Mine Ban Policy Overview

Policy

The Kingdom of Bahrain has not acceded to the Mine Ban Treaty. Bahrain last expressed serious interest in accession to the treaty in 2007, but it has not demonstrated similar enthusiasm in recent years.[1] Officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs have said that the country has never produced, exported, or used antipersonnel mines and is not mine-affected.[2] Ministry of Defense officials have said Bahrain keeps a “limited” stock of antipersonnel mines for training purposes only.[3]

In January 2011, Bahrain’s Undersecretary of International Affairs stated “Bahrain participated in all meetings of the convention but did not accede for security reasons, and the agreement at the Gulf Cooperation Council to join collectively. The responsibility of the foreign affairs ministry is to present the accession document when ready but accession to the treaty involves both security and technical matters that engage other ministries.”[4]

Previously, in a letter to the ICBL, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated, “Bahrain endorses the treaty’s aims and principles and continues to study closely the possibility of accession. Such accession would involve complex legal, domestic and international issues, and a number of relevant authorities in Bahrain are continuing to carry out close study of such issues.”[5]

Officials have cited the need to coordinate with other Gulf Cooperation Council member states regarding accession.[6] In November 2010, Prince Mired of Jordan, acting in his capacity as the Special Envoy on Universalization, met with Bahrain’s Crown Prince and Deputy Supreme Commander Shaikh Salman bin Hamad al Khalifa, who stated that he was open to becoming a State Party.

Bahrain did not attend the Eleventh Meeting of States Parties to the Mine Ban Treaty in November–December 2011 in Phnom Penh or the intersessional Standing Committee meetings in May 2012.

In January 2011, the NGO Protection Against Armaments and their Consequences, a member of the ICBL, held a release of the Monitor’s 2010 reports in Manama, Bahrain. The event was attended by Bahraini officials, members of parliament, local and regional media, the Embassy of Iran in Bahrain, and the UN.

Bahrain is not party to the Convention on Cluster Munitions or the Convention on Conventional Weapons.

Policy

The Kingdom of Bahrain has not acceded to the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

Bahrain last made a statement on the Convention on Cluster Munitions in January 2011, when a Ministry of Foreign Affairs official said that Bahrain’s position on joining both the ban convention and the Mine Ban Treaty was “being studied by different ministries, who are considering the regional and international situation and positions of other states in the region.”[1]

In 2009, a government minister expressed support for the entry into force of the Convention on Cluster Munitions “so as to avoid further civilian casualties from these weapons” and said that authorities in Bahrain were studying the possibility of joining it.[2]

During the Wellington Conference on Cluster Munitions in February 2008, Bahrain called upon all states “to stop using such weapons, and should consider such use as a crime against humanity” and said it “strongly supports all efforts to eliminate all kinds of cluster munitions, and to prohibit their use, transfer, trade and stockpiling.”[3]

Bahrain participated in a couple of meetings of the Oslo Process that created the convention and joined in the consensus adoption of the convention in Dublin in May 2008, but did not attend the signing conference in Oslo in December 2008.[4] It has not participated in any regional or international meetings on cluster munitions held since 2008.

Bahrain has voted in favor of UN General Assembly (UNGA) resolutions condemning the Syrian government’s use of cluster munitions, including Resolution 68/182 on 18 December 2013, which expressed “outrage” at “continued widespread and systematic gross violations of human rights” including the use of cluster munitions.[5]

Bahrain is not a State Party to the Mine Ban Treaty. It is not party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons.

Use, production, transfer, and stockpiling

Bahrain is not known to have used, produced, or exported cluster munitions, but has a sizeable stockpile imported from the United States (US).

Between 1995 and 2001, the US transferred 30,000 artillery projectiles (M509A1, M449A1, and M483) containing 5.06 million dual-purpose improved conventional munition (DPICM) submunitions to Bahrain as the weapon was phased out of the US inventory.[6]

The US has also provided M26 rockets and ATACMS-1A missiles with more than 1 million submunitions to Bahrain for its multiple launch rocket system (MLRS) launchers. Bahrain purchased 151 M26A1 MLRS extended range rocket pods (six missiles per pod, 644 submunitions per rocket) in 1996, 55 rocket pods in 1997, and 57 rocket pods in 2003.[7] In 2000, the US sold Bahrain 30 M39 ATACMS-1A missiles, each with 950 M74 submunitions.[8]

Additionally Jane’s Information Group lists Bahrain as possessing the Hydra-70 air-to-surface unguided rocket system, but it is not known if this stockpile includes the M261 multipurpose submunition variant.[9]