ratified the convention on 9 March 2011. Portugal has declared existing legislation as sufficient to enforce its implementation of the convention. It has participated in all of the convention’s meetings and served as co-coordinator on universalization until 2013. Portugal has condemned the use of cluster munitions in South Sudan, Ukraine, and Syria.

In its initial transparency measures report for the convention provided in 2012, Portugal confirmed it has never used, produced, or exported cluster munitions and does not retain any for training or research. Portugal destroyed a stockpile of 11 cluster bombs containing 1,617 submunitions in April 2011.

Policy

The Portuguese Republic signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 3 December 2008, ratified on 9 March 2011, and the convention entered into force for the country on 1 September 2011.

The government views Portugal’s constitution as binding its adherence to the Convention on Cluster Munitions and deems the ban convention’s provisions to be “self-executing.”[1] It has also reported Law 37/2011, adopted 22 June 2011, under national implementation measures.[2] The law primarily sets up a licensing regime for the transfer of defense-related items, however, and does not explicitly refer to cluster munitions.[3]

Portugal submitted its initial Article 7 transparency report for the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 4 April 2012 and has provided annual updated reports since, most recently on 24 April 2015.[4]

Portugal participated in the Oslo Process that created the Convention on Cluster Munitions and made substantial contributions throughout, including at the negotiations in Dublin in May 2008.[5]

Portugal engages proactively in the work of the Convention on Cluster Munitions. It has participated in every Meeting of States Parties of the convention, including the Fifth Meeting of States Parties in San José, Costa Rica in September 2014. Portugal has attended all of the convention’s intersessional meetings in Geneva, most recently in June 2015. Portugal participated in a mine action symposium in Biograd, Croatia on 27–29 April 2015, which included discussion on cluster munitions.

Portugal served as co-coordinator on universalization in 2011–2013, at first with Japan and then with Ghana. At the Fifth Meeting of States Parties, Portugal appealed for universalization efforts aimed at major users and producers of cluster munitions that remain outside the convention to “persuade them of the unlawful humanitarian consequences of the use of such weapons.” It called on states outside the convention to take interim measures, such as a moratorium on the use, production, and transfer of cluster munitions.[6]

Portugal has condemned new use of cluster munitions several times. At the Fifth Meeting of States Parties, Portugal condemned recent use of cluster munitions in Ukraine, South Sudan, and Syria, which it described as “hideous” and “appalling.” Portugal stated it was also “equally appalled” at reported use of cluster munitions by Islamic State (IS) forces in Syria and called on non-state actors not to use cluster munitions.[7] A month later at the UN General Assembly (UNGA) First Committee on Disarmament and International Security in October 2014, Portugal again condemned IS use of cluster munitions “in their campaign of terror,” which it stated has “brought this category of munitions to a higher level of awareness and alarm.”[8]

Portugal has condemned the use of cluster munitions by the Syrian government several times since November 2012.[9] It voted in favor of four Human Rights Council resolutions in 2014 and 2015 that condemned the use, most recently on 2 July 2015.[10] Portugal has also voted in favor of recent UNGA resolutions condemning the use of cluster munitions in Syria, including Resolution 69/189 on 18 December 2014, which expressed “outrage” at the continued use.[11]

Interpretive issues

Portugal has elaborated its views on several important issues relating to the interpretation and implementation of the convention regarding the prohibition on assistance with prohibited acts, particularly during joint military operations with states not party (interoperability). Portugal has stated that it will not use cluster munitions, “regardless of what country might be commanding military forces.”[12] While it supported the inclusion of a provision on interoperability during the negotiations of the convention, Portugal argued that it should not weaken the convention in any way and stated that future States Parties would have a duty to convince others not to use cluster munitions.[13]

Portugal has also stated, “It is the Portuguese view that the Convention does not unequivocally exclude the possibility of foreign stockpiling of cluster munitions on, or the transit of this type of armament across the national territory of a State Party. In the latter case, the transit could be authorized once it does not represent a transfer under the definition established in Article 2 of the Convention; in other words, only in the circumstance when the cluster munitions in transit are to remain under the control of the same non State Party that requested the passage.”[14]

Portugal has yet to provide its view on the prohibition on investment in cluster munition production.[15]

Portugal is party to the Mine Ban Treaty. It is also party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons.

Use, production, transfer, and stockpiling

Portugal has stated it has never produced or transferred cluster munitions, and has never used cluster munitions “except for the purpose of training our Armed Forces.”[16]

Portugal’s stockpile of 11 BL-755 cluster bombs containing 1,617 Mk-1 submunitions was destroyed by the Portuguese company Desmilitarização è Defesa, SA in January and April 2011.[17] The destruction was completed on 29 April 2011, prior to the convention’s entry into force for Portugal.

Portugal has not retained any cluster munitions for training and research purposes.[18]

Policy

The Portuguese Republic signed the Mine Ban Treaty on 3 December 1997 and ratified it on 19 February 1999, becoming a State Party on 1 August 1999. Legislation to enforce the antipersonnel mine prohibition domestically was enacted on 22 July 2004. In June 2011, Portugal adopted law 37/2011, which according to Portugal’s 2012 Article 7 report, “…allow[s] for a more efficient supervision and control of activities regarding the transfer and circulation of defence related products.”[1] Mines are explicitly mentioned among the weapons regulated by this law.[2]

Portugal has attended most meetings of the treaty, including all Meetings of States Parties. However, Portugal did not attend the Third Review Conference in Maputo in June 2014. It also did not attend the intersessional meetings in Geneva in May 2019.

Portugal is party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons and its Amended Protocol II on landmines and Protocol V on explosive remnants of war. It is also party to the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

Production, use, stockpiling, and destruction

Portugal produced at least seven types of antipersonnel landmines, including the PRB M409, the M453, the M/996, the M421, the M412, and the M/969.[3] Portuguese mines have been found in Angola, Iraq, Namibia, Somalia, South Africa, and Zambia.[4] In May 1996 Portugal announced an indefinite moratorium on the production, export, and use (except for training purposes) of antipersonnel mines.

Portugal completed destruction of its stockpile of 271,967 antipersonnel mines in March 2003, in advance of its 1 August 2003 treaty-mandated destruction deadline. Portugal initially retained 1,115 antipersonnel mines for training and development purposes, but this was reduced to 694 mines by the end of 2010.[5] The number of retained mines remained the same through the end of 2018.[6]