The Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC) in Latin America and the Caribbean held its regional meeting in Costa Rica on Wednesday September 11. Representatives from Argentina, Colombia, Chile, Honduras, Granada, Mexico, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago and Uruguay attended.

The ambassador Christian Guillermet Fernández from the Costa Rican mission in Geneva discussed recent themes, including the Norwegian proposal for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to temporarily assume the responsibilities of the Implementation Support Unit (ISU) in light of the fact that consultations among member states have led to no consensus on how the unit will function.

The proposal for the Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Demining (GICHD) to take on the functions of this executive unit of the convention on cluster munitions was also revived.

The implications of both proposals are the concern of the Costa Rican government as it prepares to host the Fifth Meeting of State Parties to the Convention on Cluster Munitions (5 MSP CCM), which will take place in San José in the first week of September 2014.

Another major talking point was the announcement of a regional meeting in Santiago, which is slated to take place November 7-8 this year. The purpose of this meeting will be to recover the spirit of the CCM and to promote the declaration of a cluster munitions-free zone in Latin America and the Caribbean.

This proposal led to an exchange of suggestions regarding how to actively encourage regional actors to get involved and adopt the agreement and how to get the topic on the agendas of different forums. In this context, Costa Rica announced its presidency of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) beginning next year.