Ten-Year Review: Non-signatory Estonia accepts the humanitarian rationale for banning cluster munitions, but it has never taken any steps to accede to the convention. Estonia has never participated in a meeting of the convention, even as an observer. It abstained from voting on a United Nations (UN) resolution promoting the convention in December 2019.

Estonia states that it has never used or produced cluster munitions. It has shared limited information on its stockpiled cluster munitions.

Policy

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

Estonia has acknowledged the humanitarian rationale for banning cluster munitions, but did not comment on the convention in 2019.[1] Previously, in 2012 and 2013, Estonia said its lack of accession to the convention was due to the cost and time required to replace its stockpiled cluster munitions.[2]

Estonia participated throughout the Oslo Process to develop the Convention on Cluster Munitions and joined in its consensus adoption in Dublin in May 2008, where it described the convention as a “remarkable achievement,” but said it required further consideration.[3]

Estonia promised to review its policy on banning cluster munitions once deliberations on the weapons by the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) concluded. However, it has not revised its position or proposed new talks since the CCW failed in November 2011 to adopt a new instrument on cluster munitions, effectively ending CCW deliberations on the matter and leaving the Convention on Cluster Munitions as the sole international instrument to specifically address the weapons.[4]

Estonia has never participated in a meeting of the Convention on Cluster Munitions, even as an observer. It was invited to, but did not attend, the convention’s Ninth Meeting of States Parties in Geneva in September 2019.

Estonia abstained from voting on a UN General Assembly (UNGA) resolution in December 2019, which urges states outside the Convention on Cluster Munitions to “join as soon as possible.”[5] It has abstained from the vote on the annual UNGA resolution promoting the convention since it was first introduced in 2015.

In 2015–2018, Estonia endorsed a joint UNGA statement on cluster munitions made by Poland on behalf of itself and other European Union (EU) member states that are not party to the convention—Finland, Greece, and Romania—that reiterates the need to meet their own “legitimate security concerns and military and defence needs.”[6] Poland did not provide another statement on behalf of the same group of states at UNGA in 2019.

Estonia has voted in favor of UNGA resolutions expressing outrage at the use of cluster munitions in Syria, most recently in December 2019.[7] It has also voted in favor of Human Rights Council resolutions condemning the use of cluster munitions in Syria.[8]

Estonia is a State Party to the Mine Ban Treaty. It is also party to the CCW.

Use, production, transfer, and stockpiling

In 2012, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs affirmed that Estonia “has never produced or used cluster munitions offensively and has no intention to do so in the future.”[9]

Estonia is not known to have exported cluster munitions.

Estonia possesses cluster munitions but has not explained how it acquired them or provided information on the quantity and types stockpiled.

In 2009 and 2010, Estonia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Urmas Paet told the Monitor that the Estonian Defense Forces possess DM632 155mm artillery projectiles in “small amounts…for training and defensive purposes.”[10]