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Algeria

Last Updated: 26 August 2013

Cluster Munition Ban Policy

The People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria has not yet acceded to the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

Algeria has not made any statements in relation to the Convention on Cluster Munitions since December 2010, when an official said that the government’s policy on joining the ban convention had not changed.[1] Previously, in 2009, an Algerian official told the Monitor that “after a study conducted by different relevant authorities taking into consideration the internal situation in Algeria, its huge borders, and the regional situation, it was decided not to sign the convention at the present time.”[2]

Algeria has also expressed a preference for cluster munitions to be addressed within the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW), but has not indicated if its policy will be reviewed following the failure in November 2011 of the CCW to adopt a protocol on cluster munitions.[3]

Algeria participated in several meetings of the Oslo Process, but did not attend the Dublin negotiations in May 2008 or the Convention on Cluster Munitions Signing Conference in Oslo in December 2008.[4] In September 2011, Wikileaks released a United States (US) Department of State cable showing that US officials met with Algeria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs in February 2008 and “urged Algeria not to adopt any language that would interfere with cooperation efforts aimed at non-state parties.”[5]

Algeria last participated in an international meeting on cluster munitions in June 2010. It was invited to but did not attend the Fourth Meeting of States Parties to the Convention on Cluster Munitions held in Oslo, Norway in September 2012. It did not participate in an African regional meeting on the convention’s universalization in Lomé, Togo in May 2013.

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

Use, production, transfer, and stockpiling

Algeria is not known to have used, produced, or exported cluster munitions. It is thought to have a stockpile of cluster munitions. Jane’s Information Group notes that KMG-U dispensers that deploy submunitions are in service for aircraft of the Algerian Air Force.[6] Also according to Jane’s, it possesses Grad 122mm, Uragan 220mm, and Smerch 300mm surface-to-surface rockets, but it is not known if these include versions with submunition payloads.[7]

 



[1] In December 2010, an official said that the government’s policy on joining the Convention on Cluster Munitions had not changed. Interview with Hamza Khelif, Counselor, Permanent Mission of Algeria to the UN in Geneva, Geneva, 1 December 2010.

[2] Interview with Hamza Khelif, then Deputy Director of Disarmament, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mine Ban Treaty Second Review Conference, Cartagena, 4 December 2009.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Algeria attended the international treaty preparatory conferences in Vienna in December 2007 and Wellington in February 2008, as well as a regional conference in Livingstone, Zambia in March/April 2008. For details on Algeria’s cluster munition policy and practice up to early 2009, see Human Rights Watch and Landmine Action, Banning Cluster Munitions: Government Policy and Practice (Ottawa: Mines Action Canada, May 2009), p. 185.

[5] “Oslo Process and Banning Cluster Munitions,” US Department of State cable dated 19 February 2008, released by Wikileaks on 1 September 2011, www.cablegatesearch.net/cable.php?id=08ALGIERS187&q=cluster munitions.

[6] Robert Hewson, ed., Jane’s Air-Launched Weapons, Issue 44 (Surrey, UK: Jane’s Information Group Limited, 2004), p. 835.

[7] Colin King, ed., Jane’s Explosive Ordnance Disposal, CD-edition, 14 December 2007 (Surrey, UK: Jane’s Information Group Limited, 2008).