Five-Year Summary: Non-signatory Finland acknowledges the humanitarian rationale for the convention, but is not actively considering accession, apparently due to the cost of replacing its stockpiled cluster munitions and defense-related concerns. Finland has participated as an observer in all of the convention’s Meetings of States Parties. Finland has not used or produced cluster munitions, but it imported them and has a stockpile.

Policy

The Republic of Finland has not acceded to the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

Finland acknowledges the humanitarian rationale for the convention, but it has not taken any steps towards accession. In an April 2015 letter to the Monitor, the Ministry for Foreign Affairs said, “Finland considers it important to engage on a global level to alleviate the humanitarian consequences of cluster munitions” and said “we acknowledge the Convention’s role from the humanitarian perspective and its goals of universalization.” Yet the letter concluded that “from the Finnish perspective no such changes in conditions have taken place which would enable accession to the Convention.”[1] Finland has provided similar responses to the Monitor each year since 2009.[2]

In 2009, a government report on “Finnish Security and Defence Policy” found that the convention “significantly impacts Finland’s defence and its resource requirements” and announced that Finland’s accession to the convention would be reassessed annually by the Cabinet Committee on Foreign and Security Policy.[3] The committee has conducted annual reviews since 2009, but none have recommended a change in Finland’s policy towards joining the convention.[4]

Finnish government officials have cited Ministry of Defence concerns about the costs of replacing stockpiled cluster munitions as an obstacle to its accession.[5] Likewise, officials have cited costs of implementing the convention’s provisions as well as security concerns as reasons for the lack of accession.[6] Finnish representatives have indicated that a plan for stockpile destruction within the convention’s deadline would have to be in place before Finland can join.[7] Officials have also indicated that the government’s top priority is to fulfill Finland’s obligations under the Mine Ban Treaty, which it joined in January 2012.[8]

Finland is also a party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) and supported efforts to conclude a new protocol permitting the use of cluster munitions, which failed in 2011, effectively ending CCW deliberations on cluster munitions. This has left the Convention on Cluster Munitions as the sole multilateral instrument on the weapons.

Finland participated throughout the Oslo Process that created the Convention on Cluster Munitions, but consistently expressed reservations about the process and about the convention text and was not supportive of a broad categorical ban on cluster munitions.[9] Finland joined the consensus adoption of the Convention on Cluster Munitions in May 2008, but five months later announced that it would not sign the convention in Oslo in December 2008.[10] At the time, Minister of Defence Jyri Häkämies stated that “cluster munitions play an important role in the credibility [and] autonomy…of Finnish defense.” The Finnish military claimed that due to costs and other factors it would not be possible to replace Finland’s stockpile of cluster munitions with alternative weapons within five to 10 years.[11] It also cited security concerns over its border with Russia.[12]

Despite not joining, Finland has actively engaged in the work of the Convention on Cluster Munitions, participating as an observer in every Meeting of States Parties of the convention, including the Fifth Meeting of States Parties in San José, Costa Rica in September 2014. Finland attended the convention’s intersessional meetings in Geneva in April 2013 and June 2015.

Finland has voted in favor of UN General Assembly (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.[13]

In its April 2015 letter, the Ministry for Foreign Affairs again affirmed the value it places on maintaining a “good dialogue” with civil society and said recent meetings on cluster munitions with national NGO Peace Union and the CMC have “deepened our good cooperation.”[14]

Use, production, transfer, and stockpiling

According to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, “Finland does not produce cluster munitions nor has [it] used them.”[15]

In early 2005, Patria, a Finnish company, made arrangements to co-produce a 120mm cluster munition mortar bomb called MAT-120, then produced by the Spanish company Instalaza SA. The deal was cancelled in 2009 by Patria and the Finnish Defence Forces after Spain signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions. During the development of the program, Patria imported to Finland 305 “live” MAT-120 from Spain in 2005–2007 and also acquired 230 inert MAT-120 bombs. As of July 2011, a total of 136 “live” MAT-120 remained in the custody of the Finnish Defence Forces; none of the MAT-120 imported to Finland were exported.[16]

Finland has acknowledged possessing one type of cluster munition: the DM-662 155mm artillery projectile, which contains 49 dual-purpose improved conventional munition (DPICM) submunitions with self-destruct fuzes.[17] The Monitor has requested information on the size and composition of the stockpile, which officials have said is confidential.[18]

In 2006, the Ministry of Defence of the Netherlands announced the transfer of 18 multiple launch rocket system (MLRS) launchers to Finland.[19] It was reported that 400 M26 rockets (each containing 644 M77 DPICM submunitions) were to be included in the sale for qualification testing and conversion into training rockets.[20]