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Honduras
The Republic of Honduras signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions in Oslo on 3 December 2008. After signing, the Honduran ambassador stated that Honduras would be “among the first to ratify” the convention, which he described as historic.[1]
Honduras’ first engagement in the Oslo Process came in September 2007, when it attended the Latin American Regional Conference on Cluster Munitions held in Costa Rica. Honduras subsequently participated in the international treaty preparatory conferences in Vienna and Wellington. In Wellington, Honduras spoke forcefully in support of a comprehensive ban on cluster munitions with no exceptions.[2] It endorsed the Wellington Declaration, indicating its intention to participate in the formal negotiations in Dublin on the basis of the draft text. Honduras played an active role during the Dublin negotiations in May 2008, emphasizing that the spirit of the convention should be total prohibition, like the Mine Ban Treaty.[3]
Honduras is party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) and ratified Protocol V on Explosive Remnants of War on 28 February 2008. At a CCW meeting in November 2008, Honduras was one of 26 states that issued a joint statement expressing their opposition to the weak draft text on a possible CCW protocol on cluster munitions, indicating it was an unacceptable step back from the standards set by the Convention on Cluster Munitions.[4]
Honduras is not believed to have used or produced cluster munitions. In December 2007, during the Vienna conference, Honduras officially stated that does not possess cluster munitions.[5] Honduran officials told Human Rights Watch that Honduras had destroyed its stockpile of air-dropped Rockeye cluster bombs as well as an unidentified type of artillery-delivered cluster munition in previous years.[6] According to United States export records, Honduras imported 120 Rockeye cluster bombs at some point between 1970 and 1995.[7]
[1] Statement by Amb. J. Delmer Urbizo Panting, Permanent Representative of Honduras to the UN in Geneva, Convention on Cluster Munitions Signing Conference, Oslo, 4 December 2008. Translation by Landmine Monitor.
[2] Katherine Harrison, “Report on the Wellington Conference on Cluster Munitions, 18–22 February 2008,” WILPF, March 2008, p. 19.
[3] Summary Record of the Committee of the Whole, Second Session: 20 May 2008, Dublin Diplomatic Conference on Cluster Munitions, CCM/CW/SR/2, 18 June 2008.
[4] Statement delivered by Costa Rica, Fifth 2008 Session of the CCW Group of Governmental Experts on Cluster Munitions, Geneva, 5 November 2008.
[5] Statement of Honduras, Vienna Conference on Cluster Munitions, 5 December 2007. Notes by CMC/WILPF.
[6] Human Rights Watch meetings with Honduran officials,in San José, 5 September 2007; and in Vienna, 3–5 December 2007.
[7] US Defense Security Assistance Agency, Department of Defense, “Cluster Bomb Exports under FMS, FY1970–FY1995,” 15 November 1995, obtained by Human Rights Watch in a Freedom of Information Act request, 28 November 1995.