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Jordan
Cluster Munition Ban Policy
The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan has not acceded to the Convention on Cluster Munitions.
Jordan did not make any statements on cluster munitions in 2011 or the first half of 2012. Previously, in November 2010, Prince Mired Ben Raad Zeid Al-Hussein informed States Parties that Jordan understands the importance of this convention and will continue to “support from the sidelines,” but noted “we have yet to decide if and when we can join.”[1] In June 2010, Jordan said it was considering the convention and that it was a matter of when Jordan would join and not if it would join.[2]
Jordan participated in two meetings of the Oslo Process that created the convention, but did not attend the formal negotiations in Dublin in May 2008, even as an observer.[3] Since 2008, Jordan has continued to show interest in the convention. It participated in an international conference on cluster munitions in Santiago, Chile in June 2010 and attended the First Meeting of States Parties to the Convention on Cluster Munitions in Vientiane, Lao PDR as an observer, where it made a statement. Jordan participated in the Second Meeting of States Parties in Beirut, Lebanon in September 2011, but did not make any statements.[4] Jordan did not participate in intersessional meetings of the convention held in Geneva in June 2011 or April 2012.
Jordan is a State Party to the Mine Ban Treaty.
Jordan is a party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW). Jordan attended the CCW’s Fourth Review Conference in November 2011, but did not make any statements on the chair’s draft text of a CCW protocol on cluster munitions. The Review Conference ended without reaching agreement on the draft protocol, thus concluding the CCW’s work on cluster munitions.
Use, production, transfer, and stockpiling
Jordan is not known to have used or produced cluster munitions, but it has imported them. The current status and content of Jordan’s stockpile of cluster munitions is not known.
The United States (US) transferred 31,704 artillery projectiles (M509A1, M483) containing over 3 million dual purpose improved convention munition (DPICM) submunitions to Jordan in 1995 as these were being phased out of the US inventory.[5] According to US export records, Jordan also imported 200 CBU-71 and 150 Rockeye cluster bombs at some point between 1970 and 1995.[6] Jordan is also reported to possess the Hydra-70 air-to-surface unguided rocket system, but it is not known if the ammunition types available to it include the M261 Multi-Purpose Submunition rocket.[7]
[1] Statement of Prince Mired Ben Raad Zeid Al-Hussein of Jordan, First Meeting of States Parties, Convention on Cluster Munitions, Vientiane, 10 November 2010. Notes by the CMC.
[2] CMC meeting with the Jordanian delegation, International Conference on the Convention on Cluster Munitions, Santiago, 7–9 June 2010. Notes by the CMC.
[3] For more details on Jordan’s policy and practice regarding cluster munitions through early 2009, see Human Rights Watch and Landmine Action, Banning Cluster Munitions: Government Policy and Practice (Ottawa: Mines Action Canada, May 2009), pp. 215–216.
[4] The Director of the National Committee for Demining and Rehabilitation, Mohammad Al-Braikat, represented Jordan at the Second Meeting of States Parties in Beirut in September 2011.
[5] US Defense Security Cooperation Agency, Department of Defense, “Excess Defense Article database,” undated, www.dsca.osd.mil.
[6] US Defense Security Cooperation Agency, “Cluster Bomb Exports under FMS, FY1970–FY1995.”
[7] Colin King, ed., Jane’s Explosive Ordnance Disposal 2007–2008, CD-edition, 15 January 2008 (Surrey, UK: Jane’s Information Group Limited, 2008).
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