The United Nations Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) prohibits or restricts the use of certain conventional weapons which may be deemed to be excessively injurious or to have indiscriminate effects.

The Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons Which May Be Deemed to Be Excessively Injurious or to Have Indiscriminate Effects, CCW) entered into force on 2 December 1983. The basis for the CCW are fundamental principles of international law, by which parties to a conflict must respect humanitarian aspects in their warfare. The Federal Republic of Germany acceded to the Convention in 1981.

The CCW consists of the chapeau Convention, which applies to 125 States Parties and the Palestinian territories, as well as the following Protocols:

• Protocol I on Non-Detectable Fragments
• Amended Protocol II on Mines, Booby-Traps and Other Devices (amended on 3 May 1996)
• Protocol III on Incendiary Weapons
• Protocol IV on Blinding Laser Weapons and
• Protocol V on Explosive Remnants of War

A meeting of the States Parties to the CCW chapeau Convention, Amended Protocol II and Protocol V takes place in Geneva every year. Germany is a State Party to the CCW chapeau Convention and all of the Protocols I to V. The CCW also addresses other issues which can be raised by interested States Parties. Informal specialist meetings on Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems (LAWS) have been held since 2014. This format became a government expert group in 2018.

Amended Protocol II

Amended Protocol II on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Mines, Booby-Traps and Other Devices has remained important even after the entry into force of the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention (Ottawa Convention). Some 106 countries are currently States Parties to this Protocol. The annual meeting of States Parties focuses on the problem of terror attacks using improvised explosive devices (IED).

Protocol V

Protocol V to the UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons recognises that explosive remnants of war (unexploded and abandoned ordnance) are a danger to the civilian population and often impede reconstruction following armed conflicts. In addition to general rules on reducing the dangers emanating from explosive remnants of war, Protocol V includes an obligation to record relevant information and mark and remove conventional unexploded and abandoned ordnance. It also contains provisions on voluntarily improving the reliability of munitions. At present, 91 countries are States Parties to the Protocol.