Egypt

The Arab Republic of Egypt has not acceded to the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

In September 2011, Egypt informed the ban convention’s Second Meeting of States Parties that it “supports all efforts aimed at protecting civilians and supporting victims of cluster munitions” but said it wanted to “assert that negotiating such a convention outside the framework of the UN will produce a deficient legal system that will be abused to use cluster munitions.” Egypt argued that the ban convention “will not hold states which are using cluster munitions responsible for their acts, or will not hold them to account for clearing contaminated areas.”[1]

When the Convention on Cluster Munitions entered into force on 1 August 2010, Egypt’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement noting these and other concerns and concluded by expressing its hope that they would be addressed by the convention’s First Review Conference in 2015.[2]

Egypt participated in the Oslo Process that created the convention and engaged in the negotiations in Dublin in May 2008 as an observer, but did not attend the Oslo Signing Conference in December 2008.[3] Despite its engagement, in October 2008, Egypt expressed concern with both the “substantive content” of the convention and “the process which led to its conclusion outside the framework of the United Nations.”[4]

Egypt has participated in some meetings related to the Convention on Cluster Munitions since 2008. It attended an international meeting on cluster munitions in Santiago, Chile in June 2010. Egypt participated in intersessional meetings of the ban convention in Geneva in June 2011, but not in April 2012. It attended the convention’s Second Meeting of States Parties in Beirut, Lebanon in September 2011.

Egypt is not party to the Mine Ban Treaty.

Egypt signed the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) in 1981, but has never ratified it or any of its protocols. Egypt attended the CCW’s Fourth Review Conference in November 2011 as an observer, but it did not express its views on the chair’s draft text of a CCW protocol on cluster munitions. The Review Conference ended without reaching agreement on the draft protocol and with no proposals for continuing the negotiations in 2012, thus concluding the CCW’s work on cluster munitions.

Use, production, transfer, and stockpiling

Egypt has said that it has never used cluster munitions.[5] But it is a producer, importer, and stockpiler of the weapon. It is unclear if it has exported cluster munitions.[6]

The Helipolis Company for Chemical Industries produces 122mm and 130mm artillery projectiles which contain 18 and 28 M42D dual purpose improved conventional munition (DPICM) submunitions, respectively.[7] The SAKR Factory for Developed Industries produces two types of 122mm surface-to-surface rockets: the SAKR-18 and SAKR-36, containing 72 and 98 M42D submunitions, respectively.[8] France declared that upon entry into force of the Convention on Cluster Munitions in 2010, France’s military retained six warheads for 122mm SAKR rockets containing 588 submunitions.[9]

Egypt has also imported a significant number of cluster munitions, primarily from the United States. The US provided at least 760 CBU-87 cluster bombs to Egypt as part of a foreign military sales program in the early 1990s.[10] Lockheed Martin Corporation was awarded a US$36 million contract to produce 485 M26A1 Extended Range Multiple Launch Rocket System rockets for Egypt in November 1991.[11] Between 1970 and 1995, the US also supplied Egypt with 1,300 Rockeye cluster bombs.[12]

Jane’s Information Group notes that KMG-U dispensers are in service for Egypt’s aircraft.[13] Additionally, Egypt possesses Grad 122mm surface-to-surface rockets, but it is not known if these include versions with submunition payloads.[14]