About Us
Our Research Products
Chad
Cluster Munition Ban Policy
Commitment to the Convention on Cluster Munitions
|
Convention on Cluster Munitions status |
State Party as of 1 September 2013 |
|
Participation in Convention on Cluster Munitions meetings |
Attended Third Meeting of States Parties in Oslo, Norway in September 2012, intersessional meetings in Geneva in April 2013, and a regional meeting in Lomé, Togo in May 2013 |
|
Key developments |
Preparations for national implementation legislation and a survey of contaminated areas are underway |
Policy
The Republic of Chad signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 3 December 2008 and ratified on 26 March 2013. The convention enters into force for Chad on 1 September 2013.
In April 2013, government officials informed the CMC that the government was discussing with the ICRC and others about possible national legislation to implement the convention’s provisions.[1]
Chad’s initial Article 7 report for the Convention on Cluster Munitions is due by 28 February 2014.
Chad provided regular updates throughout its ratification of the convention.[2] The parliament approved ratification of the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 29 March 2012.[3] At the Third Meeting of States Parties in Oslo in September 2012, Chad announced that the ratification instrument had been sent to the president for signature.[4] Chad deposited the instrument on 26 March 2013, becoming the 80th State Party to the Convention on Cluster Munitions.
Chad actively participated in the Oslo Process that created the Convention on Cluster Munitions and supported a comprehensive ban on cluster munitions.[5]
Chad continued to engage in the work of the convention in 2012 and the first half of 2013. At the Third Meeting of States Parties it gave an update on ratification and called for assistance for demining and stockpile management.[6] Chad participated in the convention’s intersessional meetings in Geneva in April 2013, where it announced the completion of ratification and repeated its request for international cooperation and assistance to clear contaminated areas.[7] Chad also attended a regional meeting on universalization of the convention in Lomé, Togo in May 2013.
Chad expressed support for universalization of the Convention on Cluster Munitions at the 2013 intersessional meetings, where government representatives informed the CMC of the government’s intent to actively encourage other African states not yet party to the convention to join.[8]
At the regional meeting in April 2013, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs official informed the CMC that Chad encourages all African countries that have yet to sign and ratify the convention to do so.[9] In September 2013, a government official told the CMC that Chadian officials were doing everything possible to promote the convention, including promoting it with neighboring countries.[10]
Chad has not made a national statement to express concern at Syria’s cluster munition use, but it endorsed the regional meeting’s Lomé Strategy on the Universalization of the Convention on Cluster Munitions, which expresses “grave concern over the recent and on-going use of cluster munitions” and calls for the immediate end to the use of these weapons.[11] Chad also voted in favor of a UN General Assembly (UNGA) resolution on 15 May 2013 that strongly condemned “the use by the Syrian authorities of...cluster munitions.”[12]
Chad is a State Party to the Mine Ban Treaty. It is not party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons.
Use, production, transfer, and stockpiling
Chad is not known to have used, produced, transferred, or stockpiled cluster munitions.
French aircraft dropped cluster munitions on a Libyan airfield inside Chad at Wadi Doum during the 1986–1987 conflict. Libyan forces used AO-1SCh and PTAB-2.5 submunitions.
In September 2012, Chad stated that the extent to which its territory is contaminated by cluster munition remnants is not precisely known, but it was evident the weapons had been used in the Fada region and there is a strong likelihood that they were used in other parts of the north. Chad said that the Tibesti region in the northwest was being surveyed to determine the extent of the contamination.[13]
In April 2012, a Chadian official—in response to questions about Libyan arms stockpiles that were left unsecured during the 2011 Libyan conflict—informed the Monitor that there have been no transfers of cluster munitions from Libya to Chad.[14]
[1] CMC meeting with Gen. Abdel Aziz Izzo, Director, National Demining Center (Centre National de Déminage, CND), and Moussa Ali Soultani, Strategic Plan and Operations Advisor, CND, in Geneva, 16 April 2013. The ICRC has confirmed it is providing assistance to Chad with respect to national implementation measures. Statement of ICRC, Lomé Regional Seminar on the Universalization of the Convention on Cluster Munitions, Lomé, Togo, 23 May 2013. Notes by Action on Armed Violence (AOAV).
[2] CMC meeting with Saleh Hissein Hassan, Coordinator, CND, in Geneva, 18 April 2012; statement of Chad, Convention on Cluster Munitions Intersessional Meetings, Geneva, 29 June 2011; and statement of Chad, International Conference on the Convention on Cluster Munitions, Santiago, 7 June 2010. Notes by AOAV/Human Rights Watch.
[3] Statement of Chad, Convention on Cluster Munitions Intersessional Meetings, Geneva, 16 April 2013; and CMC meeting with Saleh Hissein Hassan, CND, in Geneva, 18 April 2012.
[4] Statement of Chad, Convention on Cluster Munitions Third Meeting of States Parties, Oslo, 13 September 2012; and statement by Saleh Hissein Hassan, CND, Convention on Cluster Munitions Intersessional Meetings, Geneva, 16 April 2012.
[5] For details on Chad’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), pp. 55–56.
[6] Statement of Chad, Convention on Cluster Munitions Third Meeting of States Parties, Oslo, 13 September 2012. Chad reported on a recent visit to a Physical Security and Stockpile Management program in Côte d’Ivoire, which it said underlined the need for a similar program in Chad. It made an appeal for technical and financial assistance.
[7] Statement of Chad, Convention on Cluster Munitions Intersessional Meetings, Geneva, 16 April 2013. Notes by the CMC.
[8] Ibid.; and CMC meeting with Gen. Abdel Aziz Izzo, and Moussa Ali Soultani, CND, in Geneva, 16 April 2013.
[9] CMC meeting with Mahamed Issa Zakaria, Counsellor, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in Lomé, 22 May 2013.
[10] CMC meeting with Saleh Hissein Hassan, Ministry of Economy and International Cooperation, in Oslo, 13 September 2012.
[11] “Lomé Strategy on the Universalization of the Convention on Cluster Munitions,” Lomé Regional Seminar on the Universalization of the Convention on Cluster Munitions, Lomé, Togo, 23 May 2013, www.clusterconvention.org/files/2013/04/Lome-Strategy-for-the-Universalization-of-the-CCM-Final-Draft_En.pdf.
[12] “The situation in the Syrian Arab Republic,” UNGA Resolution A/67/L.63, 15 May 2013, www.un.org/News/Press/docs//2013/ga11372.doc.htm.
[13] Statement of Chad, Convention on Cluster Munitions Third Meeting of States Parties, Oslo, 13 September 2012.
[14] According to the official, Chad deployed two explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) teams and an army regiment to ensure that no weapons crossed the border from Libya with refugees entering Chad. CMC meeting with Saleh Hissein Hassan, CND, in Geneva, 18 April 2012.
Send us your feedback on this profile
Send the Monitor your feedback by filling out this form. Responses will be channeled to editors, but will not be available online. Click if you would like to send an attachment. If you are using webmail, send attachments to .