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What does the Convention say about deadline extension requests?
Article 3: Stockpile destruction
The Convention on Cluster Munitions, in its Article 3, envisions that a State Party shall “separate all cluster munitions under its jurisdiction and control from munitions retained for operational use and mark them for the purpose of destruction” as well as “undertakes to destroy or ensure the destruction of all cluster munitions” as soon as possible but no later than eight years after the entry into force of the Convention for that State Party.
Article 3.3 stipulates that “If a State Party believes that it will be unable to destroy or ensure the destruction of all cluster munitions referred to in paragraph 1 of this Article within eight years of entry into force of this Convention for that State Party it may submit a request to a Meeting of States Parties or a Review Conference for an extension of the deadline for completing the destruction of such cluster munitions by a period of up to four years. A State Party may, in exceptional circumstances, request additional extensions of up to four years. The requested extensions shall not exceed the number of years strictly necessary for that State Party to complete its obligations under paragraph 2 of this Article“.
Article 4: Clearance
The Convention on Cluster Munitions, in its Article 4, envisions that a State Party
“undertakes to clear and destroy, or ensure the clearance and destruction of, cluster munition remnants located in cluster munition contaminated areas under its jurisdiction or control” no later than 10 years after the entry into force of the Convention for that State (or, in case of active hostilities, no later than 10 years after the end of the active hostilities during which such cluster munitions became cluster munition remnants).
Article 4.5 states that “If a State Party believes that it will be unable to destroy or ensure the destruction of all cluster munitions referred to in paragraph 1 of this Article within eight years of entry into force of this Convention for that State Party it may submit a request to a Meeting of States Parties or a Review Conference for an extension of the deadline for completing the destruction of such cluster munitions by a period of up to four years. A State Party may, in exceptional circumstances, request additional extensions of up to four years. The requested extensions shall not exceed the number of years strictly necessary for that State Party to complete its obligations under paragraph 2 of this Article.”
Extension request guidelines
The Eighth Meeting of States Parties (8MSP) held in September 2018 adopted Guidelines for CCM Article 3 Extension Requests (Final Report, Annex II) and Guidelines for CCM Article 4 Extension Requests (Final Report, Annex III). The annexes contain information on how to submit an extension request, i.e. content, structure and timelines of the requests.
The Ninth Meeting of States Parties (9MSP) held in September 2019 adopted the Methodology for requests of deadline extensions under Articles 3 and 4 of the Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM/MSP/2019/12) that is used by the Analysis Groups to ensure a uniform approach to all extension requests.
These guidelines are available to download: